summary: The year is 1873, and Mia Barnes has crossed cities, plains, and mountains to the far off town of Timely, New Mexico, in search of her missing father. Her investigation only stirs up trouble in a prosperous mining town full of dark secrets.
timely
Mia woke to the sound of shouting and thundering hooves.
Flickering red light flashes outside her window. Mia scrambled out of bed in a rush — she knew what fire looked like. What sounded to be an entire cadre of men, hooting and hollering like a band of Indians outside her father's house.
But they were no Indians.
Great streams of fiery light flashed outside the windows. Still dressed from the day before, Mia nearly fell down the stairs in her rush. She banged into a chair as she pulled her father's old Army rifle from the mantelpiece. It weighed heavily with a loaded cartridge.
By the time Mia made it outside, onto the porch, the ruckus had come to a stop. The flames of what must have been torches had vanished — dust still clouding the air where men on horseback had cavorted back and forth around the property.
This night, of all nights. Not a day since Nat had left again.
"Who goes there!" Mia brought the rifle to bear. "What do you want!"
The crowd jeered and snickered.
"I'm not a man in the fashion of introducing himself," the man called from his horse, voice old and rough, but with a soft drawl that added a hint of charm. The moon hung in the sky behind him, casting the outlaw gang into a looming wall of silhouettes. Steeds shifted and pawed the ground. The shadows hid their numbers, so Mia couldn't get an accurate count — but there had to be at least a dozen men surrounding the homestead. "You're a long way from home, little girl,"
Though she couldn't see any faces, Mia already sensed who they were.
"You the Sid Caliban Gang?" Her voice rang out, and Mia hated how small and frail it sounded in the dry wind. The air was so quiet here. Not sound — no bird or crickets or any little critters peeping on this night.
Like they knew what was coming.
"Indeed we are," the man called out. He sounded older, and his silhouette featured the trace elements of a Stetson hat and wisps of a beard. She'd seen his likeness on the wanted posters but right now could only see the faintest glint, his eyes reflecting the light from the house. He straightened slightly in his saddle. "And I don't take kindly to outsiders. Especially outsiders who ask too many questions."
Mia swallowed. Her knuckles turned white around her daddy's gun, clutched against her chest.
If Sid Caliban or his men were at all intimidated by the barrel pointed at them, they showed not a whisper of it. The voice who must be Sid Caliban called out over the field. "Put down that peashooter, darling, before you get yourself hurt."
Mia didn't move. She glanced to her left, to her right. With the house backed against a ridge, the gang had effectively cornered her on this property, and she had so foolishly stepped out of the house to face the interlopers. She would've been safer inside. But not by much.
One of the men lit a lantern and held it up, so that ring of warm illumination cast upon the outlaws. Sid Caliban's face appeared in stark, flickering light, eyes glimmering darkly. "Don't make me repeat myself. It'd be a shame if you had to burn down with this farm."
"You killed him!" Mia's voice rang out, cracking like a bullwhip. "You killed my father!"
"I've killed lots of men, young and old," Sid Caliban smiled. He leaned forward, and that was when Mia spotted the flash of metal at his side. A revolver slipping out of its holster. "You'll have to be more specific."
The comment invited laughter from his little cronies. Harsh sounds, jeering and ugly. Each one more wretched than the last.
He was taunting her, but Mia didn't care. She wouldn't show fear. "Deputy James Buchanan Barnes of Timely, New Mexico! He's killed a half a dozen of your men and arrested twice more."
"Ah, yes, that thorn in my side," Sid Caliban sighed almost dreamily. "I did enjoy watching him fall. If I'd known he had a little girl, I would've come by sooner."
Mia's throat went dry, hearing that crawling intention beneath those words. "You won't get away with it."
"Haven't I already?" The man laughed. "After tonight, I don't think anyone will be asking questions anymore."
"I still have one more," Mia said, quickly realizing how her time was running out. "One that no one else can answer."
Sid Caliban seemed entertained. "You want to know his last words."
"No." Mia said, clear and sharp. "I want to know who paid you."
Cold red eyes blinked, smile disappeared. The other men stopped laughing.
"Now," Sid Caliban's voice was low, almost a growl on that cool wind. "What makes you think I'd need to be paid? Maybe I did it for free. Maybe I wanted to kill that sonuva bitch just for the hell of it."
"Because you're a coward!" Mia spat, and there was something delicious in how the other men began to shift restlessly, heads turning, mumbles low under the endless night sky. "You're scum! He's taken dozens of your men but you'd never have the guts to face someone who's twice the man you are, and a better shot by far — and with one less arm. No scum of your caliber is going to stick his neck out without a reward!"
There was no doubt in her mind that her father scared the daylights out of these men. She heard the stories. Heard how Deputy Barnes picked off Sid Caliban's men, one by one, like the Hand of God Himself plucking the life right out of their souls. How they ran from like, yipping and howling with their tails between their legs. Snuffing them out like candles.
And all the more humiliation for it.
"So how much is your glory worth?" Mia shouted. "What's the price for your courage?"
This time, she didn't get an answer.
Sid Caliban leaned to one side, spit onto the ground. "For you? Darling, I'll do that for free."
Mia's heart skipped a beat. She pulled the trigger.
At the same time, she saw the flash of his muzzle.
Mia felt the impact immediately. Not of the bullet, no, but of the cold wood as her body hit the porch.
An agonized scream filled the air, but it wasn't her. The horses whinnied and danced at the sudden light, the explosive gunfire — especially Sid Caliban's as he swayed on his saddle, howling in pain. One hand gripped the saddle for stability; the other hung useless at his side, bleeding from the elbow. His revolver, trampled in the dirt.
His horse reared, wheeling about half-mad at the scent of hot blood. Its front hooves came down hard over some dry shrubs, and with a crunch, hit a nest of bees.
"My arm!" Caliban roared. "She took my arm!"
It was chaos, as the men scrambled to aid their leader. But between the maddened swarm, the crazed horses, and all the shouting, none of them could do anything. Not a single doctor among them (Barnes had already killed him months ago).
And with the girl dead, there was no more vengeance to be wrought.
"Burn this place to the ground!" Sid Caliban shouted, using his remaining hand to point at one of his men. "I want this whole land to be a pile of ashes come daylight!"
The chosen rider stiffened in his seat, a man who had never served but this his best attempt at a salute anyways. "The body, too?"
"Of course the body!" Caliban snapped, already taking off down the road they came. "I wanted that blasted family scourged from the face of the Earth!"
And in a great, panicked hurrah, the gang rode out once more, shouting and keening like a victory cry, even as their great leader sagged in his saddle, gripped in agony. And with all the King's horses and all the King's men, Sid Caliban disappeared into the night, all the while chased by that infernal swarm.
And then — silence, nothing but the wind and moon and stars as company. Slowly, the animal sounds returned, as the lone outlaw was left to pick up this mess. He didn't know why. It wasn't like anyone came out here anyways. That was why Caliban had no issue confronting the homestead, knowing it was too far away from help.
But off his horse he went, tying it to a nearby fence before picking his way across the bloodied ground. Great black-red splotches everywhere, gleaming sickly under the moonlight. The girl may not have killed Caliban, but she sure got him bad, it looks like.
But he got her worse.
The girl's body lay crumpled at the top of the porch steps. Her face covered in blood, the rifle fallen at her side. There was a noticeable ding mark along the metal forestock — where Caliban's bullet had struck first before ricocheting off the girl's face. Had the outlaw looked up, he might have spotted where the bullet had embedded itself into the wooden overhang.
But he didn't. He grabbed one booted foot and dragged her off the porch. Thump, thump, thump.
Over to the pile of firewood, stacked neatly, ready for use. A little looking around, he found a canister of oil, to better start the flames.
But he had only started gathering supplies when his eyes cast to the girl again. For a moment, he thought he saw movement.
No. Just a lizard skittering out from beneath her skirts. Blood caked her face, hiding her wound in the darkness. But the rest of her — her body, young and lean and supple — was still clean and untouched.
The outlaw dropped his pile of wood, and bent down.
The girl didn't move as he prodded her. Plucking up her skirt, eyeing the bee that crawled across her still face. Grubby hands fumbled with the buttons on her blouse.
Eyes, crusted in a veil of blood, flew open. Pale against rusty scarlet.
The man didn't have time to react — only a sudden jolt, a gasp of alarm, before her knife slammed into the side of his neck.
The man let out a scream, immediately cut off by the fountain of blood that gushed from his neck and throat. Mia flinched as it sprayed on her, hot and sticky, smelling like iron — sickening. But still she rose to a sitting position, still with a grip on her father's hunting knife, wrenching the man backwards, slowly, as he choked and gagged and made weak little animal sounds as he bled to death, eyes wide with pain and terror as she loomed over him.
It was very quick, Mia found. How fast a man could die. She'd seen death before. But this was different, as her pale hand shook, yanking out the knife out of the dead man's body.
She'd never killed before.
And as her breaths came in hot and fast, as her heart raced and blood dripped off her body — Mia's thoughts disappeared, like a train into a dark tunnel.
They were going to kill her.
They might come back.
Mia stumbled to her feet, feeling both very sick and very far away at once. Realizing he might not be alone, she tripped over the man's body as she scanned to and fro, looking for anyone else, anyone else she had to kill. Knife raised, ready to spill blood again.
But there was no one, nothing. Only Delilah, the sweet donkey, her tin bell rattling as she peered anxiously over the fence and brayed. It startled Mia, and she ambled over with the broken gate of a drunkard; she couldn't see out of one eye. Her hair was heavy with blood — both hers and not. It was all over, including her hands, leaving behind bloody traces on Delilah's velvety nose as she patted the poor beast, trying to soothe her, as she couldn't soothe herself.
Beyond, in the stable, she could hear Cinnamon stomping in her stall, the chickens clucking in their hutch. Sid Caliban's gang would've killed them all.
Somehow, that angered Mia more than anything else.
Mia looked back at the body lying on the ground, the pool of blood growing around him.
She had to hide the evidence.
By the stack of firewood, she spotted the wood-splitting axe.
It'll have to do.
A/N: excerpt of a wild west AU thingy because i've been watching a lot of western media and i was inspired one little marvel comic line (1872 vol. 1-4 from 2015) and here's mia if she were in the wild west - with some creative liberties lmfao