The heat of the midday sun was bare on that open land. A place more horrid than the descriptions of one to call the pits where the devil sat and bathed in agony. You could see the blacks in all their dirty outfits working in that field with slump backs, their hands full of Arbuckle. None of them knew a life other than doing such tasks where they’d not been exposed to climates comparable to Phlegethon whose river burns the souls of those within it. You could see a cloud of dirt where a great number of horses were being led by cowboys rallying them all up to a stable. He and a man at the opposite end were both shouting away at the horses like the order of man and the animals following them as they were rallied fourth. There was a kid who sat in the corner shade of a tree staring down at them as well as the small streaks of light that the innate protection of the tree cannot cover has passed through. He could see the wicker basket that an old woman left outside to dry up after being sewn and knitted together. He could see a group of bison grazing the near grassless land they walked upon trying to get even the tiniest fodder they could get in that barren place. Known by some as hell where the bones of dead animals become as white as chalk as they dry in its grueling heat. He and all the other inhabitants there knew nothing about each other, they had no benefit in doing so otherwise. He in all he knew of his origins was indistinct and uncertain.

The father that he knew was none other than a trader who gave him off for a few bucks to where he'd served a wealthy man at the age of 7 and escaped the year after and scavenged the streets for scraps of food. At that time, he was captured by men in uniform after he was caught trying to steal money from a woman. The guards released him in a few months when the cell he’d been locked in was full.

He tried to look for a job to keep himself some money, and he did ask in a genuine manner but all rejected him due to his appearance and foul odor, no one would take him in—none but a kind innkeeper. The innkeeper fed him and gave him clothes to wear. When he asked the man who the clothes were he said they were from his son who died after he and his wife were stopped and was cut by robbers. The kid worked for the innkeeper, scrubbing the floor, sweeping it, and attending to the patrons at the desk. This was until the innkeeper fell ill. He consulted the kid to leave and to take some of his money before he went. The kid declined the offer but the innkeeper wouldn't budge. A few weeks later the innkeeper died lying in his bed as he knitted a towel and soon after the kid left. The kid traveled from town to town hitching a ride from wagons and doing odd jobs here and there. He'd wash clothes and clean up horse manure just to name a few.

Once he stumbled a ferry and aboard it he did. The smell of dead fish and more so the men aboard it was dung awful. The people there talked rarely in his language. When he talked, he talked by a manner of signs and points and nods. He helped the men who would haul in the fishes and crates and was paid accordingly until he got enough for the road and for the tariff of a flatboat.

He traveled through towns more unknown to him than men were to what was beyond the sky above them. He learned the mouth of Mexicans, the mouth of townspeople there, he learnt it from an old folk he worked for a few years till he reached the age of 15. Now he’s traveling again. He'd been doing this for some time until he reached a town he did not know the name of. He got off the old horse he got as payment for working in a barnyard as a herder. The town was in a colorful fiesta with men and women wearing garments covering only half their body with their chest showing and music from every corner. Bars were filled with people and their horses outside sloping out their tongues with neighs and stamping hooves. The kid pulled his horse and tied it to a stable outside the bar he'd set his eyes on and went inside. The inside of the bar was reeking with alcohol and men jostling around and men playing with cards. There was an old man in the corner seemingly eyeing him down but he was not sure of his gaze. He sat in an empty seat near the barman and asked for a drink.

What's this all about? The kid asked.

Hm? The barman tilted his head. You have not come here before no?

Not that I'd remember.

This here's a harvesting festival, we do this once a year or so. They say it’s to keep the demons out but I couldn't tell since I'd never seen one.

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The kid analyzed the men all around him, some wore outfits made from shrubs, some had long belts out, some had rifles strapped to their backs and he not looking too different from them in a manner of being harried down to the boot.

Are you going to get anything? The barman asked the kid.

Yeah I'd get somethin', how bout a glass of that bottle there. The kid pointed at the back of the finely organized wall of drinks. The barman looked at where the kid had pointed and walked to fetch the bottle. At that moment the kid snatched some quarters off the barman's creaky cashier box and put it in his pocket. When the barman turned he saw what the kid had just done and grabbed him by the collar of his shirt.

What's the big deal here? He faced the kid with a clouded face. Either you bring back what you'd stolen or I'll fill that mouth of yours with lead. 

The kid sat in silence, his face with a complexion like some hyena in the savannah fending off any would-be attackers to its stolen kill. The barman was about to reach out for his rifle below the counter when there was a sudden gunshot outside the bar. All the people inside the bar stopped what they were doing and turned their attention to where the gunfire came from. The gunshot was followed by another, then another and when the fourth and fifth shots came most of the people readied up their gear. Some of the men who were playing cards took a glance outside, and sure enough the moment their heads were in the vision of the perpetrator a giant hole would be carved into their foreheads and out came the back end a pile of viscera and gore where their brains were now blown to bits. The barman let go of his grip on the kid and put both his hands on the rifle he had below the counter and focused all his life on that yellow light just coming to the inside of the bar. There was no notable sound in the bar other than the tiny clinging of the nearly fully squeezed metal trigger that the men pointed at the doorway. 

Old man, said a young lad to the barman. Don't you have a back exit here or somethin’? 

In a few moments gunshots were prevalent again on the outside and the men who heard the young lad's question started to sprint to the door behind the counter that seemed to lead to the back. Seconds later the inside of that bar was lit by gunshots where bullets ricocheted and men injured and men dying like some divine judgment had set upon them their trial for the sins they had committed and was now only being splurged from it. One of the last ones to come out the backdoor of the bar was the kid who had weaseled his way through the gigantic men. The outside of the bar was a bloody mess with wine-red puddles of the innards of men and women and children alike. Some were wheezing and caching their breath while some had eyes undisturbed by all the commotion and the flies that flew over it rubbing its hands only to fly again. The kid hid behind some small crates just outside the bar he was in, looked at the destruction that was in front of him and searched for his horse. Thankfully the animal was intact and was swaying its head left and right looking uneasy. The kid approached the horse and tried to calm it down and when it did calm down he undid the knot that was tying the horse to the stable and rode it. One of the men firing his gun saw him and started to shoot at the kid. He ducked his body close to the horse's like a sudden communion of the two, and the horse ran in the direction opposite of that man. 

Several men were shooting their guns like some deranged lunatics. They looked like ravages foreign to earth, some had the gaudy clothes of Indians with human teeth right about their necks strung in a fashion like ornaments made to be trophies. Some had thick leather jackets and some had clothes bathed in soot as if they'd rolled on it. Their leader was a small man with black hair eyeing up his shots at everything he'd seen moving. And there in a corner where someone could have missed him yet so big as he was, it would be stupid not to. He wore a small brimmed hat and sleek leather clothes, he was shooting in left and right with his hand bloodied but not from his own blood, the man had no hair on him not on his head to his eyebrows and he seemed more alien than the men that surrounded him. The man in slickered clothing met eyes with the kid, yet instead of shooting the man smiled in a manner of giving children some candy he had in his pocket. The kid felt tense as he was followed by bullets and a man trying to get on his horse but was shot down. After a few miles away from the shootout the kid felt the need to rest and so did the horse. He would find an old abandoned church and decide to lay there.

Blood was welling on his chest. It had been an hour since it did. He slept in that position of comfort as one would see a corpse in a funeral. For some time now he looked up, the orange sky, a sky only known for those who even tried to look up in a world where none dared to as their fates had been sealed to go down.

The kid did not wail, he only looked, and looked he did.

The kid slept.