Chapter 53: Strangers in the Night
Out of the city — they were finally at the threshold of the end. Capella's hooves struck the ground, Scaramuccia threw his last knives, and Bonnie reloaded her revolver in a desperate hurry. The exit was right there — the misty road filled the streets, but in a single second, that same mist was swallowed by the darkness as though a strong gust of wind had blown through and dissolved the white.
'The Sheriff… Looks like he's already coming for us. I didn't expect him to move this fast — but I didn't think he'd drag his feet either. If he's the man the girls described, Scaramuccia and I are both in danger. But my plan was never to get in the way of his work. Everything I want is right here. After that, this clown is no use to me.'
Right now, unfortunately, Scaramuccia had fallen straight into Bonnie's trap. That was something she never expected to do, because she wasn't the kind of person who took advantage of others. As they neared the exit, she thought about how innocent she had been until just a few days ago. Life in the desert really was capable of changing a person far too much in far too little time — but that was beside the point.
Bonnie was already an outlaw. No matter what she did, nothing would change the fact that in everyone else's eyes, she was nothing more than a criminal. She could even feel it in the brief, confused glances of the townspeople — from their doorways, some pointed at Bonnie in fear or bewilderment, exchanging various comments and whispers that her heightened senses picked up with perfect clarity.
Eyes watching. Words judging. Bonnie shrugged.
'Strange…'
She crossed the city's exit.
'It's been a while since I last felt like this.'
There where the thoughts ended, the echo of hoofbeats behind them shattered the rhythm of the escape. A loaded weapon. The eyes of the Hunter. Bang! The shot rang out — Marcus's revolver exhaled smoke as the bullet traveled toward Bonnie.
She felt a chill that raised every hair on her body. The pupils of her eyes dilated and the world around her froze for a fraction of a second. Where would the bullet come from? She could almost sense a heavy blow landing on her shoulder. There — that was it. She yanked the reins and forced Capella to lurch sideways mid-gallop.
The hooves hit the fertile ground just beyond the road, followed by four more shots.
Bonnie repeated the same movement, but one of the bullets grazed her shoulder. Scaramuccia tried to dodge weakly — but the outlaw had done all the work to keep them alive. Besides, Marcus wanted Scaramuccia alive, so the jester knew he wasn't going to die — but what about this girl who was fighting for every step toward her own freedom?
'Damn it. This hurts way too much. I will never get used to this,' Bonnie thought. She glanced back at Marcus with suspicion over her shoulder — but she couldn't raise her weapon against him or the entire plan would fall apart.
This was the moment.
"I can hand you over to the sheriff," she said, cutting through Scaramuccia's desperation and replacing it with confusion. "But I won't — not unless you talk. I'll help you get away. Just answer my questions."
That was a lie. One that Scaramuccia sadly believed. Watching Marcus holster his weapon and reach for his lasso, the jester pulled himself back into a dark abyss inside his mind — but where the doubt lay, he also found the faintest trace of hope that he might yet go on. His body in the present. His eyes in the past. Deep in thought.
"If you don't talk, I'll have to stop," Bonnie added, pressing the jester harder.
'If he understands his position, he'll have to talk. He has no other options. This is his reality, and he's going to have to accept it. Same as I did…'
That was how the world worked. That was life — two strangers in the night, cutting across the plain far beyond what their bodies could take. There, with just enough determination not to surrender to her fragile heart, Bonnie's face hardened into complete impassiveness, her eyes showing the truth of her power, her breathing more settled — as though the pain didn't matter — and that went beyond a simple showing of who she really was. Because in truth, this part wasn't Bonnie.
Samuel Calloway commanded every emotion in him to go quiet, forced himself to understand the world and to stop suffering for being cruel in a desert that would be even crueler in return. When he could understand that his emotions were an obstacle — without letting them destroy him either — one look at Scaramuccia was enough to see it, because unlike her, he had been taken prisoner by his own mind.
"I'm… a cultist. Just like them…"
At the whistle of a spinning lasso, Marcus aimed at Scaramuccia. One simple motion and he'd have him — but his eyes landed on Bonnie's. The Sheriff paused, confused. Those eyes were looking at him as if they were trying to say something. His instinct made him slowly lower his hands, staying alert to the smallest movement.
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In front of the inn, Victoria and Lady were waiting on Evelyn, who materialized in the middle of the street. Cat was with her, watching the two women attentively as they stood beside their horses. In La Señora's hands were Bonnie's bags — which she had previously left in her room to keep from being stolen if she left them with Capella.
"How did it go?" Lady asked, stopping in front of Thieving Cat's horse.
"Well, we'll have to see. Bonnie planned to take the clown far enough away to interrogate him and then hand him over to the Sheriff. But…"
"Given what Marcus is like, none of that is going to matter to him," Victoria said. "Unless Bonnie spells out her plan directly to him, he's not going to stop — but I already expected as much."
La Señora picked up Bonnie's bags and set them in her own saddle, then rested her palm against the horse's flank and turned her gaze toward the nearest exit of the city — the one she assumed the young outlaw had gone through alongside the jester.
Lady cleared her throat and pulled something from her own saddlebag. It was a small folding spyglass.
"We follow Bonnie's trail. In case Marcus arrests her, we'll be there to get her out of trouble."
Evelyn scratched her head.
"Hmm… Right. Since we can't get directly involved in the crime itself, we can show up afterward to 'post bail,' so to speak. I hadn't thought of it that way. Same as always — Lady and her practical ideas."
"Either way. Let's move fast before things get any worse. We've already put enough distance between ourselves and that man to stay within the terms of the arrangement — now we'll see what we can do," Victoria concluded.
Evelyn, however, looked at Victoria with curiosity. She leaned over her horse and rested her chin on her palm, elbow propped on the animal's neck.
"Earlier you said not to come crying if something went wrong. Does it surprise you that Bonnie's insane plan probably worked? I mean — I think she took too big a risk going directly to save the clown. But she was also sharp enough to sense that two Ballads built around escaping might amplify each other."
Victoria stopped short.
"She figured that out on her own?"
"Well, it's not that far-fetched," Lady said. "If the Coward's Ballad exists, then its 'strength' must be built around running. Our Ballads also have real effectiveness when it comes to getting away — but two 'similar' Ballads complementing each other to achieve the same objective…"
Smiling with pride, Evelyn said:
"Remarkable, isn't it? She mentioned it when we were getting our horses. She said: 'I hope this works. I don't want to spend the rest of my life in a cell, or worse…' And she said something about the Coward's Ballad under her breath. I thought that's what she meant. Now I understand it better. She's… kind of amazing. I trust nothing's going to happen to her. And Marcus isn't that cruel either, you know? Bonnie is very young. That'll probably soften him up and all she'll get is a slap on the wrist."
"If what you're saying is true," Victoria said, climbing into the saddle. "Then there's not much for us to worry about."
Lady let out a small laugh.
"I think Vicky already had a sense of how it would go."
La Señora sighed.
"You have no idea."
If only they knew that Marcus had ordered his many coyotes to kill Bonnie — they wouldn't be saying any of that. Because that sheriff was someone very different from what the newspapers wrote about him, or what Victoria knew of him from the past. A moment, finally, where nobody really knew anyone — strangers in a cold and lonely night, which was far from over.