A mangy grey dog claws its way forward.

Hot winds snap at its fur.

Scorched dust stings its eyes.

Its tracks reach back beyond the horizon.

Its tongue hangs out, deadened and dry.

-

Streaks of light and heat stream into a dim bar. Tables and chairs, some polished and some rough, fill the floor. Men, some polished and some rough, fill the chairs. An empty stage with curtains that have seen better days stands at one end of the room, the bar spanning the length of the other. Between the two, whiskeys, stouts, and ales.

Doors creak as a boy enters.

Wild hair and yellow eyes meet the glances of drunken cowboys. His frame wrapped under a heavy cloak, it's at first hard to gauge his size and shape, but as the boy moves, it's soon apparent he's ghastly thin.

​​His spurs heralding his every step, the boy crosses the saloon. Coming to rest in a dank corner, he produces something precious from beneath his coat. Protected from dirt and dust inside cloth scraps, a pocket watch shines an immaculate gold. The boy inspects the hands of the watch, but before a single tick or tock, it's already gone, back inside rags, back inside his cloak. Not even noon.

Lifting his eyes, the boy's vision touches warped tables, wizened walls, and a large off-center mirror running the width of the bar. The sun hangs there in the mirror, reflecting the sand of the bright world outside. It casts stripes of harsh marigold across a room of perpetual shade. The boy's eyes stay on the burning spot for some time.

The boy's eyes are the same color as the sun.

The boy blinks. Shifting in his chair, his gaze moves again around the bar. He looks over broken-down men. Some smoke. Some gamble. Some laugh. All drink. The boy leans toward the lone man with a newspaper. A faded and torn up rag, The Claudia Dispatch is printed in weak ink across its top. Beneath the masthead is a sketch of an iron machine with massive wheels and billowing steam. The year is 1877. The man glancing over the paper sneezes. Bringing The Dispatch to his nose, he wipes away a hanging piece of snot.

Silence. Smoke. Sighs.

Shutting his eyes and folding his arms over his chest, the boy calls for sleep, but while his breath slows and his brow takes on an undisturbed shape, sleep doesn't answer. Instead, the bar's empty air is soon made thick with shouts. This sound – the only sound – thunders from the next table over.

There, a man with gruff, dirty, green skin holds his waitress down.

"Come on, girl, just one peck," the drunken cowboy requests. Only, it's not a request. The man, thrice the woman's height and weight, has her stuck. His fat fingers shackle the waitress's wrists. His heavy heels plant her dress to the floor. And while the girl struggles, her each movement brings only more attention from the man's dirty nails and yellow teeth. His thick lips trace the waitress's delicate ear. "You know you'll like it. Besides, I'll pay you twice what you're worth."

The woman grunts, trying to get free of the lush's hold, but the more she squirms, the more he twists her hands and hips. She snaps her eyes out to the ranch hands dotting the bar, but there isn't a single friend, let alone a single gaze, to save her. Instead, every customer's become deaf and mute and transfixed by the dirt churning at the bottom of their chipped glasses.

"If you don't give me what I want, I can always take it," the cowboy sneers. He bends the woman over his table. "I'm being nice to you, but I don't have to be."

"Stop it!" The waitress whimpers. "Please!" The drunk's palm runs along her thigh, leaving slime across her every inch. The girl winces.

The dark boy wrapped in rags looks up now, staring at the scene preventing his slumber. He watches the woman struggle. Her flesh is fair and hair a rose imbued with the very spirit of spring. The man is grotesque.

"You going to behave?" The cowboy asks the girl pinned against his table. Splinters. Water from the waitress's cheeks is sucked up instantly by the parched floor. Tears. The girl pleads. In a voice so small it can only be heard by ghosts, she begs the man to stop. He laughs.

"Leave the lady alone."

The drunken cowboy stops. Turning to the slight child across from him, he just stares. The child, the source of the sound, stares back. The boy's eyes burn, unwavering against a mountain. The cowboy laughs. His face shifting down to the shivering waitress, the drunk lets a trail of filth fall from his tongue into her forced-apart lips.

"Watch your mouth, boy, or I'll use you after I finish with her," the drunk threatens, tightening his eyes, wicked and narrow, back on the child with wire hair and a sun-stained glare.

"I said stop."

"You've got some pretty lips," the lush compliments the boy. He presses his green skin against the girl's flesh. His eyes, though, stay on the tiny mouse.

"I won't caution you again."

"What are you going to do?" The drunk snaps. "Kill me?" He feels higher up the waitress's legs. Her shrieks are silenced by an unwanted kiss thrust down her throat. The boy inspects the man and the girl. There's no anger or intensity in his face. Instead, there's the opposite. There's distance.

"Yes."

The cowboy smirks. The girl yelps. The bar's other patrons continue to drink. The smug, gruff man looks the sickly pale boy over one more time and then turns away. His hands move atop the waitress's corset.

The boy, in a single motion, brings a Colt Navy revolver up from his side, lifting, aiming, and firing off a shot. The drunk drops dead. The girl screams.

Silence. Smoke. Sighs.