Orion's Belt - A Dark Sci-Fi Western Romance

“The killin’ kind,” she says, her eyes going cool. “I done enough of that it don’t mean nothing to me anymore. See, when your ma is selling herself and her clients reckon they’d like some of you, you learn how to pull a trigger real fast.”

Hell, she’s had a tough life. I don’t need to hear more to know what she’s been through. Single women are a rarity on Patch. Too many rough men wanting the soft bits between their thighs, and too often, they get to take it. This is a land of ravaged souls and broken hearts. That’s another reason I don’t let my men run with women. Too hard to know if they’re willing or not. At least the saloon girls get to choose what men they lie with.

“What’s your Pa got that this man wants?”

“Land.”

“Uh huh. Land? That’s vague, girl.”

“A lot of land,” she says, with a little sigh as if that clarification should be enough. Good god, I let the girl pull her pants back up and all that attitude just comes rushing back as if it never left. Must keep her bravery in her britches.

“I’m going to find him,” she says, more to herself than to me. “And I am going to kill him.”

“Well, that sounds fair. Why didn’t you just tell me that in the first place?”

“Because you’re no gentleman, Orion Steelbane, and I have no more time for criminals. You’ve taken me far enough. I can go on from here.”

“Oh yeah? How? You don’t have a man’s protection and every male you see is going to be trying to get a piece of you.”

“And he’s going to get lead in his gut.”

I smirk, not because I don’t think she’s capable of that, but because I know she is. “You go around killing men, you end up swinging from the gallows.”

“Yep. I know. That’s how I met the man I married.”

“You met him killing people?”

“He arrested me,” she says. “He’s the Imperium Sheriff of Cabbage Patch.”

I let out a long, low whistle. Now that is a piece of information that does surprise me. Can’t see a girl like this being attracted to the human slime that is the sheriff. Still. Takes all types, I guess, and there’s more than one woman who has been seduced by a star-shaped badge in her time.

“You mean Atticus Bunch?”

“The very same,” she says. “You know him, I guess.”

“I know him very well.”

I know him because he’s tried to hang me three times, and doesn’t have any qualms about trying to hang me a fourth. Five of my posse weren’t as fortunate in escaping his noose as I’ve been. Thanks to Sheriff Bunch’s penchant for intense interrogation, death was a mercy for the poor bastards. By the time they reached the gallows there was hardly anything left to hang.

“So you were going to be Mrs. Atticus Bunch. What did you see in him? Was it the hanging that got you wet? Or the torture?”

“I didn’t have a choice,” she hisses at me. “He was going to hang me when he caught me. Then he realized my ailing pa owns half of the North Valley and he said iffin I agreed to marry him, he’d let me live.”

Well, now I feel like a complete piece of shit. Makes sense though. Atticus ain’t the romancing type, but he’s definitely the arrest, blackmail, forced marriage, bride-killing type. He wanted to marry her so he’d have the title to her father’s property. I’m guessing her daddy’s dead, or very shortly will be.

“Did your father pass?”

“Not that I heard,” she says. “But I’m guessing Atticus is heading up there to make that happen. Now his poor new wife is dead, or will be soon enough. He’s going to keep sending men for me until they take my head. You’re not going to be able to save me, Orion.”

Those words sound so damn defeated coming out of her sweet mouth. I want to hug her, but I reckon she’s not in the mood for that. She looks so small and prickly and hell, I get it all now, from the train tracks to the shooting a man in the face. She’s fighting for her life, and she knows she’s not going to be able to stop while the sheriff draws breath.

“So that’s why you’re so keen to get away. Want to go up and defend your home ranch?”

“Nope. Want to get on the first freighter out of here and get as far away as possible.”

“You… what?”

“My pa doesn’t want to hear from me. Disowned me years ago. He can look after himself. Or not. I don’t care.”

This girl is full of hurt and surprises. I wonder if she’s ever met a decent man. It occurs to me I might be the closest thing to one, and that’s not saying a whole lot.