Inescapable
I. The Kid Rides West
The Kid had no name worth remembering. He left whatever past he had in the dust, carrying nothing but a saddle, a rifle, and the kind of quiet emptiness that settles in men who have seen too much, too young.
The land swallowed him whole.
New Mexico Territory stretched out in endless waves of heat and distance, dust rising in the afternoon glare like the smoke of some distant ruin. The desert did not care for the living.
For three days, he followed the tracks of men he did not yet know, men whose reputation rode ahead of them like a storm rolling black over the horizon.
The Glanton Company.
Bounty hunters, they called themselves. Scalphunters, by trade. They had contracts in their pockets and blood in their teeth. The territorial governor had promised them silver for every Apache head they took, and they had been collecting.
The Kid had heard the stories. Towns burned to cinders. Women shot where they stood. Children carried screaming into the night.
But he was hungry, and a man without a place in the West was already dead.
He found them at a river crossing, the men resting in the shade of their exhausted horses, flies buzzing over strips of meat drying in the sun.
Their leader, John Joel Glanton, squinted at him, chewing a plug of tobacco.
“We been watching you follow us for days,” he said, “Whatchew want, boy?”
The kid swallowed the lump in his throat. he had already spotted the rifle pointed at him through the bushes. “ I heard y’all could use another gun,” he said.
The older man looked him over carefully. And twisted his face like a man deep in thought. Finally, he spoke. “You any good with that rifle?”
The Kid nodded once.
Glanton spat into the dust. “You best be.”
That was all the welcome he got. The rifle in the bushes retreated, and the man holding it emerged, gave the boy a once over and slipped into a tent.
That night, as the fire cracked and spat against the black of the desert sky, a shadow stepped into the light.
II. The Judge
The first time the Kid laid eyes on him, the night seemed to hush. The wind, the fire, even the distant call of coyotes—it all fell still, like the world itself was listening.
The Judge was tall as an oak, broad-shouldered, clean as a preacher’s Bible. No hair. No beard. No scars. The desert left its mark on every man who lingered too long, but not him.
The Company had been riding for weeks. Their clothes were torn, their boots cracked from the heat, their eyes red-rimmed with dust and sweat.
The Judge looked untouched.
He wore no gun, but the men watched him the way you’d watch a rattler curled by your boot.
“Fine evening,” the Judge said, lowering himself onto a rock like a man at a garden party. “Shall we discuss philosophy?”
The Kid kept his eyes on the fire.
One of the men leaned in, voice low. “Man’s been with us since before I signed on,” he muttered. “Never seen him eat. Never seen him sleep.”
Glanton spat, unimpressed. “We ride at dawn.”
The Judge smiled. “Of course.”
He said nothing more that night.
The Kid did not sleep easy, knowing that the Judge sat awake by the fire, watching the flames. Watching them.
III. The Hunt
They rode before first light, the desert still painted in blues and greys.
The Kid’s thirst gnawed at him, a dry, living thing in his throat. His canteen had been empty since the day before, but no one in the Company offered water unless they expected something in return.
Ahead, the canyons rose like broken ribs—the entrance to a place the locals called The Meridian Hollows.
The Apache were waiting.
The first arrow buried itself in the sand by the Kid’s horse. A second followed, then a third. Then the world dissolved into heat and gunfire.
Horses screamed. Men fell. The Kid barely had time to swing his rifle up before a warrior was on him, a knife flashing bright in the dawn.
And then the Judge stepped forward.
IV. The Massacre
The Judge did not run.
The Apache warrior lunged—fast, precise, blade meant for the Kid’s throat.
The Judge caught his wrist mid-strike, twisting. Bone cracked like dry wood. The warrior’s mouth opened in a silent scream, and the Judge yanked the knife free, burying it under his ribs.
Another Apache charged. The Judge sidestepped, plucked a revolver from a dying man’s grip, and fired once. A single shot, clean through the eye.
A third warrior turned to run. The Judge moved faster. His massive hand closed around the man’s neck and drove his skull into the rock. A wet, final sound.
The Glanton company moved through the dying warriors into the makeshift village, dragging old men, women, and children from brush shelters, setting fire to the village and killing everything that moved— man and beast alike.
By the time the gunfire died, the Hollows were painted in blood.
The Kid stood among the dead, breathing hard. Some of the bodies were women. Some were children. Some were too old to fight, too slow to run. horses, donkeys, dogs. The air smelled of burned huts and blood and seared flesh.
The Judge wiped his hands clean on his shirt.
“War,” he said, “is the only art.”
The Kid’s stomach twisted.
“This wasn’t war,” he said. “This was a killing ground.”
The Judge turned to him, eyes pale as bone.
“Did you expect mercy?”
The Kid said nothing.
That night, as the Company drank the last of their whiskey and counted the scalps they would trade for silver, the Kid saddled his horse.
He had seen enough.
He was leaving.
V. The Last Gambit
The desert stretched wide before him, empty in its silence.
The Kid rode hard, pushing his horse over rough ground, through dry riverbeds and past ruined homesteads. The only sound was the wind and his own breath, too loud in his ears.
He didn’t slow down. Didn’t look back.
Then he felt it.
That sick, crawling feeling in his gut.
He pulled his horse up, listening.
The wind stirred the dust. The stars burned cold overhead.
And then a voice, quiet as a prayer.
“You think you can leave?”
The Kid wheeled his horse.
The Judge sat on a rock in the moonlight.
No tracks. No trail. No way he could have been there.
And yet he was.
The Judge smiled, pale and unmoved.
“There’s nowhere to run, boy.”
The Kid’s fingers tightened on his revolver.
The Judge shook his head. “Don’t bother.”
The Kid fired anyway.
The shot cracked through the desert.
The Judge never moved.
The Kid’s breath came ragged now, his horse shifting beneath him, nervous. He fired again. And again.
Each shot rang out sharp and final against the silence.
When the smoke cleared, the Judge was still sitting there.
Still smiling.
The Kid felt his hands shake. His gun was empty.
The Judge stood, slow and easy, stepping forward into the starlight.
“You never understood,” the Judge said. “You were never going anywhere.”
The Kid turned his horse and ran.
He didn’t stop.
Didn’t look back.
But when he reached the next town, the Judge was already there.
Sitting at the saloon, a drink in hand. Watching.
The bartender glanced up, wiping the counter.
“Took you long enough,” he said.
The Kid swallowed hard.
The Judge raised his glass in a silent toast.
And smiled.
What the hell was that??