Musashi’s bed looking tired. Her long body curved along the bed and she began to speak speedily yet trembling into the ceiling.
“I told you that you would understand sometime why I had to betray you. I’ll explain everything. Six days ago General Sun came to Kyoto to talk to my father about claiming Himeji Castle for the shogun. They both knew I know the layout of the Castle well and ordered me to help. I knew there wasn’t enough time to send a letter and that they would come for you regardless of if I helped them, so I decided I would help and be there in case things got ugly, I’m so sorry Mumu” she said shakily.
“Lan it’s ok. I know you’d never try to hurt me. And you just saved my life, I trust you.” Musashi said smiling. He climbed onto the bed and they embraced warmly.
Looking out the window from the bed Musashi saw that all the sakura trees had stopped smoking and all that were left were large grey hulks of ash at the foot of blackened burnt down tree-trunks.
“Your father won’t like what we’ve done. We‘ll have to get out of Japan for a while. The world is big. Who knows what could happen next.” Musashi said.
In final moments of the darkness of the night, a shooting star began to streak across the sky. Then they watched through the window as the black sky slowly became pink and then blue. General Sun had fallen, but the Sun was just beginning to rise over Japan.
Mexican Sunrise
A dusty, winding path led a tall gunslinger by the name of Dean James into the small town of Gran Estrella, Mexico in the summer of 1864. The sun was just beginning to rise over the desert town, illuminating it in a light pink haze. The white houses glowed faintly as the warm wind swept through the streets, gently rustling the leaves of the large red oak tree situated at the centre of the town. Already a few sleepy citizens of the town were making their way to their place of work. However beneath the benevolent exterior of Gran Estrella lay a malignant criminal underworld.
As Dean paced forwards and reached the edge of the town he carefully observed his surroundings. Making his way past the post office, he nodded stiffly to a local who greeted the rare visitor to their town. After four minutes he was already half way through the town, where the town hall and the red oak stood together. Receiving directions from a man in a black three piece suit in the town’s square, Dean guardedly detoured around the local police station and towards the opposite edge of the town from where he had entered.
At twenty-two he had been roaming restlessly from town to town for the last five years. He never stayed long, preferring to leave once he had been accustomed to the place he was staying. His confident demeanour and rugged appearance saw him idolized by the boys of the towns he passed through and through his various encounters with the law and outlaw gangs, exaggerated tales of his exploits became widely circulated. This led to his name being known, even over the seas, while his face remained unrecognizable.
Finally reaching the outskirts of the town Dean found what he was looking for. The dark disillusioning bar sat desolate in early mornings, but was more regularly frequented by the shadier members of the town later in the day. A crooked piece of wood hung above the saloon doors, “Cloudless Skies & Bloodshot Eyes Bar”. Entering the large, dimly lit bar Dean found it empty besides the owner and one of his associates. Not pausing to even acknowledge their presence he sat down at a small diner table in the back corner and fell into a deep sleep.
At around midday Dean was awoken by a loud booming gunshot. Raising himself with a look of annoyance similar to that of a lion untimely awoken, Dean reached to but did not draw the revolver that lay in wait in his concealed holster. The bar was now occupied by a number of degenerates and small-time criminals who now stood frozen at the stood of the gunshot. Through the saloon doors burst a large man, dressed head to foot in black, holding pistols outstretched in both sturdy arms. Then in disharmonic union each of the five windows of the bar were shattered inwards, spraying glass across the floor precariously. Twelve men all clad in black and armed with knives and guns, swiftly jumped through each of these five broken windows, effectively surrounding the fifteen or so patrons of the bar.
These thirteen intruders made up the destructive assortment of gun-slingers, robbers and murderers known as the Buffalo Gang. By now the majority of the surrounded individuals were looking around in quiet trepidation, attempting to conceal their despair at being dealt such a fate that it was to lay eyes on the Buffalo Gang. The large man, who had entered the bar foremost, was named Randy and was the well-spoken, boisterous leader of the gang. Eyeing his victims gleefully he then lowered his weapons and begun a short speech, making sure to gaze deeply into each of his prisoner’s eyes as he spoke.
“Gentlemen, unfortunately for you our fates have reached a crossroad. To ensure everything goes smoothly and that no superfluous misfortune is to occur I encourage you to comply. In six minutes the police will undoubtedly reach this bar, and when they do you shall say nothing of what occurred here. As far as you are concerned you’ve never even heard of the Buffalo Gang. But for now each of you are to relinquish every valuable object in your current possession and place them with my good friend Marcus” he said motioning to his right-hand man who held a large sack over his shoulder.
Marcus approached a round rodent-like man with a large curling moustache.
“Put your money and valuables in the bag, don’t play no games!” Marcus shouted at the man who has fumbling in his pockets.
“I don’t… I don’t have anything” he mumbled looking sideways, beads of sweat forming at his brow.
From across the room another member of the ruthless gang cocked his sawn-off shotgun, staggered across the room and shot into his face point blank, spraying blood across the wall behind him.
“Don’t lie to us. Everything you have is ours now.” the slaughterer slurred.
“Please don’t kill anymore people!” the bar owner pleaded.
“Time is off the essence, don’t resist us” Randy said as Marcus continued to hurriedly collect cash, watches and other valuables from the terrified hostages.
As the bag of stolen wealth became heavier and heavier Marcus finally reached Dean, who had not spoken or even moved since the gang’s entrance.
“You, empty your stuff in the bag!” Marcus shouted.
In a swift movement Dean sprung up emptied the bullet in the chamber of his revolver into Marcus’s brain, resulting into him crumpling to the floor and the sack of stolen goods clanking to the ground. Quickly he flipped the table he was seated at onto its side creating a barrier from the volley of bullets now aimed at him.
Aiming from behind the table shot a burly attacker in his forehead as he attempted to approach and then shot another through the heart who advanced immediately after. With the state of calm broken the other patrons of the bar pulled their own concealed weapons and began to shoot wildly. There was no meaning to the life they led, there was no redemption for their misdoings, so they gladly jumped into the abyss that was this battle in which there was no prize.
Dean jumped over the table and found himself facing the sawn-off shotgun of the staggering slaughterer.
“You stupid m…” he began to garble, however Dean did not let him finish his sentence, explosively raising his arm up, striking the shotgun from below so it flew upwards and shot into the roof, leaving Dean’s own arm in the perfect position to put the evil soul to rest. The force of the bullet knocked the man off his feet and no sooner had Dean picked the shotgun off the glass-shard covered floor had he another gun pointed at his head. It was the formerly relatively pleasant leader of the Buffalo Gang, Randy.
The entire bar was in chaos. Tables, chairs, glass, blood and bodies were strewn across the floors. Every moment another shot was fired, every few seconds another robber or hostage fell to the ground, their eyes looking long into nothingness. Surrounded by this chaos, the two adversaries stood calm in the eye of the storm. Randy had always preferred to look into his victim’s eyes as he killed them. Suddenly the saloon doors swung open and in
swarmed the first few members of the town’s police force. Taking advantage of Randy’s startled state Dean cocked the sawn-off shotgun and fired under his chin, leaving his brains on the roof and the blood of another scattered across the red stained floorboards.
“Everybody drop your weapons and stand outside the bar!” a young constable shouted into the bar. Slowly people began to lower their weapons. The small portion of what remained of the Buffalo Gang sensed their hopelessness as they saw the half-dozen and rising members of the police force. Despite their slim chances the five remaining gang members made a run for their horses as they exited the bar. Dean took the opportunity of the distracted police force to take the seemingly forgotten sack of stolen valuables and carry it over his shoulder.
Moving slowly yet confidently, blending into the small crowd of interested locals that had now surrounded the bar, Dean made his way to one of the Buffalo Gang’s horses, a beautiful black stallion with a patch of white over its left eye. Mounting the sleek stallion, and with his bag of stolen goods over his right shoulder, he rode out of Gran Estrella and into the direction that the Sun would soon set with a soothing sense that everything was slowly falling into place.
Fall
A