2040, Somewhere Along The Red Road, The Moon

Twitch sat hunched in the bushes, feeling the tendrils of a cramp rolling along his left calf. Down the hill, he could see the carriage dragging along the road towards the ambush that his boss had so carefully planned. They were down there, ready to send a great big rock hurdling down to stop them, while he had to sit all the way up here looking down Jessica's scope and hoping nobody spotted him. And still the oxen pulled the wagon, and still he sat like a stone.

Down near the road, Beano was breathing too hard. His eyes were wide. Jarvis, the so-called bandit king, was not happy with this development. Beano was nervous. Nervous, and armed. Beano was also new, he hadn't been around as long as Lenny or Scar, not back when they used to pull 10 dollar cons selling empty boxes of treasure and maps to tourists from the castle. No, he was here to shoot shit an' make money, lacking the finesse that Jarvis had come to expect from his boys. He tied on his favorite mask on, a black silk triangle with the mouth of a demon all curly teeth and brimstone, and he leaned down next to his horses ear.

"Baby, we gotta get a new crew."

As if this were the signal, Lenny's boys up the hill let the boulder go, about a decade too early. It crashed into the road and stopped like it should, but the god damned wagon was still yards and yards up the road. So much for the old boys. Well, it’s hard to find a clever man willing to get shot at for any amount of money. Jarvis bellowed, and out his boys came, 9 on horses and 1 in the hills, popping rounds in the air. Today was the payday, he hoped. Today was the day he betrayed his lads and his horse.

And there was the fella riding shotgun, the wood beside him exploding with a round just to his left. Ain't much worth to a marksman who misses all the damn time. The horses all around were kicking and neighing, and Beano was doing his best to waste bullets before he was nearly close enough to hit anything. The pinging of rocks echoed around the sun drenched desert basin as honest men fired out of the slits of the armored wagon, dropping Beano and his stupid hat. Lenny rode down into the road on a thunderous black horse, hammers akimbo, screaming like that would make him shoot straighter, like that would make the bullets swing around him. Jarvis shrugged, shooting his own long-barreled pistol into the kneecap of the shotgun toting gentleman who had been aiming to put a fistful of buckshot into anything moving.

And his boys rode around and around the wagon in a great wide circle, just like Jarvis had told them to, getting peppered with bullets and falling one by one, all the while pinging shots against the armored sides of the caravan and generally wasting perfectly good bullets. The marksman had done his job, the driver had collapsed into a leaking slump, the man riding shotgun was 200 meters back holding his knee and bawling like a child, and Jarvis waved to him. Twitch grabbed his bag of gold and started the long walk back to town.

And in the chaos and confusion, Jarvis kicked in the door, firing madly at the three men expecting their driver to be preventing just this sort of thing. The firing of his pistols, a distant popping outside, echoed in the hot metal chamber of the wagon, deafening him. While his boys rode around like wild idiots (there most only be four left), Jarvis holstered his hot iron. He placed his hand on the cool metal of his quarry. He touched its engines, and its handlebars. Gazed at himself, in his double-breasted white shirt coated with dust. Hanging off the speedometer was a pair of dark goggles, which he placed over his eyes, and the round helmet fit nicely. He smiled at himself. The demon mask seemed to accept the look of a motorcyclist without any dilemma.

He filled it with gas, and left the can upended, sloshing petrol around the room. He kicked open the rear door, threw the machine into gear, and flew out the back on his shiny new motorcycle, the wagon behind him engulfed in flames, his men immolating themselves trying to get at the promised gold that hadn't ever been there. On the road back to town, he spent his last bullet leaving Twitch penniless and oozing in the dusty sunset, while earthrise cast long leaden shadows on the prairie. For the first time in a long time, Jarvis the Bandit King laughed like a free man.