The train barreled into the station bringing with it a barrage of desert detritus. Those waiting at the stop shielded their faces with whatever filter was readily available. While the masses looked away and waited for the storm of dirt to settle, one man pushed through, his head tilted down to let the wide-brimmed hat protect a weathered and unshaven face. The train, however, was not his destination but rather the small shack with a slanted roof at the end of the platform. His boots bounced a resonant thump across the station’s boardwalk as he steadily strode at a comfortable pace past waiting travelers and emptying train cars. Steam already began to pulse from from the train engine as it readied for the next leg of its journey into the vastly unsettled Western Territory.

Voices poured forth from the shack, at least three full of menace and one confident but betraying a trace of fear. The man lightened his step and stopped just beside the door, pressing his right side against the shack’s exterior and listening for any sign within that his approach had been detected. Not hearing any change in the shack’s internal activity, he pushed aside the left side of his duster with his right hand and withdrew a large hand cannon. The man then rotated so his left side was pressed against the shack’s exterior and continued to listen closely to ascertain the occupants’ relative positions within the shack. Confident he could locate each voice’s source, the man stepped back from the shack to face it squarely and raised his armament. His right forearm tensed in anticipation of the coming action while his trigger finger waited for the command to apply just the right amount of pressure.

The man exhaled just as a voice from within the shack rose above the environmental din, “Hold up! Something doesn’t feel right, boys.”

Time slowed in that instance as the man’s neurons and synapses fired the signal to his index finger and the hand cannon kicked to life. A thunderous boom erupted from the gun and part of the shack’s wood exterior exploded into a cloud of splinters punctuated by the thud of an interior occupant slamming against the far wall. The man adjusted his aim and fired twice more, each shot finding its target through the maelstrom of sound and raining debris. He had the urge to continue allowing the beast to breathe fire, but its fury had nowhere to go. The man holstered the weapon, raised a boot, and launched it into the shack’s door, easily snapping the insufficient lock and sending the door flying inward. As the smoky haze inside the shack began to clear, the man could see his quarry sitting tied to a chair in the middle of the shack, the doorway’s light illuminating the prisoner’s haggard and worn state.

The bound man coughed to clear his lungs and then squinted into the invading light, speaking in a tired but thankful voice, “I know of only one person who would shoot blindly into a room and call it a well-planned rescue, but that person is supposed to be dead.”

The shooter’s silhouette eclipsed the the doorway as he entered and cocked a wry grin, “Boo.”