Shots rang out in their wake, and bullets whistled a sonic symphony as they zipped by, embedding themselves in whatever interrupted their path. The man pushed his quarry forward, but captivity had sapped the elder man’s strength and senses.

“You have a gun too, don’t you,” the older man asked, his question soaked in rhetorical sarcasm.

“I assumed you remembered how to run,” the man retorted.

Rather than continue the quarrel, the man pushed his elder off the boardwalk into a narrow alley, giving him temporary cover from the assault. The man followed into the alley and drew his hand cannon, pausing to take several deep breaths to calm his thudding heart.

“I’d thought you would’ve taken out the reinforcements first. Pretty sure that’s how you were trained.”

His heart rate restored to a manageable level, the man opened his eyes and gave a scolding look to the older man.

“My training was never finished. So far, I’ve managed to survive on improvisation.”

“Bah,” the old man gave a wry grin, “improvisation my flat backside! You learned enough to know how to shoot true.”

“That I did.”

Hammer cocked, the man took one last deep breath before turning and stepping out of the alley. The alley’s shadows withdrew as the man was once again bathed in sunlight, his raised hand cannon throwing off glints of sunlight. Thundering boom after thundering boom resonated through the alley and drowned the chaos of the boardwalk firefight. Bystanders peeking from windows or huddled behind whatever cover the boardwalk offered witnessed a magnificent and violent display of marksmanship. Men were lifted off their feet as the hand cannon’s heavy rounds tore through them. Not a shot was wasted.

As men dropped with each boisterous proclamation from the hand cannon, a shadow moved far down the boardwalk, behind the commotion. The shadow’s legs moved with nimble agility to coincide with a keen awareness of its surroundings. After a light pause, the shadow leapt upon a stack of crates and found its way atop a small shed. While the building was short, it provided an open view of the boardwalk that was only occasionally skewed by steam from arriving and departing trains. Abandoned roofing supplies created a convenient defilade behind which the shadow now rested.

***

She laid on her stomach and focused down the rifle’s sight. No shots were coming her direction, so the position behind the tar pails and shingles was still secret. Her breathing became slow and shallow, barely registering any movement as she watched him work.

“My goodness, he is a special one,” she thought. “Shame.”

***

He sensed the trigger squeeze. It rippled outward like water breached with a stone. In the minutest fraction of time, the man knew no one on the boardwalk fired the shot, and in the next fraction of time, it hit him.

***

The older man watched art in motion with rapt awe. His work had not been wasted on this pupil, but he had always known that. This was, however, the first time he had witnessed his student in action. There was elegance in his motion and fury in his focus.

Suddenly, however, the elder noticed the slightest change in the man’s movement. There was a hesitation, a flicker of uncertainty. Then, with a violent jerk, the man’s head snapped back, and he fell in a crumpled heap to the boardwalk planks. The last shell casing clinked to the ground, providing final punctuation of the prior minutes’ chaos and creating the opportunity for silence to swarm in and reclaim its dominion over the boardwalk.