[RedM]: Outlaw's Lament - 3

"Anytime"

There was a particular night in the Dakotas
Where I nearly gave up the ghost.
I'd been kidnapped and tortured
Kicked, stabbed, and comatosed.

Telegrams taunted my people
But provided no solid clues
And deep in my slumber
I could not speak to the origins
of my abuse.

It had been a police chief and his wife,
Eyes full of sick glee
My people had dealt them many wrongs,
And now they would take it out on me.

As I lay in suspended sleep
The chief would confess to a marshal.
A friend of his, but all the same impartial.

He was stripped of his badge
and locked up that very night
But trouble arose as soon
as he had left their sight.

His wife – a doctor – was called to an incident
Deep within the walls of the prison.
Her husband, the ex-officer
had been found beaten,
Stabbed.
And never risen.

In a drunken haze after his funeral
His wife wandered the streets of the city.
When she spied one of my people,
She slurred no requests for pity.

Bottle in one hand she bragged
of what they'd done to me.
Kicked my knees until I could not stand
Bloodied my face until I could not see–

Drove a knife into my gut
with great pleasure
Then another into my lung
for good measure.

Enraged, my friend held his tongue
Never one to shoot
a drunk woman.
He tried to walk away
resolve this another day–

But she
pulled a gun.

When I finally roused
I cowered in the hospital corner.
It took seeing their obituaries
To convince me the nightmare was over.

I could see in my friend’s eyes
There was no pride in what he'd done.
No sense of accomplishment
From being on the run.

All the same
He'd done better work
Than some of the law back then–
I'd woken in a world
Where those who hurt me
Could never do it again.

This man was a good man
But he had the devil in him, he said.

He'd loved once before–
She filled his heart to the brim.
He'd come to the Dakotas for revenge
on the man who'd taken her from him.

We talked often of the idea
That it all happens for a reason.
That life and pain and change
Are as inevitable as the seasons.

He'd lost someone so dear,
A love so bright and sincere,
But he'd found a new place to lay his head,
And despite himself, found love again.

When our lives began to crumble
And we knew the end was near
He and his beloved fled
To a state far from here.
To lay their heads low
And not live in fear.

They both had bounties,
Wanted: Dead
And with what happened to Rabbit,
We knew the law
Had meant it.

He'd hated to abandon us,
But how could I blame him?

There is no change without sacrifice
As much as we don't like to consider it.
Sometimes our worlds don't get better
or worse
They just get different.

Stay safe, I told him.
Stay alive.
And start over.
Because once in a hideout
I'd given him a look,
somber and sober.

"I don't know if the right words are thank you,"
I'd said,
"But thank you."

And though heavy in the shoulders
from the weight of his crime,
"I don't know if the right words are anytime,"
he'd said.
"But... anytime."