Solia's Revenge

(2021, Excerpt)

When Solia was still about a half-mile away, a figure emerged, and hugging the rock wall, she took another look through her binoculars. There he was, the bastard, the coward Little Jake himself. He looked oddly peaceful, if a bit tired. For a moment, he watched the horizon while smoking a pen, then hustled back inside.

Now was her chance. Quickening her pace, Solia closed the remaining distance. She stood outside the door for a moment, red and panting, then kicked it open with rifle in hand.

There were four of them. The ranch hand and an older child of maybe ten were standing by a pot on the stove. Jake held a little one, who began to cry. She recognized a dread in her brother's eyes, as if he'd been expecting this moment for a long time. The ranch hand started to finger a pistol at his hip, but Little Jake stopped him. Without taking his eyes off Solia, he passed the child to his partner and stood, arms raised.

“I know you're angry.” His voice faltered. “You've got a right. But the ranch is yours. Everything is. I transferred it over before leaving. I know it can't change the past, but please, Solly, don't hurt my family. This is between us.”

Solia was shaking. Sweat streamed into her collar. She gripped the gun tight, but said nothing.

“Let's do this out back, ok? For their sake. Don't make 'em watch.” Little Jake shifted his weight nervously from one foot to the other.

After a cautious moment, he inched to the door and gingerly pushed it open. Solia followed close behind, averting her eyes from the children in the corner. Little Jake made his way around back and stopped beside the rock wall, clutching his heart and looking to the sky. After nearly thirty years he'd finally caught himself thinking O'fiver was beautiful. Warily, his gaze drifted down to his sister, ten paces away with her finger on the trigger.

Solia was still. Memories flashed by her like she was riding past them on a wingbike. Isaac bleeding out, rustlers laughing. The horror in Becca's eyes as Little Jake lay on the courtroom floor begging, “Please, Solly, please Solly, no!”

Under witness of the vast orange desert and the scorching hot alien sun, Solia dropped her coil rifle and turned away. Jake's heart fluttered as the gun hit the dust. Blood rushed violently to his head and his legs gave out. Not knowing if he'd been shot or spared, he watched his sister going off.

Refusing to look back, Solia ran away from the little shack and its inhabitants. There was a happiness they had that she could never find, not through revenge, likely never at all. Tears fell off her chin and evaporated on the dry sand as she made her way back to the bike.