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This chapter ended being shorter than i had hoped, but I do enjoy the cliff-hanger ending very, very much. Enjoy, and thank you for reading.

The drifter- Nicholson- looked around the bar, taking in the new scene that greeted him. He know had the rapt attention of the three barflies that had been at the counter since he arrived, and the bartender was leaning back against the off-white plasterboard wall, his glazed eyes fixed on the gunslinger. Nicholson swiveled on his stool and leaned his back against the bar, propping himself up on his elbows. The patrons and barkeep still stared at him, waiting for the others to react to the same sound that had brought him to the surface of consciousness an out of his almost entranced and slightly drunken story telling. When a few moments passed and nobody moved, he finally broke the silence.

"Did anybody else hear it?" Nicholson asked, cocking one lip higher than the other in a sort of half-hearted smirk. The bartender's eyes grew back into focus and somewhere behind his retinas the gears began to mesh and turn again. He shook his head, as if to clear away an obnoxious cloud of smoke from in front of his nose, and looked around sleepily before becoming fully alert again.

"Hear what?" The bartender asked, with no real urgency in his question. The other bar attendees were now also returning from wherever their minds had traveled, and looked slowly over at the barkeep, with all the speed of a person who had lain down in a field to relax on a pleasant warm day. Then the sound came again, louder. A high drone that warbled with syllables and intonations came from the town outside the makeshift bar. The double door was masking it, but it sounded (to Nicholson, at least) like the high pitched squeal of a frantic woman or child was speaking quite rapidly to somebody, rather loudly. The barkeep grunted, a lopsided grin creasing his face.

"Sounds like tha' damn youngen got himself into some scrape again. I s'pose I'll go have a looky-see..." He got up and maneuvered around the bar, pushing the door open with his shoulder and stepping outside. The gunslinger was unable to see out of the bar. When the door opened, searing light knifed into the building and slapped burning ghost images into the retinas of eyes, which were still adjusted to the darkness of the bar. He shielded his eyes and when the door closed he sat facing the bar again, staring at the threshold of the bar and waiting for the 'keep to return.

The drifter (and present company) watched through the foggy and dirty double-doors of the bar. All that could be seen through the glass doors (which were made of the sort of foggy, acid-washed glass that only lets the haziest detail come through.) was the blurry outline of the bartender as he walked about 3 feet from the doors and then appeared to stop. Loud, nervous voices came from beyond the door, and Nicholson quickly concluded that something was amiss as the blurred shadow of the barkeep raised its hands into the air slowly and went down onto his knees. The gunslinger grabbed the glass of water that he had slid aside when the alcohol arrived and splashed it roughly into his face, attempting to clear the whiskey-induced fuzz from his brain. Nicholson stood and drew his right revolver, thumbing the hammer back slowly. As he walked forward toward the door, he set his clawed finger above the trigger guard of the handgun, not wanting to be startled into wasting perfectly good ammo.

He reached the shady glass doors and got his face as close to the cool glass as he dared; not wishing to alert whoever the trouble maker was on the other side. What he could make out was this: The bartender was kneeling no more than a meter from the bar entrance, hands clasped tightly behind his head. A vague figure stood with his feet splayed apart (a sure sign he was tensed for something to happen), and an extended arm, pointing toward the barkeep. A short rod extended from his hand, and the gunslinger determined it to be a weapon, a long-barreled handgun. Firmly clasped to the figure's leg was a small child, maybe nine or ten of age, who was being held by the throat. The gunslinger's eyes narrowed to thin slits, and rage boiled in his gut. If Nicholson assumed right, this man was a Hunter.

The drifter's tail stood up straight, pressings itself up along his back, and his joints tightened together as adrenaline began to flow. He hefted the large caliber "Big Iron" up to the window and placed the nose of the barrel against the glass of the door. Standing at arm's length from the glass, he closed on eye and took careful aim, drawing the bead on the end of the barrel onto the fuzzy outline of the trouble-maker. Then, he waited. Conversations could easily be heard now, so close to the door.

"Get back!" The Hunter yelled, sounding hysteric. "I swear to GOD I won' think twice bout it!"

"Easy, easy..." Replied the bartender, not moving. "Jus' calm down buddy, I don't wanna do nothin." The gunslinger displayed his lopsided grin again, still peering down the barrel of his Big Iron at the hazy figure beyond the glass. His ear twitched to and fro, searching for the best angle to hear the voices that were drifting slowly to him.

"I said BACK UP!" The trouble-maker again. 'This is good', Nicholson thought, 'He's scared.' And indeed he was. He could see the distorted gun barrel quavering slightly through the glass, and he shuffled his feet every so often, probably unable to find a comfortable position. The child made a quiet whimpering sounds and the stranger knocked his knee against the kids back.

"Be quiet!" He screamed, pointing the gun at the kid's head. The drifter's finger tightened around the trigger, but didn't fire the weapon just yet. It was close, but not quite the opportunity he was waiting for. The stranger swung the weapon back toward the bartender, who had slid himself backward against the door of the bar. A crowd has started to form around the trouble-maker now, keeping a wide berth. The effect was a large and almost perfect circle of settlers, and smack in the middle was the stranger who planned on taking this child away.

'This,' the gunslinger thought, 'is not good. He's getting nervous.' Nicholson began muttering under his breath. "C'mon, c'mon, c'mon..." only faintly aware that the other patrons of the bar had scooted back against the far wall, not exactly FACINATED by the on goings, but wary of them. The stranger swung the weapon in a wide arc, yelling at the settlers to stay back. The ring formed around him was a ragged line of dirty clothes and whispers now, and the stranger was beginning to panic.

"BACK THE FUCK OFF!" He screamed, crazed, waving the weapon around at the line. "JUST BACK OFF AND LET ME OUT!" The stranger fired three shots into the crowd, attempting to clear them out. Two of the shots went wide, but the last one struck home. One of the crowd screamed and fell, clutching at his arm wildly. This did the trick. The crowd scattered and only a few, including the bartender, remained. The stranger swung the gun around again.

'Not quite...' The gunslinger thought, almost desperately. Then, it happened. The opportunity presented itself. The Hunter made a move to scare of the last few stragglers, and pointed his gun into the air, prepping to fire a warning shot.

"I said-" The stranger began to proclaim, but never got the chance to finish. Nicholson pulled the trigger.