"It's been a while indeed, tiger. What are you doing here in the middle of nowhere, anyway?" The redhead asked me with some suspicion hidden in her tone.
"That's what I want to ask you. But the questions can wait, for now. Both yours and mine," I said with a shrug of my shoulder.
"Let me take a look at that wound of yours first unless you want to bleed out and die while we question each other, that is," I continued as I pointed my finger at her midsection, then at the pool of blood on the ground at the end of my sentence.
She hesitated for a moment but then relented. "Alright, I guess you're right," she remarked as she turned around to give me an unobstructed view of her back, then sat down cross-legged on the floor.
I approached her and sat on the ground behind her, and after taking permission, I lifted her shirt to examine her injury.
"You're quite lucky, miss Jones. Not only did the bullet miss your spine, but it also got stuck between two of your rips, which means it didn't puncture any vital organ," I said after a quick examination and took out my first aid kit from my backpack.
"I'll start first then. I'm a bounty hunter, and I was on the train this guy robbed," I said as I started patching her up by disinfecting the bullet wound with whiskey.
"Unfortunately, I didn't know he didn't have a bounty on his head until I was close enough to identify him," I said, and the redhead's only response was to grunt in pain as the alcohol made contact with her flesh.
"At first, I thought it was a wasted trip and was just about to turn around and leave when you and your friend showed up," I said as I took out a pair of medical tweezers, and I think she might have muttered, "he's not my friend" in between her grunts of pain.
I then gently inserted the tweezers into her wound and took it out along with the bullet after several probing nudges to find its exact location, causing her to grit her teeth in pain and start cursing under her breath.
"It shouldn't have left any serious damage except some fractures and bruises on your back ribs," I said as I flung the bullet in front of her." Now I need to close the wound, and we'll be done," I continued, and then took out my suture thread and a hypodermic needle.
I then washed her wounds with whisky again and started stitching her open wound.
"all done. You need to rest for a week or two, and then you'll be as good as new. Now that you're all stitched up, I think it's about time you tell me why you're here, and more importantly, why that Francis guy was targeting you." I said after completely stitching up her wound as I stood up and sat in front of her while offering her the whisky bottle.
"I'm a bounty hunter like you. That's why I came after him," she said as she took a large gulp from the whisky bottle and then handed it back to me.
I heard her explanations that were anything but truthful and just raised an eyebrow as I stared her right in the eyes. The staring contest continued for an entire minute until she averted her eyes in defeat while sighing.
"Alright, alright, yeesh. It's not like I really want to hide it, anyway. I just don't enjoy talking about it," the redhead said as her arms rose in surrender and then snatched the whisky bottle from my hands.
"I didn't come after that piece of shit because I was aiming for his head. I came after him because I have a bone to pick with his father and his crime family," she explained as she brought the whisky bottle to her mouth and tipped her backward.
"You see, my parents used to be successful animal wranglers. We even had a large piece of land just outside of the capital where we tended to our animals," she continued to explain with nostalgia written all over her face.
"Life was cakes and rainbows at the time, and everything was going just fine. But then the Nitti family showed up, demanding we pay them a monthly protection fee," she said while showing apparent signs of malice in her tone as she said the name "Nitti."
"Even though dad didn't want to give them even one belly of our hard-earned money, he still did it to avoid that kind of trouble." The redhead said as I continued to listen in silence while only shaking my head occasionally.
"After dad paid them for the first time, they kept increasing the amount they demanded every month until we couldn't afford to pay them," she said as she clenched her hands hard enough for her knuckles to turn white.
"that's when we realized they weren't interested in protection fees. They were trying to provoke my dad to give them an excuse to take over the ranch," she said as she lowered her head to hide her expression from my eyes.
"When we stopped paying them, they started all kinds of rumors about the ranch and even sneaked into our land to kill our animals. They started to follow us around and threaten us every time we left the house to go anywhere," the read head continued to tell her story as she took another large gulp of whisky.
"mom was the first to break. She took all the money she and dad had saved up and just disappeared one day," she remarked, but there was no resentment in her voice as she mentioned her mother.
"mom's disappearance was the last straw that broke dad's back. He just walked into the house one day, took his rifle, and went out. That was the last time I ever saw him." the redhead said as she raised her head, her teeth gnashing in bitter hatred. "I later learned from Bob, our butler, that he went out on his own terms as he attacked the Gangsters base and killed fifteen of them before he died himself," she as she used her sleeve to wipe away a single tear that had escaped her eyes.
"I then took away whatever I can from the mansion, especially all of dad's weapons that he kept from his bounty hunting days, and ran away with Bob. I've been biding my time ever since then and only acted on my revenge a year ago. But I seem to have drawn too much of their attention to me, leading to this situation." the redhead seemed to have finally calmed down as she pointed at the dead Gangsters lying all around us while shrugging her shoulders.
"well, miss Jones, I don't know what I was expecting your story to be, but that definitely wasn't it. It kinda makes me feel bad about asking," I said with a sheepish smile as I scratched my head awkwardly, trying to lighten the atmosphere.
"Elizabeth, my name is Elizabeth Jones. The least I can do after having my life saved by you is tell you my name," she said with a bitter chuckle. But it was indeed a chuckle, so I counted that as a win.