For months now, you'd been going town to town, scoping places out, laying low until you weren't. And over that time, you'd earned quite a bounty for yourself, a name alongside it. As far as outlaws went, you weren't coldblooded. Your crimes mainly consisted of robbery and cheating at cards, though the latter was essentially treated worse than murder in some parts.

Other than your few run ins with the law, you'd gotten off scot free, growing a taste for this lifestyle. You could build rather a reputation for yourself in one town, and use those good people's cash in the next one over, buy yourself something nice to drink.

However, this time you'd got too cocky, flown too close to the sun. There wasn't some dramatic chase on horseback, the mean hearted sheriff taking an unfair shot at you with your back turned. This wasn't some story you could paint yourself the underdog in, you were simply yanked off guard by the back collar of your jacket on your way out of a saloon with your pockets full. Bad luck.

Also just your luck, the town you were in didn't particularly want to deal with you there, something something about the marshal from the place over holding a grudge. This meant you were assigned one Deputy J. Potter as transport for you. The journey would be around four hours by horse, but the law weren't keen on giving you one of those. Instead they gave you some snugly tied rope around your wrists that you could already tell would rub and leave awful welts, and threw this J. Potter the rest of the line.

He was allowed a horse, that figured. You'd been trudging along for the better chunk of five hours at this point, and while the peak of the day had passed, the pair of you were sweating like all hell.

"Can you go any quicker?" * Deputy Potter, or* James as he'd mentioned maybe two hours in, complained over his shoulder, though he didn't have the right gruffness in his voice to actually spur you to change your pace. He did seem a little young for this job.

Despite your lack of response, he seemed to take pity on you. You were quite certain your forehead was already starting to peel from the blazing sun beating down. He grumbled something and gave a sigh before slowing his horse enough that he could toss his hat down to you, waiting for you to be able to pick it up.

Offering you a mercy. He really was too soft for this job.