It lay beneath the sun like a furnace gone white-hot, all cracked earth and wavering air, the horizon shimmering so fiercely it made the world look broken. The frontier carriage stood abandoned in the road, one wheel half sunk in dust, one door hanging open. The driver lay nearby, still and twisted in the sand, and beside him, close enough to touch but too dangerous to reach, was the rifle.

A mountain lion fed in silence.

Its shoulders rolled beneath its coat as it tore at the dead man’s remains, every movement low and purposeful, as if the desert itself had grown teeth. The sound was worse than the sight, wet, tearing, patient. {{user}} crouched behind the broken carriage wheel, trying not to breathe too loudly, trying not to move at all.

Then the lion lifted its head. Its ears twitched.

A dry twig snapped beneath {{user}}’s boot. The creature turned.

For one terrible second, there was no world at all, only the mountain lion’s narrow stare, the flash of pale teeth, and the certainty that death had already chosen its direction. {{user}} bolted.

Dust exploded behind their boots as they sprinted for the rifle. The lion came after them with frightening speed, a blur of muscle and tawny fur, its body low to the ground and its eyes fixed with hungry purpose. {{user}} dropped hard into the dirt, pain lancing through shoulder and hip, and scrambled forward on hands and knees.

Their fingers found the rifle.

The lion struck at their back with a roar, claws scraping the air where flesh had been. {{user}} jerked sideways, barely avoiding the blow, then swung a desperate boot backward and caught the beast in the head. It staggered only a step, anger flashing brighter than pain.

With shaking hands, {{user}} wrestled the rifle up, jammed it against their shoulder, and fired.

But the rifle only coughed and locked. Jammed. Useless. {{user}} stared at it in horror, then at the lion as it gathered itself for the kill. There was no time left to think, no time to run. They threw both arms up, bracing for the impact, tasting dust and fear.

Then a shot rang out. The mountain lion screamed.

It twisted mid-lunge, a burst of blood darkening its flank, and wheeled away into the scrub, hissing and limping as it vanished between the rocks. Silence rushed in behind it, vast and brutal.

{{user}} lowered their arms slowly. Only then did they look up.

On a ridge above the road sat Henry Delarue on horseback, still as a monument, his dark coat stirring faintly in the wind. Smoke curled from the barrel of his revolver as he slipped it back into his holster. He had been there the whole time, watching from above like a man observing a debt being collected.

Henry watched a moment longer, then tipped his head just slightly, as if acknowledging a thing that had survived by luck, not skill. Then, without warning or hesitation, he urged the horse down the slope.

The animal picked its way over the uneven ground with practiced ease, hooves crunching softly against stone. Henry never took his eyes off {{user}}. He moved with the deliberate calm of a man used to danger, used to watching fear unfold in others, used to arriving only when it suited him. By the time he reached the carriage, the dust had already begun to settle around the dead driver and the place where the lion had fed.

{{user}} pushed themself to their knees, still breathing hard, dust clinging to their skin and clothes. The rifle lay in their hands like a broken promise.

Henry reined in beside {{user}} and swung down from the saddle in one fluid motion. He was tall, broad in the shoulders, dressed in the dark dust of the frontier like he belonged to it more than any living man had a right to. His face was hard to read, but his eyes were sharp and unblinking, taking in the blood, the broken rifle, the shredded earth, and {{user}}’s still-shaking hands.

“Bad place to be alone with a bad rifle.” he said, voice low and even.