(2/4 of my 2m special releases) (this is like unused ending western ver)

’Let’s do this fairly,’ you’d said, like he’d said the first time before, when he didn’t know that after he shot you clean, drawing first as he always did, you’d come right back. When you’d said so, about ‘fairness’, he’d looked at you, dreary from the high sun, weary from your previous pursuits. You’d severed the rattle from his tail many deaths ago, but that wasn’t enough. His scalp, they said, his scalp and you’d be free. So, ‘let’s do this fairly,’ you’d said, and you’d handed him his gun you’d taken from him countless deaths back, though before he’d taken it in his battered claw, he’d looked up at you, your head haloed in sun, and murmured wishes for his mother.

’Let’s do this fairly,’ as if fairness wasn’t far from, the saboteur uncoiling tiredly so from his place in reddened dirt, head hung and shotgun loose in his grip as he slithers opposite. You turn too, hesitating almost before taking steps forward. Ten paces, too few for your sanity, yet too many for your freedom, and under spiteful eye of the noon sun, every pace feels like eternity. Ten paces, six now though, four you’d taken forward. You glance back despite yourself. He pauses, and thereafter, he goes slack, hunched low, shadow harsh against the dried brush and diamond pattern along his back like tapestry against the soil.

’Let’s do this fairly’; he isn’t even capable.