John sat against the ruins of a barn, his revolver in the dirt beside him, journal open on his knee. The same journal he'd carried through war—page after page stained with mud, blood, and smoke. He scratched the pen across paper, hand shaking but steady enough.
Yesterday, I came back home. I found my wife… eating our son.
He paused, cigarette hanging between his lips. His chest rose, fell. Smoke curled out in silence. Then he kept writing.
I shot her. Or what was left of her. My boy too, before he could reach me. Two shots. Two graves I'll never dig. Time: 0300 hours. Date doesn't matter.
He closed the book, shoved it in his pack, and stood. No destination. Just walking. Just surviving.
The farmlands stretched on forever—rotting silos, empty fields, fences twisted like bones. He scavenged scraps, ate dirt rations, until sleep finally pulled him under.
"Wake up, cowboy."
John jolted upright, revolver in hand. Three men stood around him, rifles trained. The first grinned like a hyena.
"Easy there. We can talk about this. I'm Savior Halls. That's Joe. That's Reese. Saw you asleep, figured—"
"That gives you a reason," John rasped, voice like gravel, "to fuck with me?"
Joe snarled. "I'll put a bullet in your damn head, boy. Show some respect."
John stood slowly, eyes dead, head tilting just a little. His revolver hovered low, casual, dangerous.
"Here's how it's gonna go," he said, calm as a hanging judge. "I'll kill Joe. Then I'll put a knife through Reese. Then I'll make you watch, Savior. I'll carve my name into your back before I put one last round in that thick skull of yours."
They laughed. Big mistake.
John's fist cracked into Savior's jaw. Before the man hit the dirt, BOOM—his revolver barked, Joe's skull snapping back. Reese screamed until John's knife buried itself in his groin, dragging up, carving letters across his body. His name: JOHN VAN REAP.
When it was done, John stepped back, revolver smoking, Reese gasping on the ground. Savior bolted into the fields, running wild, his screams carried by the wind.
A warning, branded in blood.
John Van Reap walked on.