A Single Drop Of Rain

The sky was gray as I waited for him to turn up. He was smart, waiting till I was bored before he spoke.

“Toss the gun over by the cactus!”

Cursing, I tossed my sidearm at the plant. After a few moments, he came out from behind a boulder, gun trained on me.

“Bluerock, I presume?”

He shot past my ear.

“I do the talking!

I can get you Red Dust, all nice and neat. But he swings for my crimes too.”

I wiped a raindrop from my cheek.

“Why?”

He looked… Odd.

“Because I’ve already swung for them, before…”

G.S.S. Highwayman

Humanity is extinct, at least enough so to be declared that by the five different groups that swore they run the galaxy.

But a few humans, the occasional person, or almost-person? They are around, if you looked hard enough, working in exotic brothels, on mining planets, Clauy Gak the holoactor is rumored to be one.

Me? I’m human, I guess. And I’ve spoken to all of the others that I could find.

None of them remember doing this all before. None of them have had past lives.

Heading for the border of known space now.

I might be back.

Maybe.

Wegelagerer, R.D (1889-1934)

Unlike Mongolians, who were prohibited to work on the Dam by the contract with the government, the number of Negroes was kept low not by law, but rather just be convenience. Having to have separate buckets was ‘unreasonably costly’, plus most of my superiors were, ahem, sceptical of the quality of work they could do. But I didn’t have any such thinking, I’d left Germany to avoid such thinking, and so I tried to push them to do good work.

Too hard, I guess. I mean, one moment, ‘I’ll be back with water’, the next, my rope snaps, I fall…

El Bandolero

The ship was just carrying spices. Every crewman, from the Captain down to the Cabin Boys would say the same thing.

Although the riggers were getting a little sick of the lie. The ship was making a killing going after the weak and defenceless ships, and thus the riggers were really the only ones putting their lives in danger, so why shouldn’t they get a bigger share?

That was what Redsoot was telling all the other riggers, at least. Then during one storm, after telling the others he’d be back, he went up the mainsail, and then he ‘got killed’…

Highwayman

The reward got up to six thousand before Red Dust was caught.

All through the trial, he was at both open and unrepentant, freely admitting to robbing dozens of stagecoaches and killing at least thirty US Army soldiers, and yet also oddly defiant, as around half of the crimes on his record he insisted he had not done.

No matter, those that he admitted to were more than enough.

As the noose was fitted around his neck, and the last rites given, the hangman asked for his last words.

“I’ll be back.” he spat as the hatch below him opened.