Free Blood Moon by Jana Petken

fours, staring at the ground, which darted up to meet her. The ringing in her ears clouded her mind of all reasonable thought. Flashbacks to the shootings engulfed her, and she winced, reliving them as though they were happening in the present. She shook her head from side to side, and the ringing became a soft whistle. “Lina … Lina … Oh God, please no!” she sobbed.
    She crawled over to where Lina lay, her hands and palms grazed and cut on rough-edged stones. Lina’s legs lay awkwardly. Her hands cradled her belly, and she moaned softly through a mouth filling with blood. Mercy reached her. She took Lina’s hands and looked at the gaping hole in her stomach, bordered by a large patch of blood and looking black in the darkness. The bullet had gone all the way through. Blood was trickling outwards on the pebbles beneath her body. Mercy put pressure on the wound with both hands and stared into Lina’s rolling eyes. “Lina, Lina, I’m here. You’re going to be all right. I’ll get help …”
    Lina focused her eyes on Mercy’s face and laboriously lifted her bloodied hand to stroke it. “You did good, but ole Lina’s done …” She coughed silently. Blood stained her teeth and trickled down her chin.
    Mercy took Lina’s hand, raised it to her lips, and kissed it. “Don’t leave me, Lina. Please don’t go … Lina? Lina!” Mercy cried.
    Lina coughed once more in a feeble attempt to clear her blood-cluttered throat. Her eyes widened. She took her last breath whilst staring into Mercy’s eyes and then exhaled it slowly to linger in the night air.
    Mercy lay down beside Lina’s body, inconsolable with grief and shock, feeling physical pain. Her heart beat so fast it was making her dizzy. He mind filled up with thoughts and questions she couldn’t answer. What should she have done? was her first question. Why didn’t she shoot the two men when their backs were to her? She had hesitated. She had not wanted to fire. She never wanted to hurt them.
    “Oh God, forgive me, forgive me … Oh God, no!” She wept like a baby, rocking Lina in her arms. Her wrenching sobs ripped from her throat and joined howling animals nearby with barely a distinction in sound between them. Eventually, she crawled over to Seth. He was dead. She sat on the ground, covering her face with her hands. She should have reacted quicker, she thought, reliving it all over again. Her lack of courage and strength had taken the life of the woman she adored and that of an innocent boy.
    She struggled to her feet. She would never hesitate again. She had finally learned that in this life, you killed or were killed when guns were involved. There would be no more restraint. She would not be Mercy Carver with a gun in her hand. She would be a warrior, determined to survive. She would cull her fears, for precious lives had been snuffed out tonight because of her terror.
    She walked to the river on unsteady legs and washed her hands. She removed Eddie’s old hat and ducked her entire head under the river’s water in an attempt to shock herself into waking up from her stupor and to put a stop to her weeping. She stood looking at the scene, trying her best to put chaotic thoughts into some semblance of order. Her first priority was to get out of here. The two men had been alone. Had there been more of them, they would have come running upon hearing the cracking of gunfire that had echoed into the air. The shots had sounded like thunderclaps and would have reached a good distance; therefore, she had to presume that the two men she’d killed were not part of a bigger group.
    Her task now was to take Lina home to Charlie. The rifles belonging to the two dead soldiers were on the ground, still hanging loosely over the men’s shoulders. She left them where they lay. She went to the clearing and then led the horses and wagon back with her to the riverbank. She looked down at the man called Joe. He had killed Lina, and as far as she was concerned,