It was more than a full mile of switchbacks before the boy reached the bottom of the hill, but with enough distance between him and the Bowman, he finally took a quick moment to catch his breath. He looked over at his wounded arm and scowled. The arrow was still protruding from his shoulder, his shirt sleeve soaked with blood, but he knew better than to pull it out quite yet. His camp was still another several miles from the base of the hill, and with the sun beginning to set, he needed to keep moving.

An hour later, he finally came upon his tent, and Sawyer collapsed on his bedroll completely spent. The adrenaline that had carried him this far was now long exhausted, and the throbbing of his shoulder was the only thing he could think about. Still, the boy had no painkillers of any kind. No extra-strength aspirin. No Knock-You-On-Your-Ass Vicodin. Not even a bottle of whiskey like they had in the old Westerns that he had watched with his father. Still, there was no way around it—the arrow had to come out, and he pulled the pliers from his pack and repeated another one of his father’s favorite mantras.

“No pain, no gain; no thorn, no throne.”

With a final sigh, the boy clamped the teeth of the pliers around the shaft and closed his eyes. A single, hot tear rolled down his cheek in anticipation. His voice was shaky as he sucked in a huge gulp of air and counted down from three.

“Three, two, one. Go.”

The boy squeezed the pliers closed and yanked on the shaft as hard as he could, ripping the arrowhead straight out of his shoulder with one swift and severe motion. The pain was like nothing he had ever felt before, and Sawyer could muster little more than a dull whimper as the wound split open and began to gush fresh blood. A tremendous wave of nausea rolled through his body. There was nothing in his stomach to throw up, and he dry-heaved a mess of spit and bright yellow bile into his lap. For a moment, he told himself that the hard part was over, but then he looked over at the wound. It was wide and gaping, and he half cried, half laughed out loud.

“Damn it. I don’t think duct tape is going to cut it this time.”

The boy could see that the wound would need to be stitched closed, and he opened the pocket of his backpack and pulled out the sewing kit. Sawyer had used the kit only a few times, to repair holes in the tent and his clothing, and it took him several attempts just to thread the needle. He cleaned the wound as well as he could, and when he was finally ready, he whispered quietly to himself.

“Here goes nothing.”

Sawyer bit down on his lip hard enough to draw blood, and, feeling as if he were somehow detached from himself, he slipped the needle beneath his skin. Twice the boy lost consciousness from the pain, and although the patch job was jagged and excruciating in its creation, at the end he could not help but look down at the black stitches in morbid satisfaction. Somehow, against amazing odds, the boy had once again lived to fight another day, and as he fell back on his bedroll, thoughts of revenge were already heavy on his mind.

It took him two full weeks to recover, and on the night before he planned to return to the hill, the boy once again had the reoccurring dream that he was being attacked by ravenous crows. However, in this particular dream, the crows’ sharp beaks were twisted into long, silver arrowheads, and the birds stabbed and tore at his flesh as he tried to fight them off. In the dream, Sawyer had nothing but his bare hands to fight back with, but when he awoke the next morning and saw the shotgun resting beside him, he knew that the time had finally come. Taking the shotgun in his hands, he stepped out of the tent and looked up at the sky. Dark cumulonimbus clouds were gathering in swollen pockets along the horizon, and the boy’s eyes narrowed.

“Better watch out, Bowman. There’s a storm coming your way.”

Sawyer took his time ascending the hill once again, and as the skies opened for a rare summer shower, he kept a watchful eye out for the Bowman. The first day, he saw no signs of the man, but the boy was patient, and he filled his bottle with rainwater and waited. When he finally caught a glimpse of a lone figure slipping from shadow to shadow on the eve of the second day, the boy smiled, whispering under his breath.

“Ready or not, here I come.”

Without a second’s hesitation, Sawyer dropped from his rooftop perch and hit the ground running. He had wanted to wait and control the adrenaline rush until the perfect moment, but as soon as he saw the curved bow in hand and the quiver of arrows strapped to the figure’s back, he let the adrenaline wash over him, his heart suddenly racing, every muscle engorged with blood. He flipped the safety off the shotgun and exhaled slowly. The Bowman was only a dozen or so yards away now, and coming toward him, and as was his habit, the boy counted down from three once again.

“Three, two, one. Go.”

In a flash, Sawyer rushed out from behind cover, his adrenaline at full tilt, the Mossberg leveled and ready. The Bowman looked up in absolute shock at the boy coming toward him, but before he could reach for an arrow, Sawyer took careful aim, and pulled back on the trigger. The double-zero buckshot tore through the man like he was made of rags, and the wooden bow splintered in his hands as he was blown backward by the blast. The sound of the shotgun was like a bomb going off in the otherwise silent street, and the crows took to the air by the hundreds, the sky suddenly black. Sawyer slowly reloaded the weapon and walked toward the wounded man.

The heavy steel buckshot had torn through the Bowman’s chest and neck, and small fountains of blood were leaping from his exposed skin. Sawyer lifted his sleeve and showed the man the jagged, purple scar on his shoulder.

“Remember me?”

The Bowman looked up at him and nodded, but his windpipe was shredded, and he could not speak. The boy bent down beside the man and shook his head.

“I’m not sure why you tried to kill me in the first place, but I do know that payback’s a bitch. I’m sure you understand. That’s just the way it is, right? No hard feelings.”

Sawyer instinctively racked the shotgun to load another round, but the boy had no intention of firing the weapon again. He had seen enough men die to know that the Bowman was not long for this world, and he waited only a few seconds for the man to take his last breath before he began to search the body. He quickly found that there was nothing much of use on his person—some matches and a decent knife, but the bow was ruined, and Sawyer had no use for the arrows.

There was one item that caught the boy’s eye, however. Inside a back pocket, the man was carrying a single photo of a smiling, blond-haired girl, and Sawyer held it up and studied it in the waning light. He could only assume it was the Bowman’s daughter, but he had no way of knowing for certain. She looked so happy, so carefree, and for a moment the boy wondered if anyone would ever feel that way again. He let out a long sigh, but as he reached down to put the photo back in the dead man’s pocket, he suddenly had the uncanny feeling that he was being watched. The boy spun around with the shotgun ready, but there was no one there, not even a single crow. Still, Sawyer knew better than to ignore his instincts this time, and without so much as another look back, he dropped the photo on the Bowman’s chest and quickly headed back to his camp.

The boy had chosen his campsite for the simple fact that it was well off the beaten path and very well concealed, and by the time he reached his tent, he was no longer feeling uneasy. He had done what he had set out do, and without remorse he fell back on his bedroll, letting his heavy eyelids fall shut. It was not long before the boy fell asleep, but just as he was about to enter another familiar dream, Sawyer suddenly awoke, and he sat up in his sleeping bag and rubbed his eyes. The unmistakable smell of lighter fluid was suddenly heavy inside the small nylon tent, and for a moment the boy was convinced that he must still be dreaming. Nevertheless, only a moment later, a flash of bright light unexpectedly bounced off the top of the tent, and before Sawyer knew what was happening, the roof suddenly burst into orange flames and began to melt down on top of him.

Instantly wide awake, Sawyer kicked his legs free of his sleeping bag and scrambled to his feet, closing his eyes and launching himself through a hole in the burning tent. He landed on his hands and knees, but as he tried to stand up he was suddenly attacked from behind, a heavy wooden axe handle smashing into the back of his head. He heard the sickening thud of the wood bouncing off his skull, and he fought to remain conscious as a half dozen more blows rained down upon his back, the sound of the wood cracking bone ringing in his ears. He somehow managed to get to his feet just as he caught the glint of a large knife reflected in the moonlight, the heavy, curved blade whistling in his ear as it came inches away from his face. His attacker came at him with relentless abandon as Sawyer scrambled back to his feet and raised his arm to block the plunging knife, the blade hitting his forearm at an angle and rebounding hard off his elbow, blood spraying as he screamed in pain.

Sawyer staggered and fell backward over the melted tent, landing heavily as the dark figure above him rushed forward with the knife. With only a split second to react, Sawyer put all of his strength into a single sweeping kick, swinging his leg in a powerful, low arc. A loud crack shattered the night air as the assailant’s shinbone was snapped in two by the kick, and the attacker crashed to the ground, the knife lost somewhere in the darkness. Sawyer did not waste another second. Like an animal, he launched himself on top of his assailant, landing a series of devastating blows with his fists, his knuckles ripping open as they smashed through teeth and bone. He groped wildly in the darkness until he found his attacker’s neck, clamping both hands around it with brutal force, the boy ignoring the sharp nails tearing at his face as he shifted his weight forward to crush the windpipe.

Blood and spit poured from his mouth as he pressed down with all his remaining strength, struggling to hold his grip as the attacker writhed like a serpent underneath him. For what seemed like eternity, they wrestled in the darkness, but just as he felt he could fight no longer, the body underneath him went suddenly limp, and after one final shudder, Sawyer knew it was all over.

As soon as he was able, Sawyer lifted himself to his feet and stared at the body lying beside him. The night was dark, but as the clouds moved across the sky, the moon was nearly full, and as Sawyer’s eyes began to adjust, he leaned in close, his brow furrowed. He shook his head in confusion as the moonlight illuminated the bloody corpse, his voice shaking.

“What the hell did I do?”

A tendril of long, dirty blond hair was draped across the face, the fingers on both hands tapered and thin, gold and silver rings reflecting dimly. Even in the faint light of the moon, he could now see clearly what he had done, and his mouth fell open as he stepped back in horror and disbelief. At his feet lay the body of a teenage girl, her dead eyes staring up at him. Her delicate features had been smashed into a bloody pulp, but the boy thought of the photo of the blond-haired girl, and suddenly he knew exactly who she was and why she had come to kill him.

“Goddamn it all to hell. The Bowman’s daughter.”

Sawyer had killed men before, but he had never laid a hand on a girl in his entire life, and suddenly he felt as if he were going to be sick. He sat down and put his head in his hands, ignoring his wounds as he tried to fight back the tears. It took him some time to compose himself, and by the light of the moon he started collecting anything that had survived the fire, trying but failing to ignore the body of the dead girl resting only a few feet away.

Despite his refusal to accept it, the boy was in bad shape himself, the burns on his face and scalp weeping and painful, the cut on his forearm dirty and bleeding. His head and face were covered in contusions and cuts, a series of long, deep scratches running from his forehead down to his chin. He could not be sure, but he felt that at least a few of his ribs had been fractured, and every breath he took sent sharp pains through his chest and back. He took what seemed like an eternity to gather up what was left of his supplies, and as dawn began to break, he finally looked over at the Bowman’s dead daughter and sighed.

“I can’t leave her like this.”

Sawyer wanted nothing more than to simply walk away and put it all behind him, but he knew that he could not just leave the girl where she was, her bones left to be picked clean by crows. He had no shovel, or the strength to dig a proper grave for that matter, but he covered the girl with what was left of the tent and stacked heavy stones over her body. He never took the time to look for the knife, or to search the girl’s body, and he took nothing of hers when he left. The boy knew that he had already taken everything he could from the girl, and the scars from that day would be more than enough to remind him of her for the rest of his life.