ORIGINS, Death

“Someone, someday is gonna kill those two drugged out terrorist assholes, and I hope I’m there when it happens. I will buy that executioner a cold beer in celebration.” Twenty year old Bethany Ragsdale was listening to the evening news on an old radio as she expertly butchered a rabbit in a shared commune garage. “Hell, I have half a mind to find them and kill them myself.”

The reporter was talking about a fundamentalist pagan religious group called The Church Of Sand. They got high on the sacred medicine of peyote and robbed banks. Even though authorities caught or killed the majority of the bank robbers, the two group leaders seemed to escape every time with loads of cash, hurting bystanders and terrifying innocent people along the way. 

Bethany laid a few thin rabbit thigh filets in wax paper and wrapped them up as she continued. “I’m telling you Hoss, I’m tempted to leave the commune and go on the grid. I’d go into law enforcement, just so I can hunt these FUCKY fuckfaces down.” 

Old Hoss nodded slowly as he sipped a can of cheap American lager, took a deep breath and replied in his scratchy, haggard voice, “Rags, friend, it’s time.” 

She put down her knife, turned down the radio and paid attention as he continued. “Come again, Hoss?”

“Sweetie, as you’re aware, everyone you meet is capable of good, bad, and everything in between. But there are some who are just plain bad. I know this aint something that you’d expect to hear from an old long grey haired hippie living in a libertarian commune in Colorado, but I’m telling you, those bad people need to be eliminated by any means necessary.”  Bethany paid attention even closer. “Listen girl, you’ve got what it takes to be one of those people who does the house cleaning.” 

Bethany’s eyes got big as she understood the implications of his words. “I’m not a killer!” 

Hoss took a sip of his beer, smiled and said, “sweetie, you’re the best killer I’ve ever met. Your heart is good, but you understand death. Your situation is ideal. There’s no record that you exist in any government database, anywhere. Your instincts are pure and your skill is honed to perfection. I’ve seen you shoot a deer from a thousand yards away in a wind storm with a bow and arrow. When you’re shooting, your aim is true, and god help the man who gets in your way if you have a blade. I’m telling you, you were born to rid the world of evil men.” 

Bethany collapsed in a corner as she processed his words.  She’d always loved her hippie commune family, but she had an angry violence that lived deep within her.  Hoss obviously always knew too.  She said, “but what do I do from here? Do I move to a city? Do I stay here?” 

Hoss finished his beer and crushed the empty can with his strong hands as he said, “before I fought in Vietnam, I doubted myself too. But you know way more at this point in your life than I did when I was your age. Your hippie parents have taught you to live off the grid, how to heal yourself when you’re injured or sick, how to never get nailed for taxes, to grow your own food and best of all, how to make and use your own booze. I’ve taught you how to hunt, fight, shoot, hot wire engines and build anything you could imagine. You’re ready.” 

Bethany stood up and said with clarity, “well I’m broke as fuck, so it’s not like I’m going anywhere for awhile, whether I’m living off the land or corporate food.” 

Hoss smiled, reached in his pocket and tossed the young woman a small bag of coins. “Gold,” he grinned. “Take it to town, cash a few in, and from there, follow your gut. Take your guns. Steal an older car when no one is around. Head to the desert and pay attention. You’ll find those bad men, and when you do, extinguish them.” 

Bethany stood there staring at the bag of gold coins in her hand as Hoss cracked another beer. “And wash up,” he added, “cuz no coin dealer is gonna wanna deal with a girl covered in rabbit blood.” 

An hour later, Bethany Ragsdale walked into a bank in Colorado Springs with a bag full of gold coins intending to cash some of it in. Suddenly, the hair on the back of her neck stood up. In the distance, dogs stopped leg humping strangers in a park. The lights went out in the bank lobby as the power was obviously cut. She instinctively ducked as she turned around to see a man wearing a ski mask with an uzi pointed at the ceiling several feet behind her. The man yelled, “Everyone down!” and pulled the trigger. 

Without thinking, she grabbed the bag of gold from her pocket and perfectly threw the bag in the gunman’s face as he shot bullets at the ceiling. As he fell backwards, she lunged forward in a summersault roll and perfectly grabbed the man’s gun while onlookers screamed and dropped to the floor. Looking from side to side, she saw several masked gunmen at opposite sides of the bank. They drew their weapons and pointed them at her. 

She didn’t think. She just did. Bullets flew, people screamed, bodies dropped. As the smoke cleared, her gun clicked empty of ammo. Five gunmen were dead, but the sound of a car peeling out of the bank parking lot could be heard. “Oh, HELL NO,” Bethany said to herself, knowing that once again, the masterminds were escaping. 

She sprinted several paces towards the door and did a front flip. In doing so, she grabbed a gun from one of the dead gunmen she’d just mowed down. She then shot out the broken front story window and jumped out as she unloaded the clip into the rear of the escaping vehicle. 

As if from a scene in a Hollywood movie, the car ignited as the bullets blew a hole in the gas tank of the vehicle, the static electricity of lead hitting metal igniting the now spilled fuel. Two burning bodies ejected from the car, and Bethany gladly filled the flaming corpses with lead to put them out of their misery. 

She wiped her finger prints and dropped the gun, then jumped back into the bank and ran back to grab her initial bag of gold coins. A college boy who was obviously stoned off his ass was lying flat on the ground and made eye contact with her. She smiled and winked, trying to half flirt with the young man but also put him at ease before she made her first ever get away. He smiled his stoner smile back and sounded like a surfer from southern California as he asked, “dude, woah, are you an angel?” 

She laughed as she turned to run away and said, “I aint no angel, friend, but if you’re a bad guy, then I’m your agent of death.” 

“Agent of death,” he muttered back.

Like that, she disappeared. 

Later that night, Hoss smiled ear to ear as he drank a cold beer in the commune garage and listened to a radio announcer tell of a violent news story where the infamous two charismatic leaders of The Church Of Sand were burned and shot in their car by a lone gun woman while trying to flee the scene of their own robbery.  Hoss actually laughed out loud when the reporter said that no cameras were able to get pictures or footage due to a power outage caused by the bank robbers, and the only witness of the gun woman was a college stoner who called her, “Agent Death.”