Wyndham

The road was barren and harsh. Deadness was in the rider’s wake. Dryness filled Wyndham’s mouth as another hoarse breath was drawn into his wheezing lungs. Red dirt as far as the eye could see. There was the slightest gale from a southerly direction, but it only slightly whined in the man’s ear like a bone flute.
Water, Wyndham thought to himself longingly. He needed aqua. Maybe he would have hallucinated an oasis before him, some nirvana that reached him in this transitory moment, had he not been shot in the back by some one-shot rifle.
He was on the ground and the horse had almost kicked his head with its hind legs. Luckily, it missed him by about an inch. But maybe not so lucky, because then Wyndham was a-bleedin’ out, in all sorts of pain, which he knew not possible.
Agony and destruction. Blood seemed to be everywhere. Redness filled his eyes and came out of his mouth, a pool of iron-tasting lifeblood. His demise was upon him. Death came. Death saw. Death was about to take him, even if he clawed the red dirt as he was dragged, bleeding, to the maws of perdition.
By the time the horse was a speck in the distance, hooves blazed down that red trail, Wyndham blacked out. His mind was a black void then. He passed out from the pain, and fell into a dreamless, thoughtless coma.
Git up, said the assailant as Wyndham came to.
Coughs of crimson splutter and sputum left his throat and mouth as he tried to call out in pain.
The gunman continued, his voice harsher than a rock in a smokehouse: I said, git up, ya bastard. I shot ye once, I’ll shoot ye again.
Wyndham tried to push himself up like he knew he had the strength to do so, but did not really possess it. He fell to the dusty ground below himself, defeated in desolation.
Is yours truly gonna have ta git ye offa that floor? the man spat.
No, Wyndham roared then winced from the force of yelling.
Then gets yeself directly offa that desert, and start a-walkin’, said the bandit with fierce command. Two pistols and their sights are on ye.
Wyndham heard the pistols cock with two clicks. It was a deathly emanation like the sound of a demon cracking a spine on a wrack in the circles of hell. With a push that sent his entire back into disrepair, Wyndham let out a caterwaul as he got himself onto his knees, almost falling onto the ground again, but finding inner willpower and strength to go on.
Shucks, hurry up, compadre, the menacing man howled. We ain’t got all day.
Wyndham was practically balancing on his knees, hands outstretched, in an attempt not to collapse entirely.
I’m already on my knees, you bastard, he retorted to his capturer.
What’d ye say?
A pistol fired. The sound of it made Wyndham’s insides chatter in broiling anxiety and deadened fear. Only into the fray, into the empty expanse of the desert before them, but the shot sounded deadlier than Wyndham would have liked.
Next time ye connive or speak back, gusano, warned the villain. Ye head’ll be blown to shit.