They were halfway through when they heard the gunshots, followed by a woman's scream.
Ruby had her gun out of her holster and was running through the trees before Deacon could react, and she heard him swearing as he tried to catch up with her.
There were two more gunshots and one more scream before Ruby broke through the trees onto a small clearing. Little more than a cobbled-together shack and a small garden, both dripping scarlet.
A woman was on the ground, convulsing as her shredded lungs tried to draw air. Ruby slid to her knees in the dirt beside her, taking her reaching hand and grasping it tightly.
"It's okay," she forced out. "Relax. Relax. Just...just let go. Let go."
The woman's eyes, blue with far too much white showing, locked onto Ruby's. Something gurgled out of her throat that might have been an attempt at words. And her eyes rolled skyward as she died.
Ruby laid her hand down gently, reaching up with the other to slide the woman's eyelids shut. And she sat there for a moment, trying to breathe deeply without letting the overwhelming stench of blood turn her stomach.
"Did you plan this?" she asked after a moment. Deacon had come through the brush right behind her, just standing back as the woman died in Ruby's arms.
"Fixer, I - "
"Deacon, so help me god, I will drop you where you stand." Her voice came out between clenched teeth, threatening tears and violence in equal measure. "Did you plan this? Is this one of your stupid lessons? Lesson three hundred and fuck you, you can't save everyone?"
"No." Deacon's voice was quiet as he walked past her, kneeling next to a man near the door of the shack. As Ruby watched, he gently closed his eyes, as well. "No, that's not one of my lessons. Frankly it's not one I would have thought of."
"...why not?"
Deacon sighed. "Because everybody out here learns that one as an infant. Most of us have been to five or six burials by the time we hit double digits. Death is just...what happens, out in the wastes."
Ruby looked down, cutting her eyes away from the woman in front of her. "It's not fair," she said, almost too quietly to hear.
"It's not," Deacon agreed. "But it's the reality we have to live with. You have to pick your battles, save who you can, make sure you come out the other side to save the next one." He shrugged. "Most people don't even bother trying to save anyone else. It's all they can do to save their own skin."
He stood, walking over to Ruby and offering her a hand up. She accepted it with her clean hand, letting him pull her up to standing.
"Would you?" Ruby asked, looking up at him.
"What?"
"Save everyone? If you could?"
She couldn't see through the sunglasses at this angle, couldn't tell where he was looking. He didn't tip his head towards her or any of his other usual tells, just stared impassively at whatever he was looking at for a long, quiet moment.
"In a heartbeat," he said finally, voice soft. "In a fucking heartbeat." He did move then, breaking the stillness that had settled around them. "Come on," he said. "If they've got a shovel we can try to bury them. Otherwise we can set them up inside the shack, maybe try to block the door."
"You're sure?" Ruby asked, already moving towards the house.
"Can't save everybody," Deacon said. "Least we can do is afford them a little dignity."
