I’ve been running for so long

All that’s left is skin and bones

Washed and fades and falls into another
I’m not getting any further

A receding glimpse of setting sun peered over his shoulder as he stared ahead. He didn’t have to open his eyes to know what was there. Grasping for him, tendrils of smoke drifted away, carrying silenced screams with them. 
I’m too late… 
Behind tears concealed by shadow, he took the reigns as ash and amber sifted beneath him. The man let his medallion slip from his fingers to be consumed by the blaze he was leaving behind. Away from dying flames his horse took him, towards the line where the sky meets the earth.

Blind devising ways to lead the blind

And it seems as if there’s no end in sight

I don’t wanna be there when it all goes down
But if I gotta be there, don’t let me hit the ground til I hit the ground

He spurred his steed past the endless expanse of desolation, never once stopping, never once looking back. Hooves pounded the barren wastes, tearing up the dust behind him. Meters became miles. Night became day. The pain stayed the same. Untouched villages flew by, leaving with him the cheers of children too familiar. 
	You don’t know what happened...I can’t be your hero.
Pale skies darkened and villages turned into towns. Unable to meet their averting eyes, wary folk snapped their shutters closed as he came to a halt. His searing pulse drowned out mocking hollers of men behind closed saloon doors. In the frigid black air, chilling sweat slid down his spine.

And they say that I am the sick boy

Easy to say when you don’t take the risk, boy

He was fueled by the burning of lives unjustly taken. Dismounting his horse, his boots hit the gravelly crossroads with a crunch and he buckled under the weight of the world. Opening his clenched eyes, he unholstered his six-shooter. 
	He fired a single shot into the sky. 
Townsfolk shouted, animals fled, and the doors of the saloon burst open from within, revealing a one-eyed man in black brandishing a pistol of his own. The two stared each other down.
	“Rawhide Canyon.”
	“Dawn.”

Make no mistake, I life in a prison

That I made myself, it is my religion

And we can pick sides, but this is us, this is us, this is

He stood gazing at a rising sun that would never know of the fate its day would bring. From nothing came whispers followed by clamor as a crowd approached from behind. The man turned to face the leader of the horde, the one-eyed man. 
	“They did this to me!” he bellowed, pointing to an empty socket. The other man said nothing. His singed jacket rippled in the wind. The men turned back to back. Five. Silence gripped the canyon. Four. Not a word was uttered. Three. Not a breath was taken. Two. The only sound was the faint hum of a river from the lowest ravine. One… 

The world won’t remember the two that died that day. But the village will remember their hero, and the town won’t forget their villain.