Weird West Quick Draw Flash Fiction Contest 2025 Third Place Winner

Scar Tissue

by Elijah J. Mears

Whiskey and solitude on the West Texas plains bring out more than just old wounds for cowboys Miguel and John.

I smell whiskey on Miguel’s breath when he leans in to kiss me: the only way he knows how, I think, but I take it how I can. Out here, the only witnesses to our sin are the cattle all around us and the stars above. It’s a place for strange and unexpected happenings. As long as the herd makes it to the railhead more or less intact, no one much cares what you get up to on the way.

My hand wanders beneath flannel, hungrily undoing buttons. Miguel caresses the smooth skin of my cheek. I shudder. My mind is blank except for the raw need of his weight and warmth on top of me.

But Miguel’s mood shifts. A gentle grip on my wrist, just enough to make me pause.

“John. Wait.”

I avoid his eyes, my voice cracking under the weight of my fear. “We can stop. If you don’t want it.”

If you don’t want me, I think.

Miguel’s voice trembles. “No, I do. I just… Here. You should know.”

He guides my hand into his shirt. My fingers brush against the thick, black curls of his chest hair, searching until they find something new: scar tissue. My breath catches, but I don’t pull away.

With my other hand, I cup his cheek and turn his face back toward mine. “Tell me.”

“It’s why I’m here, en el Norte.” Miguel hesitates, shadows flickering across his face. “This man, he used to make trouble for us. Harass us for a ‘toll’ when we’d come into town. One day, he decides, no, he doesn’t want money, he wants my daughter, Elena. Well, I decided we weren’t paying his toll that day.”

He squeezes my fingers, the set of his jaw grim. “He came to the farm that night, and we…” He trails off. He shrugs. “He got me pretty good, but I scared him off.”

My hand drifts until I find his heartbeat. “This is good, Miguel.”

He shakes his head; screws up his face. “I shot him in the back as he was running away. Three times. So Elena wouldn’t have to worry.”

A chill races down my spine, raising goosebumps in its wake, but instead of recoiling, I lean in and in a hushed whisper, I say simply, “I understand.”

My turn. I guide his hand back to me, to my neck, under my shirt, where I bring his palm against my own scar.

“I was working on the railroad,” I begin. “San Francisco across the mountains. A lot of us didn’t make it. One day, I slipped, almost fell from the bridge. My friend, he saved me. Good man, but the foreman didn’t like slowing down the work. Tried to punish him, but I got in the way.”

I stare past Miguel, watching the flames. “The foreman was the one who went off the bridge. That’s when I stop being Yang Jinhai and become John Young. No one has to know.”

I’m shaking, but Miguel just pulls our hands together, gathers them up into the space in-between, and brings them to his lips, kissing the rough fingers.

That’s when the sky opens up: a tower of light from ground to heaven not fifty feet away. Miguel and I skitter backward, pulling apart as the cattle low and scatter, racing from the sudden, terrifying disturbance. I shield my eyes, but they soon adjust.

I barely make out the silhouette of something not wholly human before the light goes out as suddenly as it sprung to life.

We jump to our feet, revolvers in hand as we stare into the impenetrable darkness. My heart races like it did that day three years ago in the Sierra Nevada, like it did five minutes ago when Miguel leaned in to kiss me, like it did when I boarded the boat in Tianjin and left the country that raised me.

“Don’t move, we’ll shoot!” Miguel calls out, but no answer comes to his challenge. We exchange a look as our vision adjusts once again. He’s shaking like a new foal, and I can’t say I’m quivering any less.

“I go first,” I whisper. “Protect you.”

Miguel nods. I advance out of the circle of the firelight and gasp.

Splayed on the ground before us, chest heaving, is something I lack the language to adequately describe, in English or Mandarin. It is perhaps the height of a child, ashen skin like taught sailcloth stretched across an unsettling frame—limbs that splay out far further than they have any right to, naked but bereft of visible genitals. Most disturbing of all, though, is this: its eyes, two massive black orbs set into its head like those of some horrible fly.

“Ay, Dios mío,” Miguel whispers. “What is it? It’s disgusting.”

I creep forward, nudging it with my foot. It recoils; draws short, frantic breaths. My eyes scan this strange, alien body, widening as they settle on a most distinctive feature. The shape of a pale, ragged X cuts across its back in scar tissue, broken skin long ago knit back together.

I think back to that day on the bridge, iron digging into my shoulder as I scramble for purchase, blood pouring from my neck. How alone I felt—how Miguel and I must both have felt—coming to the strange, new land of the West Texas range, one where they said you could leave behind whatever scared you and find a new start.

“Can it hurt us?” Miguel interrupts my thoughts, gesturing at the creature with his revolver.

I shake my head, heart breaking as I watch it shiver on the ground. “I don’t think so. I think it’s hurt.”

Miguel lowers the gun, brow furrowed. I inhale sharply. My hand reaches for his. He finds it, and the warmth of his body spreads upward from our interlaced fingertips.

“Come on,” I say. “Let’s get it over to the fire. Perhaps it will tell us how it got that scar.”

About The Author

Elijah J. Mears (he/him) is a fat, gay, neurodivergent, Jewish writer of science-fiction and fantasy from the southeastern United States. Growing up, great speculative fiction was Elijah’s way of escaping from a world where he didn’t always fit in. Now, he honors his younger self by writing speculative stories of queer yearning, adventure, and self-discovery. He lives in North Carolina with his partner and soulmate, Beryl.

Elijah’s short fiction has previously appeared in Crepuscular, Night Shades, and Apex Magazines, and he is a first reader for Fusion Fragment. You can find him on Bluesky @elijah.mea.rs, on Instagram @elijahjmears, and on his website, ElijahJMears.com.