He felt the second hand flutter against the jammed mechanism like a bird trying to escape.

Tick.

Tick.

T . . . i . . . c . . . k—

“No,” the Hierophant said. “No, this cannot be allowed—”

Inside the warehouse, the molten clocks whispered and wriggled, shuddering against each other.

And with a hideous screech of gears the big clock broke. The minute hand gave against the Kid’s pull and it plunged downwards and up again, and the Kid was tossed and turned in the high wind.

The Hierophant’s hands lost their grip on the Stranger’s neck.

The bullet, suspended with all that deferred time, was suddenly free. Kinetic motion propelled it onwards. It slid down the tube and emerged directly into the Hierophant’s belly. The Hierophant said, “Oof!” and staggered back. His hands held in his belly.

“No,” he said. “N—”

Inside the warehouse, the clocks shook and shuddered, their time finally come.

Tock.

He pushed the Hierophant off of him. The shell of the man was dying, and the grey clouds parted and sunlight burst through. The body—of the man who had called himself Zapata, or Zavatta, those and all the other names—fell to the ground. The Stranger pushed himself upright. Overhead the hands of the clock spun and spun, free from the rule of their escapement. The Kid dropped through the air. The passengers stood there, blinking stupidly, as though they had just woken up from a long and pleasant dream.

“Oof!” the Stranger said, in unconscious imitation of the Hierophant, as he caught the Kid in his descent and broke his fall. They ended up in an undignified pile on the ground, and it was from that position, lying on his back, staring upwards, that the Stranger saw the clocks at last take flight.

The clocks broke out of the roof of the old warehouse, flapping against the currents of the wind, and their dials moved and were transformed into talons, their escapements opened and became dark wings. Their mainsprings turned to beaks. In silence they streamed into the sky, a dark cloud of clocks turned into birds—ravens, or crows, or perhaps they were storm petrels. The Stranger didn’t know. They rose into the sky in a swarm, forming a shape that could have been an hourglass before it broke, re-formed and changed.

The birds, newly hatched, flew against the sky and fled away from the waiting place.

“That hurt,” the Kid complained.

“You’re telling me,” the Stranger said, rubbing his side. “You’re heavier than you look, kid.”

They left the townsfolk where they were. Some, the Stranger saw, had simply gone back inside the waiting room. Others stood, uncertain, under the open skies. They might be there still tomorrow, or the next day, or the next day after that. The Stranger didn’t know.

They found their horses ambling near the broken-down train. The horses whinnied greeting. They seemed unconcerned with all that had transpired.

“I hate waiting,” the Kid said.