The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving: alternate ending

“If I can but reach the bridge,” I thought to myself, “I will be safe”. I gave Gunpowder a kick in the side, as he sped up. I looked back at the horseman, about fifty feet behind us. But then he had done something as unexpected as a flying on a pig. Where he had gotten it from, I had no idea but I watched as he pulled a gun from the side of his horse. Kind of ironic how he aims a gun perfectly without a head but that had not been my concern at the time. He fired the gun as time slowed down and the bullet pierced Gunpowder’s thigh. “Gunpowder!” He fell to the ground as I jumped off just in time. I looked up to see the horseman on our trails, he was gaining on us. I had to make a choice. Leave Gunpowder to die and get away, or stay with Gunpowder and possibly be a dead man. How had we come to this?

I ran for dear life. It was me or the horse and I chose to save myself. I started giving up. I couldn’t outrun him, how could I think that I could. He had a horse for god’s sake. What he would do to me, I could not think. But then I saw it, the bridge to my safety. I could do this. I ran, I ran faster than ever. And I finally got across the bridge. I watched as he was supposed to disintegrate but that was not what happened. He passed, just as any person as myself would. I was too succumbed with fear and confusion to realize what was happening. The goblin rider strangled me as I felt a darkness tingling in the back of my head and passed out.

I awoke with my heart, a hundred miles per hour. I chuckled to myself. “Oh, what a morbid dream,” I thought to myself. I went outside to a surprise in the yard. For Gunpowder had been surrounded in his own blood with a gunshot wound impaled into his thigh.