OOM: Taking my chances; trusting my heart...
[following this:]
She stumbles.
A pair of hard, sturdy arms set her right. "Now, take it easy, ma'am. You're all right."
Kate blinks to clear her vision. The room is built in slated raw walnut, so coarse it reminds her at first of a roan's cowlicked coat. Shelves - the work of no self-respecting carpenter - hang crooked, littered with books and bottles, apothecary's potables and panaceas, muddy-colored whiskey jars filled with doctor's tools and knives, coonskins, linens, and other fiddly bric-a-brac. There are charts and diagrams of unsettling design on the whorled walls, soot stains and scorch marks from carelessly lit kerosene lamps.
"Chester!"
The doctor is a gangly man, not much older than five-and-twenty, who moves with an awkwardness in his step one can only hope is not likewise in his hands. He combs his hair over in a most unattractive fashion, and sweats overmuch - even for a heavy April evening.
Kate grips the rusty threads at her side, leaning hard against her escort, and moans piteously. She keeps her head down, and her mouth otherwise shut.
"What's the trouble, marshal?"
This time, her vision genuinely swims. Marshal. She fixes her eyes on the well-worn boots of her escort, standing in stark contrast to the clean and polished Madison ankle boots worn by the doctor. You can learn a lot about where a man's been just by the look of his shoes.
"Lady here rode in from trouble on the southern trail. Got a pretty good hole in her side. Her husband ain't too far behind, and worse off to boot."
"Get her on the table!"
Kate grunts, and lets the men lead her deeper into the room. She takes stock of everything, cataloging each piece of furniture, noting every nook and cranny. There's an upstairs, and a kitchen, and suddenly Kate realizes this practice is smack dab in the doctor's living room.
"Marshal, marshal, will y'bring my horse 'round? Please, I wanna be able t'see to her soon as I'm fixed up. Please."
"She shouldn't be talkin'."
The good doctor squints sidelong at the marshal, and Kate wonders why he couldn't address her himself.
"You jus' focus on lettin' Chester here fix you up, ma'am. You have my word I'll see to it."
"It would do my heart such a world of good."
"You can tie her mount up out back, next to Dixie. And fetch my wife in here; she's gone to call on Reverend Hale's missus," says the doctor, before he firmly touches Kate's arm. "Now, you lie back."
She does as she's told, making a show of getting up on the table. She keeps her arm crossed over her middle, holding a sullied kerchief to her side, and tips her head back to groan once she's flat. The marshal and the doc say a few more words to each other as she lies there squirming, and then the former leaves on his errands.
The door closes behind him.
"Let's have a look, then."
He cleans his hands and arms at the dry sink and hurries to her, bending over the bloody knuckles holding her side together. He carefully peels her hand back, brow furrowed as he parts torn fabric and reveals very clean, whole garments underneath.
"What..."
"M'sorry, doctor."
He grimaces, discomfort vicing his eyes as the barrel of a skin-warmed six-shooter plants itself firmly in his temple.
"I'm gonna need you t'be quiet."
They switch places, Kate swinging her legs off the table and commanding he sit. He does as he's told. She moves to the back window, keeping her back flat to the wall, and parts the lace curtains. There's an alleyway behind the doctor's house, empty save for a horse - she assumes 'Dixie' - and a few chickens. She keeps her gun pointed at the doctor's head, and he sneaks looks down the barrel while she's turned. The curtain falls back into place and she moves, catching his gaze just before it hastens away.
"D'you know who I am?"
His throat bobs like an apple in water, a nervous shine on his skin. He lifts a shoulder and tenses his jaw a time or two.
"I could venture a guess."
She watches him, the earlier awkwardness of his movements turned downright fidgety, a hard line between his brows. She slowly walks around the table, the sound of her boots loud in the heavy silence. He watches her, never venturing as far as her face, eyes darting from some far off place to her body after each step she takes.
"I don't want anybody t'get hurt," she murmurs. "All I want's my horse, an' my effects, an' I'll get on my way. Peaceful-like."
There's nothing peaceful about her. Her back is as rigid as cordwood, not a trace of a tremble in her hand. She fully means to pull that trigger if he stirs the pot, and he fully believes she could - despite the slow, sweet hum of her voice.
"But why?" he asks. "Why do all this? To what point and purpose?"
His long surgeon's fingers sweep the room. Kate watches his attention dip to the long-healed wound in her side. He wouldn't, couldn't, know about the bar, of course. Just that a woman rode in with false hurts, only to ride back out again. She reads the clear question, the doubt, and the intrigue in his wary eyes. What does she want? Why is she here?
There's blood on my hands.
In my mouth.
I'm no ferryman for the souls of the dead.
"Sometimes, you get yourself into messes y'can't get back out of."
Their eyes connect, like a dowsing rod to water. A wryness curls her lips. No discourse passes between them for an unbearably awkward stretch of time; the silence becomes a third person.
"There is a man. On the road. And he will need your help; so I caution you not t'do anythin' regrettable, sir."
He counts half-seconds with the steady drum of a middle finger, spectacles fogged over, jaw set. He seems to question her intentions, as if the advice could be in some way unsound. Perhaps it's the concern in her eyes that begs his senses, or just the whisper of the silence beside his ear; but he nods, both bare and resolute.
"Do you need water?"
His voice may be the steadiest thing about him, deep, barely inquisitive. She takes a half step back in surprise.
"If I may be permitted to move, I can provide some clean drinking water and dried fruit. To help you on your way."
She hears voices. Her eyes cut to the door at the front, and again to the one at the back, before they return to his face.
"Why would y'help me?"
"Because I believe there's not another soul on this Earth who would."
Soundless laughter makes her shoulders sag. The doctor's nervous and otherwise stoic face cracks, the barest fissure at his lips.
She nods.
Within moments he's handing her a leather satchel. She sees Beaut led along and tied next to Dixie through handmade lace, and the sight of her after months apart fills Kate's heart with ease. The doctor murmurs words of caution, last minute suggestions to get her through town without incident, and Kate half-listens while she waits for everyone to clear out of the alley. It's grown to dusk outside. Kate has always found asylum in the friendship of Night.
"Is helpin' me gonna make trouble for you?"
"No."
"Y'sound so sure."
"I'm a decent liar."
She snorts.
"As far as I know, you're just a woman who got caught in some trouble on the side of the road," he says. "Of the things in life I have to regret, helpin' a woman on her way out of town won't be one of them."
She makes as if to answer, but the words don't have time to form on her tongue. The noises outside are growing closer: a feminine voice, and the sound of heels on boardwalk wafts through the room. The doc is moving before Kate has time to react, taking spindly steps toward the front door. She can feel peace slipping through her fingers. She's been had! She's undone!
The front door admits a small, round woman, thin copper curls coiling under the brim of a ruby bonnet. She sees Kate immediately - rather, she sees the polished sixshooter in her hand - and her brown eyes swell. A scream is muffled by her husband's hand. He shuts the door quick.
(Heartbeats echo in the silence.)
"They'll have heard that," he pants, jerking his head.
She squares her jaw, tongue as thick in her mouth as day old grits. She nods, and hurries for the back door. Wood creaks under her boots as she turns; "Thank you."
They seem two such utterly insufficient words. But, in these parts, to be neighborly is to be closer to God, and the hand-painted wooden cross his family no doubt brought with them when they immigrated to America did not escape Kate's notice. Anything else is superfluous.
Voices, footsteps, wood settling, everything sounds louder, closer, and more dangerous. Her gun is still in hand even as she fumbles to quickly work Beaut's reins free of the post. The mare flicks her ears back, almost as if she knows just where Kate has been and is demanding to know what took her so long.
"Hey!"
She hears the voice. Is it calling to her? She has no idea, but it's too far off to shoot with any accuracy so it's not worth her time to turn around.
"Hey!"
She pulls herself into the saddle, stretching her willowy body over Beaut's neck. The horse needs no prompting to get her stepping back, an arrow easing into a bowstring, ready to fly.
"Hello, my Beauty."
Voices gather in the air, hooting, hollering, an obnoxious cacophony that's lost on her as she touches spurs to the animal's side and she responds, powerful and quick, great side rods of a flesh and bone locomotive pumping through the dirt, and all Kate knows is the whisper of wind in her ears and the taste of sand on her tongue.
"Watch it, y'old glue pot!"
They're five miles outside of Kenedy, stopped at a little mudhole lake where Beaut stands up to her hocks in the water. Kate's scrubbing dried blood from her coat while she drinks - and sends the occasional spray of water across the back of Kate's neck.
"Quit it!"
They both look like they've been through a melee, and now they're washing the war paint from their bodies. Well, some are making more of an effort than others. Beaut cranes her neck around and pinches Kate's blouse between her teeth, putting a fresh tear in the fabric.
"What's gotten into you?"
Kate laughs, and gives her nose a little shove. Beaut snorts, unamused and unimpressed, turning her head away. But the walleyed looks don't stop.
"I didn't mean t'leave you behind, y'know."
Months passed in Milliways, as they have the habit of doing. Kate's wound healed at a healthy pace, leaving just a pink scar behind to remind her of what's left to be mended. The shake isn't completely out of her hands yet. She still fights that creeping feeling, like bugs coming up over her shoulder; the way her hair stands on end and she has to glance behind her before her heart will stop pounding. Still, it wasn't on purpose that she left things so long.
"Y'know how it is when Miss Bar makes up her mind on a matter. She don't give you no warnin'."
Miss Bar or the Landlord one, Kate can never make up her mind which. Beaut doesn't seem to care either which way anymore; she's giving her the cold, bloody shoulder. Kate moves to work a small chunk of lye soap into the coat, coral suds frothing over her knuckles and spilling into the lake. She sighs resignedly, trying not to think too hard on how she's standing waist deep in mucky water arguing with an animal.
"Anyhow, I didn't wanna part with you. But it was necessary, y'see. An' I did come back for you, didn't I?" she says, leaning in closer to rub at her neck. "You dozy mare."
The nickname falls easily from her tongue, laced with sarcasm and affection as it brings Gene to mind. Beaut huffs, her massive sides expanding and contracting; not finding the grace within her to forgive just yet. Kate chuckles, and returns to her busywork. But her mind is wandering now, back to the last night she saw him, wondering once again how she's going to bring him out into all this and somehow manage to keep him safe.
You only kiss the men you kill.
The law will punish Sam
and God will punish you!
"Stupid."
She sighs, wiping the sweat from her eyes. She shouldn't have kissed him. She couldn't rightly tell you why she did, other than there being a powerful loneliness eating away at her insides. And he's ... safe. But she doesn't have any idea what she's doing anymore. And she knows, beyond what's right and wrong, what's sensible and downright hare-brained, that she isn't going to turn back now. If for no other reason than he makes her smile.
Beaut shakes her head, showering Kate in dirty water and soap, and lets out a loud squeal of agitation.
"All right, all right, you soured old puss!"
She scrubs her as clean as she's going to get, and yanks a fresh blouse from her saddlebags. Leaving the tattered threads behind, she swings herself back up into the saddle. The last hint of daylight has almost bled from the sky, leaving the wanderers with nothing but starlight to guide them. But that's all right.
They've been through worse.
They're casting long, easterly shadows by the time they come across civilization again. It's an old Spanish pueblo, just adobe bricks and stone. But there's a well in the town square, and a few clapboard businesses. There's an old mission church right on the outskirts, and from the inside you can hear the sound of a mighty big shivaree. The heavy old oak doors swing open, and a wedding procession spills out into the street ringing bells and clanging pots, tossing rice and making song.
Kate watches as the couple skips down the steps, all beaming faces and finery, and then turns Beaut away. She trots past the long banquet table set near the square, out into the empty broad ways. The town feels quite nearly deserted with the merrymaking behind her, but she's just fine with that. It's comforting, nonthreatening; if she's real lucky, any law that might be about will be up at one of those tables, and she can stay a spell, pull Beaut to a stop outside a sand-wearied saloon, and let her have a rest while she goes inside and gets herself a drink and a quick meal. She ties her up out front, and saunters on in through the batwing doors.
It takes a moment for her eyes to adjust. The fading sunlight is still heavy and orange, and inside they haven't lit their lanterns yet. There isn't a woman one in the room save for Kate, but there are gentlemen aplenty. No lawfolk, by the looks of it; however, Kate might be more inclined to their company than she initially thought.
All eyes turn on her.
Filthy men, covered in cow dung and dirt, skin browned from sun and sand. Beards full of knots and gnarls, and eyes just as bad. Red tongues that dart over orange lips, fingers blackened from one hard job or another. Kate lingers in the doorway, eyes sliding about the room. Her back is a straight line, her hands are on the doors like she owns the room, and inwardly she sighs, takes that first step, walks tall and proud with a swagger not wholly manufactured.
She settles at the bar, and a man with smooth ebony skin comes over and waits.
"Whiskey."
Men chuckle nearby, but he only nods and moves back to fetch the bottle. Kate purposely chose a seat that wasn't too near any of the other patrons, but as she waits she feels more hemmed in, bodies pressing in about her. Her eyes stay forward, fixed on an imperfect brass mirror that only reflects booze and sawdust and black-flecked leers.
"Hoowee, Jimmy. You never mentioned bringin' in entertainment."
Her fingertips press against the bar. Someone's hand is in her hair.
"What's your name, darlin'?"
The barkeep sets a glass down in front of her and fills it with whiskey, the brown liquor splashing over the lip and onto the bar. A few men rise from their seats nearby, moseying over for refills.
Her attention slowly cuts to the two men on her left, gunmetal eyes colder than ice.
"My name," she says slowly, caressing her glass; "is Kate Barlow. An' my business is none of yours."
More snickers.
(She sips slowly at her drink.)
"Awful feisty for a whore."
She snorts. So, he hasn't heard of her. Can't hold that against him. At least, not just yet.
"I ain't a whore. Just a business woman, an' just passin' through."
She extricates his hand from her body.
"A workin' girl? Well, what'd I say?"
"You're gonna want t'keep your hands off'a me, mister."
She finishes her whiskey and sets the tumbler down, motioning for a refill. Her back is pressed against the bar, hunting for security in the feeling of weathered walnut jutting into her spine. She's got a good view of the barroom like this. And the room, of course, has got a good view of her.
"Well, doggone it. Have y'stumbled into the wrong place? 'Cuz we don't git a lotta Ladies through these doors," one sneers patronizingly. "'Course, y'don't look like any Lady I've ever seen."
"I'm not," she says inside a filthy little laugh. "But I reckon this is the kinda place a woman would wanna be if she was travelin' south on her lonesome, an' needed a lil' information."
"Aw hell, honey. Why didn't y'say so? I know all 'bout travelin' south."
"I'm gonna tell you again," she warns, grabbing the man by the wrist and removing his hand from the inside of her thigh. "You'll wanna keep your hands off'a me."
Again, they laugh.
This isn't good. She's coming off as a joke. All these men are looking at her like she's some little girl playing dress up. And she can't even be angry, because that's just what she is, setting foot in a place like this for the first time, totally out of her element. And they know it.
"I'm lookin' for men. Men who ain't afraid t'get their hands dirty. Men who might be interested in a score."
More of them start laughing and she thinks, goddamn it, maybe the next time she rides into town she won't bother bathing for a few days. Maybe if she smells like the rest of them they'll be more inclined to listen.
"A big score - "
It seems the number of men needing refills has grown inexplicably. The bar is now crowded, and someone she didn't see before grabs her waist.
"You can find a few men like that right here, little missy!"
Kate's growing impatient.
"Hands off'a me if y'don't wanna lose 'em!"
She backhands the man for good measure, not holding back an ounce of her might. He twists into the man behind him, but now folk have grown bold, reaching out to harry and taunt, grabbing at her hips and her bust, and she has had just about enough of this shit.
Her Colt slides from its holster as smooth as a steak knife cuts through butter, and she spins it until she's got her fist around the muzzle, turning on the first man to her right and clocking him with the butt of the gun. He grunts, and before he can even collapse against the bar her other hand has crossed over her body, fingertips sliding through fabric, fabric, until they come upon steel and she twists the old Thunderer in her grip, aiming behind her. She lets off a shot that posts a hole through a man's boot and is already turning, flicking the gun around her finger until she's jammed the hammer into the soft meaty underside of someone's chin, and once the gun is cocked it's another flick of her wrist until she's aimed the loaded barrel at a shin that explodes red and leather in her wake.
Four bodies fall in eight seconds and the two that remain are getting real friendly-like with the smoking guns. She's got her Colt pointed at the forehead of the man who called her a whore, and the Thunderer she snuck from her back dug into a pair of privates.
"Oh, honey - "
She pulls in a calm breath.
" - You are just the dumbest thing."
"Oh god, my foot! She shot my fuckin' toes off!"
"Now, why don't we all jus' stay real calm, an' you can buy a lady a drink? We'll have ourselves a nice lil' sit-down, an' you'll answer my questions. Or I could jus' shoot all y'all's peckers off, an' then when I go lookin' I'll be sure t'find a few men in need of a good housewife on my way t'San Patricio."
Remarkably, Kate doesn't hear another laugh the rest of her time in town.
She stumbles.
A pair of hard, sturdy arms set her right. "Now, take it easy, ma'am. You're all right."
Kate blinks to clear her vision. The room is built in slated raw walnut, so coarse it reminds her at first of a roan's cowlicked coat. Shelves - the work of no self-respecting carpenter - hang crooked, littered with books and bottles, apothecary's potables and panaceas, muddy-colored whiskey jars filled with doctor's tools and knives, coonskins, linens, and other fiddly bric-a-brac. There are charts and diagrams of unsettling design on the whorled walls, soot stains and scorch marks from carelessly lit kerosene lamps.
"Chester!"
The doctor is a gangly man, not much older than five-and-twenty, who moves with an awkwardness in his step one can only hope is not likewise in his hands. He combs his hair over in a most unattractive fashion, and sweats overmuch - even for a heavy April evening.
Kate grips the rusty threads at her side, leaning hard against her escort, and moans piteously. She keeps her head down, and her mouth otherwise shut.
"What's the trouble, marshal?"
This time, her vision genuinely swims. Marshal. She fixes her eyes on the well-worn boots of her escort, standing in stark contrast to the clean and polished Madison ankle boots worn by the doctor. You can learn a lot about where a man's been just by the look of his shoes.
"Lady here rode in from trouble on the southern trail. Got a pretty good hole in her side. Her husband ain't too far behind, and worse off to boot."
"Get her on the table!"
Kate grunts, and lets the men lead her deeper into the room. She takes stock of everything, cataloging each piece of furniture, noting every nook and cranny. There's an upstairs, and a kitchen, and suddenly Kate realizes this practice is smack dab in the doctor's living room.
"Marshal, marshal, will y'bring my horse 'round? Please, I wanna be able t'see to her soon as I'm fixed up. Please."
"She shouldn't be talkin'."
The good doctor squints sidelong at the marshal, and Kate wonders why he couldn't address her himself.
"You jus' focus on lettin' Chester here fix you up, ma'am. You have my word I'll see to it."
"It would do my heart such a world of good."
"You can tie her mount up out back, next to Dixie. And fetch my wife in here; she's gone to call on Reverend Hale's missus," says the doctor, before he firmly touches Kate's arm. "Now, you lie back."
She does as she's told, making a show of getting up on the table. She keeps her arm crossed over her middle, holding a sullied kerchief to her side, and tips her head back to groan once she's flat. The marshal and the doc say a few more words to each other as she lies there squirming, and then the former leaves on his errands.
The door closes behind him.
"Let's have a look, then."
He cleans his hands and arms at the dry sink and hurries to her, bending over the bloody knuckles holding her side together. He carefully peels her hand back, brow furrowed as he parts torn fabric and reveals very clean, whole garments underneath.
"What..."
"M'sorry, doctor."
He grimaces, discomfort vicing his eyes as the barrel of a skin-warmed six-shooter plants itself firmly in his temple.
"I'm gonna need you t'be quiet."
They switch places, Kate swinging her legs off the table and commanding he sit. He does as he's told. She moves to the back window, keeping her back flat to the wall, and parts the lace curtains. There's an alleyway behind the doctor's house, empty save for a horse - she assumes 'Dixie' - and a few chickens. She keeps her gun pointed at the doctor's head, and he sneaks looks down the barrel while she's turned. The curtain falls back into place and she moves, catching his gaze just before it hastens away.
"D'you know who I am?"
His throat bobs like an apple in water, a nervous shine on his skin. He lifts a shoulder and tenses his jaw a time or two.
"I could venture a guess."
She watches him, the earlier awkwardness of his movements turned downright fidgety, a hard line between his brows. She slowly walks around the table, the sound of her boots loud in the heavy silence. He watches her, never venturing as far as her face, eyes darting from some far off place to her body after each step she takes.
"I don't want anybody t'get hurt," she murmurs. "All I want's my horse, an' my effects, an' I'll get on my way. Peaceful-like."
There's nothing peaceful about her. Her back is as rigid as cordwood, not a trace of a tremble in her hand. She fully means to pull that trigger if he stirs the pot, and he fully believes she could - despite the slow, sweet hum of her voice.
"But why?" he asks. "Why do all this? To what point and purpose?"
His long surgeon's fingers sweep the room. Kate watches his attention dip to the long-healed wound in her side. He wouldn't, couldn't, know about the bar, of course. Just that a woman rode in with false hurts, only to ride back out again. She reads the clear question, the doubt, and the intrigue in his wary eyes. What does she want? Why is she here?
There's blood on my hands.
In my mouth.
I'm no ferryman for the souls of the dead.
"Sometimes, you get yourself into messes y'can't get back out of."
Their eyes connect, like a dowsing rod to water. A wryness curls her lips. No discourse passes between them for an unbearably awkward stretch of time; the silence becomes a third person.
"There is a man. On the road. And he will need your help; so I caution you not t'do anythin' regrettable, sir."
He counts half-seconds with the steady drum of a middle finger, spectacles fogged over, jaw set. He seems to question her intentions, as if the advice could be in some way unsound. Perhaps it's the concern in her eyes that begs his senses, or just the whisper of the silence beside his ear; but he nods, both bare and resolute.
"Do you need water?"
His voice may be the steadiest thing about him, deep, barely inquisitive. She takes a half step back in surprise.
"If I may be permitted to move, I can provide some clean drinking water and dried fruit. To help you on your way."
She hears voices. Her eyes cut to the door at the front, and again to the one at the back, before they return to his face.
"Why would y'help me?"
"Because I believe there's not another soul on this Earth who would."
Soundless laughter makes her shoulders sag. The doctor's nervous and otherwise stoic face cracks, the barest fissure at his lips.
She nods.
Within moments he's handing her a leather satchel. She sees Beaut led along and tied next to Dixie through handmade lace, and the sight of her after months apart fills Kate's heart with ease. The doctor murmurs words of caution, last minute suggestions to get her through town without incident, and Kate half-listens while she waits for everyone to clear out of the alley. It's grown to dusk outside. Kate has always found asylum in the friendship of Night.
"Is helpin' me gonna make trouble for you?"
"No."
"Y'sound so sure."
"I'm a decent liar."
She snorts.
"As far as I know, you're just a woman who got caught in some trouble on the side of the road," he says. "Of the things in life I have to regret, helpin' a woman on her way out of town won't be one of them."
She makes as if to answer, but the words don't have time to form on her tongue. The noises outside are growing closer: a feminine voice, and the sound of heels on boardwalk wafts through the room. The doc is moving before Kate has time to react, taking spindly steps toward the front door. She can feel peace slipping through her fingers. She's been had! She's undone!
The front door admits a small, round woman, thin copper curls coiling under the brim of a ruby bonnet. She sees Kate immediately - rather, she sees the polished sixshooter in her hand - and her brown eyes swell. A scream is muffled by her husband's hand. He shuts the door quick.
(Heartbeats echo in the silence.)
"They'll have heard that," he pants, jerking his head.
She squares her jaw, tongue as thick in her mouth as day old grits. She nods, and hurries for the back door. Wood creaks under her boots as she turns; "Thank you."
They seem two such utterly insufficient words. But, in these parts, to be neighborly is to be closer to God, and the hand-painted wooden cross his family no doubt brought with them when they immigrated to America did not escape Kate's notice. Anything else is superfluous.
Voices, footsteps, wood settling, everything sounds louder, closer, and more dangerous. Her gun is still in hand even as she fumbles to quickly work Beaut's reins free of the post. The mare flicks her ears back, almost as if she knows just where Kate has been and is demanding to know what took her so long.
"Hey!"
She hears the voice. Is it calling to her? She has no idea, but it's too far off to shoot with any accuracy so it's not worth her time to turn around.
"Hey!"
She pulls herself into the saddle, stretching her willowy body over Beaut's neck. The horse needs no prompting to get her stepping back, an arrow easing into a bowstring, ready to fly.
"Hello, my Beauty."
Voices gather in the air, hooting, hollering, an obnoxious cacophony that's lost on her as she touches spurs to the animal's side and she responds, powerful and quick, great side rods of a flesh and bone locomotive pumping through the dirt, and all Kate knows is the whisper of wind in her ears and the taste of sand on her tongue.
"Watch it, y'old glue pot!"
They're five miles outside of Kenedy, stopped at a little mudhole lake where Beaut stands up to her hocks in the water. Kate's scrubbing dried blood from her coat while she drinks - and sends the occasional spray of water across the back of Kate's neck.
"Quit it!"
They both look like they've been through a melee, and now they're washing the war paint from their bodies. Well, some are making more of an effort than others. Beaut cranes her neck around and pinches Kate's blouse between her teeth, putting a fresh tear in the fabric.
"What's gotten into you?"
Kate laughs, and gives her nose a little shove. Beaut snorts, unamused and unimpressed, turning her head away. But the walleyed looks don't stop.
"I didn't mean t'leave you behind, y'know."
Months passed in Milliways, as they have the habit of doing. Kate's wound healed at a healthy pace, leaving just a pink scar behind to remind her of what's left to be mended. The shake isn't completely out of her hands yet. She still fights that creeping feeling, like bugs coming up over her shoulder; the way her hair stands on end and she has to glance behind her before her heart will stop pounding. Still, it wasn't on purpose that she left things so long.
"Y'know how it is when Miss Bar makes up her mind on a matter. She don't give you no warnin'."
Miss Bar or the Landlord one, Kate can never make up her mind which. Beaut doesn't seem to care either which way anymore; she's giving her the cold, bloody shoulder. Kate moves to work a small chunk of lye soap into the coat, coral suds frothing over her knuckles and spilling into the lake. She sighs resignedly, trying not to think too hard on how she's standing waist deep in mucky water arguing with an animal.
"Anyhow, I didn't wanna part with you. But it was necessary, y'see. An' I did come back for you, didn't I?" she says, leaning in closer to rub at her neck. "You dozy mare."
The nickname falls easily from her tongue, laced with sarcasm and affection as it brings Gene to mind. Beaut huffs, her massive sides expanding and contracting; not finding the grace within her to forgive just yet. Kate chuckles, and returns to her busywork. But her mind is wandering now, back to the last night she saw him, wondering once again how she's going to bring him out into all this and somehow manage to keep him safe.
You only kiss the men you kill.
The law will punish Sam
and God will punish you!
"Stupid."
She sighs, wiping the sweat from her eyes. She shouldn't have kissed him. She couldn't rightly tell you why she did, other than there being a powerful loneliness eating away at her insides. And he's ... safe. But she doesn't have any idea what she's doing anymore. And she knows, beyond what's right and wrong, what's sensible and downright hare-brained, that she isn't going to turn back now. If for no other reason than he makes her smile.
Beaut shakes her head, showering Kate in dirty water and soap, and lets out a loud squeal of agitation.
"All right, all right, you soured old puss!"
She scrubs her as clean as she's going to get, and yanks a fresh blouse from her saddlebags. Leaving the tattered threads behind, she swings herself back up into the saddle. The last hint of daylight has almost bled from the sky, leaving the wanderers with nothing but starlight to guide them. But that's all right.
They've been through worse.
They're casting long, easterly shadows by the time they come across civilization again. It's an old Spanish pueblo, just adobe bricks and stone. But there's a well in the town square, and a few clapboard businesses. There's an old mission church right on the outskirts, and from the inside you can hear the sound of a mighty big shivaree. The heavy old oak doors swing open, and a wedding procession spills out into the street ringing bells and clanging pots, tossing rice and making song.
Kate watches as the couple skips down the steps, all beaming faces and finery, and then turns Beaut away. She trots past the long banquet table set near the square, out into the empty broad ways. The town feels quite nearly deserted with the merrymaking behind her, but she's just fine with that. It's comforting, nonthreatening; if she's real lucky, any law that might be about will be up at one of those tables, and she can stay a spell, pull Beaut to a stop outside a sand-wearied saloon, and let her have a rest while she goes inside and gets herself a drink and a quick meal. She ties her up out front, and saunters on in through the batwing doors.
It takes a moment for her eyes to adjust. The fading sunlight is still heavy and orange, and inside they haven't lit their lanterns yet. There isn't a woman one in the room save for Kate, but there are gentlemen aplenty. No lawfolk, by the looks of it; however, Kate might be more inclined to their company than she initially thought.
All eyes turn on her.
Filthy men, covered in cow dung and dirt, skin browned from sun and sand. Beards full of knots and gnarls, and eyes just as bad. Red tongues that dart over orange lips, fingers blackened from one hard job or another. Kate lingers in the doorway, eyes sliding about the room. Her back is a straight line, her hands are on the doors like she owns the room, and inwardly she sighs, takes that first step, walks tall and proud with a swagger not wholly manufactured.
She settles at the bar, and a man with smooth ebony skin comes over and waits.
"Whiskey."
Men chuckle nearby, but he only nods and moves back to fetch the bottle. Kate purposely chose a seat that wasn't too near any of the other patrons, but as she waits she feels more hemmed in, bodies pressing in about her. Her eyes stay forward, fixed on an imperfect brass mirror that only reflects booze and sawdust and black-flecked leers.
"Hoowee, Jimmy. You never mentioned bringin' in entertainment."
Her fingertips press against the bar. Someone's hand is in her hair.
"What's your name, darlin'?"
The barkeep sets a glass down in front of her and fills it with whiskey, the brown liquor splashing over the lip and onto the bar. A few men rise from their seats nearby, moseying over for refills.
Her attention slowly cuts to the two men on her left, gunmetal eyes colder than ice.
"My name," she says slowly, caressing her glass; "is Kate Barlow. An' my business is none of yours."
More snickers.
(She sips slowly at her drink.)
"Awful feisty for a whore."
She snorts. So, he hasn't heard of her. Can't hold that against him. At least, not just yet.
"I ain't a whore. Just a business woman, an' just passin' through."
She extricates his hand from her body.
"A workin' girl? Well, what'd I say?"
"You're gonna want t'keep your hands off'a me, mister."
She finishes her whiskey and sets the tumbler down, motioning for a refill. Her back is pressed against the bar, hunting for security in the feeling of weathered walnut jutting into her spine. She's got a good view of the barroom like this. And the room, of course, has got a good view of her.
"Well, doggone it. Have y'stumbled into the wrong place? 'Cuz we don't git a lotta Ladies through these doors," one sneers patronizingly. "'Course, y'don't look like any Lady I've ever seen."
"I'm not," she says inside a filthy little laugh. "But I reckon this is the kinda place a woman would wanna be if she was travelin' south on her lonesome, an' needed a lil' information."
"Aw hell, honey. Why didn't y'say so? I know all 'bout travelin' south."
"I'm gonna tell you again," she warns, grabbing the man by the wrist and removing his hand from the inside of her thigh. "You'll wanna keep your hands off'a me."
Again, they laugh.
This isn't good. She's coming off as a joke. All these men are looking at her like she's some little girl playing dress up. And she can't even be angry, because that's just what she is, setting foot in a place like this for the first time, totally out of her element. And they know it.
"I'm lookin' for men. Men who ain't afraid t'get their hands dirty. Men who might be interested in a score."
More of them start laughing and she thinks, goddamn it, maybe the next time she rides into town she won't bother bathing for a few days. Maybe if she smells like the rest of them they'll be more inclined to listen.
"A big score - "
It seems the number of men needing refills has grown inexplicably. The bar is now crowded, and someone she didn't see before grabs her waist.
"You can find a few men like that right here, little missy!"
Kate's growing impatient.
"Hands off'a me if y'don't wanna lose 'em!"
She backhands the man for good measure, not holding back an ounce of her might. He twists into the man behind him, but now folk have grown bold, reaching out to harry and taunt, grabbing at her hips and her bust, and she has had just about enough of this shit.
Her Colt slides from its holster as smooth as a steak knife cuts through butter, and she spins it until she's got her fist around the muzzle, turning on the first man to her right and clocking him with the butt of the gun. He grunts, and before he can even collapse against the bar her other hand has crossed over her body, fingertips sliding through fabric, fabric, until they come upon steel and she twists the old Thunderer in her grip, aiming behind her. She lets off a shot that posts a hole through a man's boot and is already turning, flicking the gun around her finger until she's jammed the hammer into the soft meaty underside of someone's chin, and once the gun is cocked it's another flick of her wrist until she's aimed the loaded barrel at a shin that explodes red and leather in her wake.
Four bodies fall in eight seconds and the two that remain are getting real friendly-like with the smoking guns. She's got her Colt pointed at the forehead of the man who called her a whore, and the Thunderer she snuck from her back dug into a pair of privates.
"Oh, honey - "
She pulls in a calm breath.
" - You are just the dumbest thing."
"Oh god, my foot! She shot my fuckin' toes off!"
"Now, why don't we all jus' stay real calm, an' you can buy a lady a drink? We'll have ourselves a nice lil' sit-down, an' you'll answer my questions. Or I could jus' shoot all y'all's peckers off, an' then when I go lookin' I'll be sure t'find a few men in need of a good housewife on my way t'San Patricio."
Remarkably, Kate doesn't hear another laugh the rest of her time in town.