oo9: spooking horses
sundaysnuggles, [here].
SUMMARY: THERE'S A GANG OF SNAKE MEN THAT KEEPS BOTHERING BRONCO'S LITTLE SLEEPY TOWN. WHAT'S WORSE IS THAT NOW HIS OLD FRIEND IS RUNNING WITH THEM, TOO.
WARNING: CURSING, VIOLENCE.
"Roco, them snake boys out runnin' people round town again. You mind comin' in and puttin' a few bullets in 'em. Scare 'em a little?"
"Just-- let me sober up here a little..." Bronco made to stand up, but he didn't have the legs for it, didn't have near the sense neither, wobbling back against his chair. His head sloshed the same as his stomach, and the light through the torn curtains was doing relentless sin to his eyes. Was there some natural order that said no one needed you 'til you were hung over to high hell, and then they wanted you to go out and kill yourself for 'em? Or was it just his own damn fate tyin' him up? "...Just a minute, Willa."
"Ain't time for that." Willamina pushed Bronco's six-shooter into his chest, started up stinging his cheek with little slaps to get him woke up. "Got some more bad news for you, Roco."
"What?" Bronco bit out, shoving her back and pawing a sloppy hand over his bandolier on the table. It slid along the wood with the kind of sound that split teeth, though that probably was the liquor talkin'. Since when was he gettin' ideas to down whole bottles of whiskey in a go? Last night wasn't even worth celebratin'. He couldn't hold his drink for shit.
"Your boy, that Pace you used to run with 'til recent. Yeah, he's runnin' with 'em now."
"You're pullin' my leg, Willa." He got his bandolier over one shoulder, popping out the cylinder of his gun to check the chambers, feed bullets into the empty ones with water fingers that shook and slipped like the useless things they were. "Damn it." He cast her a hard glare under his brow. "What, they turned him?"
She nodded. "Looks like. He's got a real nice tail on 'im now, at least. You make from that what you want. Either way, yeah, he's putting up a real bad ruckus with 'em."
"Goddamn it, Pace."
*
It wasn't quick work, baggin' a crawler that weighed as much as two horses, but at the least, it didn't take more than a few dozen well-placed shots at the others to get them high tailin' it away from Pace, leavin' him all to his tenderfooted lonesome in the dust, like the backstabbin' scum they were. And when Bronco could get caught up to him -- easier for the bullet he'd put right under his ribs and all his mess of wheezing and hollerin' he was doing at his posse to come back -- he backhanded Pace across the face hard enough to knock him out, just for makin' him go to all the trouble, disappointin' him like no one ever had before.
A crowd drew quick to watch him tie Pace to the saddle of his mare, Sala, even a few kids darin' each other out to touch at Pace's tail when Bronco wasn't shoutin' 'em back. And then he had Pace's lily-liver ass draggin' over the dry road for all the town to see, back to Bronco's little old hutch where Pace used to stay, too.
*
He woke Pace with a cup of water to his face.
Pace made a noise close to a hiss, and though Bronco'd never been one to flinch around nobody, though he'd tied Pace up good and tight, he went a little cold, petting over the arms of his chair like he might need it in a pinch to keep Pace back. Even to just up and throw it at him, no regrets about it.
"Bronco--" Pace moaned, and that would be the realization of the empty bullet wound, all nicely blistered red with antiseptic and sutured in messy, proud stitches.
Well, Bronco was no doctor. He did what he could.
"What d'ya want? More water? Hold on--"
"Boo, you louse!" Pace strained against the ropes, so brute and solid now that a few of them snapped like paper, his tail writhing, kicking over and over at the wall of the place, shuddering the wood all the way up through to the roof; dust started down on them even, a regular haze. "Untie me! Untie me right this goddamn minute! I can't believe you shot me!"
"Quit with your gripin'. Your boys shot up my hat, besides, so I think I got off much worse."
"You shot me!"
"You're not gonna die or nothing’, Ace." Bronco hiked a leg up on the cot he had Pace stuck to, toeing his boot tip against Pace's face; that got him stopped a second. "My way of sayin' I missed you."
Pace snubbed him, "Yeah, well, if you just untie me, we can get back to that missing of yours."
"Nah, I don't like missin' much, really. Makes my stomach ache." He got his foot down and leaned over Pace, rubbing at the dirt on his cheek. His breath went out a little, lookin' at Pace so different now, scales all dug up along his eyes, over every inch of him in patches and lulls, his wild black hair cropped close and stick hard from pomade, skin a dusty green where it'd been all but sweet cinnamon before. No more dark stains of birthmarks, no more big brown eyes, no more innocent faces to hide something dangerous; Bronco liked those best, 'specially when they were turned on him. But Pace just looked cold now, unrelenting and cold, a human caught halfway in a beast, and Bronco almost wanted to backhand him again for being so stupid.
"Why...why're you out with them, Pace?" His fingers snagged on Pace's cheek, "Huh? Why'd you leave? I figured you for dead. I went looking all over for you. Instead...you go and do this?"
Pace slammed his tail against the wall again, spooking Bronco’s hands off him. He bared his teeth and arched hard up into the ropes, which grit and whined but held firm-- most of 'em anyhow.
He was even redder for them burning, maybe, redder for his anger. "What's it matter what I do?!"
"What?"
"You were talking big talk about going out to California to find your future! I'll have me a house, Pace, a real nice house and gold for miles and no one shooting a gun at me for nothing! Won't it be great!" He bashed the wall again, sending a plank down into the table with a gutting clatter. "That's all I heard for months! I, I, I! So go! Leave me, just like the rest of 'em! Thought you'd be gone by now, already!"
"I wasn't gonna leave you!" Bronco yelled back, right in his face so that he couldn't avoid it, somehow offended. "Are you crazy?! I was plannin' on haulin' you along with me! Even if you said no a thousand times! Goddamn it, Pace, you're such a fool! You go and do this to yourself, without even askin' me! Without tellin' me a goddamn thing!"
Pace shot him with a spiteful scowl, but it didn't make it up to his eyes. He didn't mean it at all. In fact, it looked like it was just so he could keep himself from bawlin'. It figured actin' hard would be the one thing to make him soft.
"Too proud to just ask me to come..." Bronco caught the one fat tear that Pace couldn't keep back, cutting down and startling him with a furious kiss. And for a change Pace responded without a fight, deep and controlling though, deprived, like he'd been on the brink of death without Bronco, all those weeks, and was only now coming back alive under him.
"God, I missed you something bad..." Bronco mumbled, pressing Pace’s lips with smaller, sappier kisses, holding tight to his face though the scales scraped his palms near to bleeding. "What'm I gonna do with you? So stubborn..."
"Sorry. Sorry I left--" Pace said, clipped for tryin' to keep himself together.
"I won't go without you. I won't."
"I know. Now. I know now."
With a soft whistle, Bronco scruffed up his hair for old times, getting a little of the Pace back that he remembered. "Say...will your friends be comin' 'round lookin' for you?"
"They probably think you killed me. Doubt it, anyway."
"Well good because I don't want to have to stake my claim twice in a day."
"Is that what that was?" Pace murmured, half false awe, half real. Funny, him tryin' to look sunny now with a face like that. "I thought Willa dragged your no-good hide out to do the Sheriff's dirty work again..."
"That too." Bronco sat back with a pitiful old bones reluctance, fishing the switch blade out from his boot. "What say tomorrow, if you’re up to it, we go see that old rock hag? I hear she's in with a devil and can do anythin’ for the right price."
SUMMARY: THERE'S A GANG OF SNAKE MEN THAT KEEPS BOTHERING BRONCO'S LITTLE SLEEPY TOWN. WHAT'S WORSE IS THAT NOW HIS OLD FRIEND IS RUNNING WITH THEM, TOO.
WARNING: CURSING, VIOLENCE.
"Roco, them snake boys out runnin' people round town again. You mind comin' in and puttin' a few bullets in 'em. Scare 'em a little?"
"Just-- let me sober up here a little..." Bronco made to stand up, but he didn't have the legs for it, didn't have near the sense neither, wobbling back against his chair. His head sloshed the same as his stomach, and the light through the torn curtains was doing relentless sin to his eyes. Was there some natural order that said no one needed you 'til you were hung over to high hell, and then they wanted you to go out and kill yourself for 'em? Or was it just his own damn fate tyin' him up? "...Just a minute, Willa."
"Ain't time for that." Willamina pushed Bronco's six-shooter into his chest, started up stinging his cheek with little slaps to get him woke up. "Got some more bad news for you, Roco."
"What?" Bronco bit out, shoving her back and pawing a sloppy hand over his bandolier on the table. It slid along the wood with the kind of sound that split teeth, though that probably was the liquor talkin'. Since when was he gettin' ideas to down whole bottles of whiskey in a go? Last night wasn't even worth celebratin'. He couldn't hold his drink for shit.
"Your boy, that Pace you used to run with 'til recent. Yeah, he's runnin' with 'em now."
"You're pullin' my leg, Willa." He got his bandolier over one shoulder, popping out the cylinder of his gun to check the chambers, feed bullets into the empty ones with water fingers that shook and slipped like the useless things they were. "Damn it." He cast her a hard glare under his brow. "What, they turned him?"
She nodded. "Looks like. He's got a real nice tail on 'im now, at least. You make from that what you want. Either way, yeah, he's putting up a real bad ruckus with 'em."
"Goddamn it, Pace."
*
It wasn't quick work, baggin' a crawler that weighed as much as two horses, but at the least, it didn't take more than a few dozen well-placed shots at the others to get them high tailin' it away from Pace, leavin' him all to his tenderfooted lonesome in the dust, like the backstabbin' scum they were. And when Bronco could get caught up to him -- easier for the bullet he'd put right under his ribs and all his mess of wheezing and hollerin' he was doing at his posse to come back -- he backhanded Pace across the face hard enough to knock him out, just for makin' him go to all the trouble, disappointin' him like no one ever had before.
A crowd drew quick to watch him tie Pace to the saddle of his mare, Sala, even a few kids darin' each other out to touch at Pace's tail when Bronco wasn't shoutin' 'em back. And then he had Pace's lily-liver ass draggin' over the dry road for all the town to see, back to Bronco's little old hutch where Pace used to stay, too.
*
He woke Pace with a cup of water to his face.
Pace made a noise close to a hiss, and though Bronco'd never been one to flinch around nobody, though he'd tied Pace up good and tight, he went a little cold, petting over the arms of his chair like he might need it in a pinch to keep Pace back. Even to just up and throw it at him, no regrets about it.
"Bronco--" Pace moaned, and that would be the realization of the empty bullet wound, all nicely blistered red with antiseptic and sutured in messy, proud stitches.
Well, Bronco was no doctor. He did what he could.
"What d'ya want? More water? Hold on--"
"Boo, you louse!" Pace strained against the ropes, so brute and solid now that a few of them snapped like paper, his tail writhing, kicking over and over at the wall of the place, shuddering the wood all the way up through to the roof; dust started down on them even, a regular haze. "Untie me! Untie me right this goddamn minute! I can't believe you shot me!"
"Quit with your gripin'. Your boys shot up my hat, besides, so I think I got off much worse."
"You shot me!"
"You're not gonna die or nothing’, Ace." Bronco hiked a leg up on the cot he had Pace stuck to, toeing his boot tip against Pace's face; that got him stopped a second. "My way of sayin' I missed you."
Pace snubbed him, "Yeah, well, if you just untie me, we can get back to that missing of yours."
"Nah, I don't like missin' much, really. Makes my stomach ache." He got his foot down and leaned over Pace, rubbing at the dirt on his cheek. His breath went out a little, lookin' at Pace so different now, scales all dug up along his eyes, over every inch of him in patches and lulls, his wild black hair cropped close and stick hard from pomade, skin a dusty green where it'd been all but sweet cinnamon before. No more dark stains of birthmarks, no more big brown eyes, no more innocent faces to hide something dangerous; Bronco liked those best, 'specially when they were turned on him. But Pace just looked cold now, unrelenting and cold, a human caught halfway in a beast, and Bronco almost wanted to backhand him again for being so stupid.
"Why...why're you out with them, Pace?" His fingers snagged on Pace's cheek, "Huh? Why'd you leave? I figured you for dead. I went looking all over for you. Instead...you go and do this?"
Pace slammed his tail against the wall again, spooking Bronco’s hands off him. He bared his teeth and arched hard up into the ropes, which grit and whined but held firm-- most of 'em anyhow.
He was even redder for them burning, maybe, redder for his anger. "What's it matter what I do?!"
"What?"
"You were talking big talk about going out to California to find your future! I'll have me a house, Pace, a real nice house and gold for miles and no one shooting a gun at me for nothing! Won't it be great!" He bashed the wall again, sending a plank down into the table with a gutting clatter. "That's all I heard for months! I, I, I! So go! Leave me, just like the rest of 'em! Thought you'd be gone by now, already!"
"I wasn't gonna leave you!" Bronco yelled back, right in his face so that he couldn't avoid it, somehow offended. "Are you crazy?! I was plannin' on haulin' you along with me! Even if you said no a thousand times! Goddamn it, Pace, you're such a fool! You go and do this to yourself, without even askin' me! Without tellin' me a goddamn thing!"
Pace shot him with a spiteful scowl, but it didn't make it up to his eyes. He didn't mean it at all. In fact, it looked like it was just so he could keep himself from bawlin'. It figured actin' hard would be the one thing to make him soft.
"Too proud to just ask me to come..." Bronco caught the one fat tear that Pace couldn't keep back, cutting down and startling him with a furious kiss. And for a change Pace responded without a fight, deep and controlling though, deprived, like he'd been on the brink of death without Bronco, all those weeks, and was only now coming back alive under him.
"God, I missed you something bad..." Bronco mumbled, pressing Pace’s lips with smaller, sappier kisses, holding tight to his face though the scales scraped his palms near to bleeding. "What'm I gonna do with you? So stubborn..."
"Sorry. Sorry I left--" Pace said, clipped for tryin' to keep himself together.
"I won't go without you. I won't."
"I know. Now. I know now."
With a soft whistle, Bronco scruffed up his hair for old times, getting a little of the Pace back that he remembered. "Say...will your friends be comin' 'round lookin' for you?"
"They probably think you killed me. Doubt it, anyway."
"Well good because I don't want to have to stake my claim twice in a day."
"Is that what that was?" Pace murmured, half false awe, half real. Funny, him tryin' to look sunny now with a face like that. "I thought Willa dragged your no-good hide out to do the Sheriff's dirty work again..."
"That too." Bronco sat back with a pitiful old bones reluctance, fishing the switch blade out from his boot. "What say tomorrow, if you’re up to it, we go see that old rock hag? I hear she's in with a devil and can do anythin’ for the right price."