Outlaw's Prayer (ch. 10)
Title: Outlaw's Prayer (10/?)
Author: honestys_easy
Rating: R
Pairing: Skibmann (Neal Tiemann/Andy Skib), Cookson (David Cook/Kelly Clarkson), Kradam (Kris Allen/Adam Lambert), various others, both slash and het
Disclaimer: Don't know, don't own; never happened, never will.
Summary: For his entire life, Kyle Peek always longed for the thrill and adventure in the open lands of the wild West. He gets more than he ever bargained for when he joins up with the legendary outlaw gang known only as The Kings.
Notes: I have been working on this story for the past nine months and I am SO excited to finally be posting it. What started out as a fledgling idea grew to be a huge AU and I'm very grateful to share it with you. A ginormous thank you goes out to dreamerren, for her work as beta and practically as the story's second author. Title credit goes to Nick Gibson for his song "Outlaw's Prayer."
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5, part one
Chapter 5, part two
Chapter 6
Chapter 7, part one
Chapter 7, part two
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
"I will get every man who killed [them]. I will not stop killing until I do, and I will never be taken alive." - Tom Starr, after the murders of his father and brother
"I ain't your personal Wells Fargo, Cook."
The remark was one he had heard before, and it was accompanied by an easygoing smile spread across Ryan Star's face. David always took Ryan's grumblings with a grain of salt, his complaints the cowboy's special brand of endearment. If Ryan had wanted to end this business agreement, it would have already been over years ago; David would have never let a man he didn't trust get so close to the Kings, let alone entrust him with his correspondence with Kelly. Ryan had proven himself loyal time and again, and while he opted to earn his money in more conventional and legal ways than the Kings, David made sure to let him know he was welcome.
"That you aren't," he replied, handing over his most recent letter and receiving one in return. "You're better then Wells Fargo. You never get robbed." Ryan rode through the frontier in a state of security; no one dared cross a friend of the Kings, outlaw nor lawman, lest their retaliation be swift and excruciating. Ryan himself was no Pony Express orphan: tall and lanky, the Jewish cowboy rode proudly in his own right, and like any man planning to stay alive he could handle his own in a gunfight. Just because he had no taste for the outlaw life did not mean he was incapable.
Sometimes a letter was all that awaited David in Ryan's satchel, Kelly's words succinct and practical, never revealing anything crucial in case their missives fell into the wrong hands. Sometimes the packages held a small trinket, a token of affection condensed into the earthen clay of a poker chip, the delicate leaves of a pressed flower between sheets of linen. David kept everything, despite having very few places to hold his many memories on the road; he had even contemplated swapping out the group's bulky cooking tools Kyle bore upon Gangles's back, but decided against it, not quite trusting the kid to hold onto something David deemed so valuable.
And he had sent back anything, everything that reminded him of her, knowing she kept them as close to her heart as he did for her. A beaded white blanket he had been told was an old Manakata courtship gift, from a tribe's warrior to the woman he loved. A golden scarf pin he had taken from a wealthy banker in South Dakota, the pristine blue of the gem in the center hearkening him back to the blue waters of Burleson's creek. He never sent a ring, fearing the gesture would be too bold, but once to Ryan's befuddlement he handed him a dressmaking pattern for a skirt, with a brief note lovingly reminding her he would love her all the same either way.
This time his letter included a sprig of dried black hyacinth, its scent still strong even weeks after he had found the determined flowers sprouting after a desert rain, destined to wither and die in the next day's sun but still soldiering on. The scent would fade eventually, he surmised, and the petals would one day crumble into dust, but the sentiment would always be there.
"You're sending a flower." Ryan deadpanned as David pulled the cinches tight on a leather drawstring pouch, the hyacinth safely inside.
He responded with a quirk of his eyebrow. Ryan was one to talk; he had a woman of his own stashed away in one of the territories, never breathing a word about her to David or the other Kings, and while on the trail he kept her favor tucked away in his pocket, unseen by any eyes but his.
"I'm sending a flower," he confirmed, his matter-of-fact tone daring Ryan to question it further.
Ryan shrugged, his thoughts not on the content of the gift but of its value. "Thought a gunslinger like you would put a little more bread into his offerings." He rubbed his thumb and forefinger together through thick leather gloves. One needn't be a confidante of the Kings to know they fared more than decently on their bank heists. "Drown his girl in gold and diamonds. Get her nothing but the best."
Diamonds were too rare on the range and could possibly be traced if he stole them; he had given her fine gold jewelry and coins a number of times, but they felt impersonal, cold. Every time David tried to imagine Kelly adorning herself in jewels and glittering gold, he instead saw only his silver star pendant around her neck on the leather cord, her smile and the light in her eyes outshining any precious metal. With the money he had raised from the Kings's heists he could buy her the world, but he knew that all she would truly desire from him was to have him in her arms once more.
"It's the thought that counts," David noted, but as he tossed the pouch over to Ryan, the older man felt the weight of the gift inside the pouch, heard the unmistakable clink of gold and silver rattle along with the hyacinth blossoms. Minted coins, too easy to trace if the Kings bartered with them on the open plain, but easy enough to melt down and reserve; Kelly, so close to her banker father, would have known this for years now, known exactly where and how to hide David's amassed fortune. David Cook was a sentimental one, Ryan realized, but he was far from stupid.
The gift was only the first matter of business between the two: besides being David's well-paid personal courier, Ryan also carried crucial news along with him on the range, inside information that would never be published in the newspapers. David always made sure to ask Ryan to put his ear to the ground for them, and always threw in hefty compensation for his troubles.
"A nasty gunfight up north," Ryan recalled as the scent of grilling meat wafted towards the two men; Kyle and Joey were at the fire preparing supper, the kid carefully watching the sizzling pan of bacon while Joey grumbled about the lack of beans in their supplies. Neal once again perched towards the horizon, the scowl scrawled across his face unable to be lifted even with Ryan's presence. Kyle kept his distance not out of fear but respect: he understood now why the Dr. needed his space, especially on the long days Andy was off gathering information in the latest town on their travels. "Nothing out of the ordinary, though; heard it was over a woman."
David chuckled, opening his arms wide for effect. "Ah, the power of love," his voice boomed with grandiosity, distracting Kyle momentarily from his task, noticing that Joey had suddenly become keenly aware of Ryan's presence at camp. "It does us all in, eventually. Either by the gun--" he pointed his finger as if it were a revolver, mimicking cocking the hammer with his thumb. Aiming at the silver band on Ryan's left hand, David pretended to press the trigger. "--or by the finger."
"Watch it," Ryan warned good-naturedly, protectively covering his ringed finger with his other hand. Regardless of David's musings, the argument Ryan had heard occurred at Holliday's saloon did happen over a woman, but the men were hardly battling for her love. And most disputes that ended by the gun weren't newsworthy enough for the Kings, but from what Ryan heard about the aftermath of the shooting, he deemed it near essential. "There's a whole investigation underway, the law got right on top of ol' Holliday even before the smoke cleared."
The smile faded from David's face, replaced with an expression of deep concern. "How--"
"A posse rolling through town," he quickly supplied, already knowing the question David was about to ask. Rarely a gunfight ended in arrests so soon after the fact, especially when the man left standing was a respectable citizen defending what was left of a woman's honor. "Got their noses into it on their way." Ryan leaned in, his voice low for sake of secrecy, though the wind still picked up his words and carried them towards Kyle's ears, hushed but distinct. "Though from what I heard, it wasn't the most orderly of arrests. It's a posse alright, but word has it they've got nothing to do with law."
Looking grim, David nodded once, urging Ryan to continue. Bounty hunters commonly rustled up groups of hired guns in a town if they planned to smoke out an outlaw, but it was rare for a posse to follow a wanted man, particularly across territory lines. Rarely even a lawman cared enough to chase an outlaw out of his jurisdiction. This seemed to have the markings of a personal vendetta, which was thankfully, David thought, not the Kings's style.
"We're not the ones they're looking for?" David raised an eyebrow; the question still needed to be asked. It was never safe to be under the nose of a posse, but if the group was so hell-bent on their prey, the Kings could bypass them unscathed.
He didn't realize the tension coiled into his veins until Ryan shook his head and it all released in a relieved sigh, David's shoulders feeling instantly lighter. "Talked with one of the witnesses at Holliday's; said they were looking for a man out of Arizona."
"Haven't been around there in over a year," David replied. No one held a grudge over a robbed bank for that long; Prescott probably wouldn't have even been able to rustle up a judge who could care enough to convict them.
"Looks like you and your boys dodged a bullet, then." The business end of their meeting complete, Ryan tipped his hat to the outlaw and gave a parting wave towards Kyle and Joey; he knew better than to say goodbye to Neal as he would get nothing in response. "Better get a move on. Want to head back to that town a few miles up." He hiked his thumb towards the direction of Hope, a devilish smile on his face. "Heard the saloon's a fine one. Brothel ain't too bad, either." Behind the courier's back Neal deepened his scowl; the timbre of Ryan's voice tended to travel farther than he thought.
David said his goodbyes to Ryan with a handshake full of coin, the precious metals guaranteed to be valuable wherever the rider's travels would next take him. Kyle offered their extra ration of supper to him, but Ryan respectfully declined, stating that he and bacon didn't make a winning combination.
"Guess those beans really would have come in handy," Kyle joked with Joey once the rider had departed, his figure scratching a long shadow across the ground by the sunset. He waited for a laugh and a quick retort, the typical response from the sandy-haired outlaw, but Joey was silent, staring off in the distance after Ryan's retreating shadow. His eyes were cloudy, a frown upon his face, and Kyle couldn't recall in the months he had been with the Kings another time when Joey had ever been so quiet.
Kyle narrowed his eyes, trying to gauge the strange expression on Joey's face; he had seen him content before, always up for a quick laugh, charmingly taking a joke three steps farther than anyone cared to hear. And he had seen Joey's anger, the emotion overboiling like a coffeepot on the kiln. He wished he were a better observer, like Andy, or more attuned to judge a man's character, like David; Kyle felt this wasn't a matter Joey was going to easily discuss. "Joey?" he asked hesitatingly. "...You okay?"
Joey looked up as if in a daze, barely registering Kyle's question at all. His mind seemed to be elsewhere, focused on the words they had overheard, conversations Kyle had dismissed as typical small talk, not even important enough to bring the familiar yet serious contemplative look to David's face. "What? Oh...fine. I'm fine, Kid." He stuttered the words, caught off-guard by Kyle's concern, and wandered away, the burrs in Gilbert's hair suddenly of more interest to him than answering any more of Kyle's questions.
With the bacon quickly sizzling and burning in the cooking pan, Kyle's attentions turned back to his task at hand, now short one outlaw to help him. He hadn't reconsidered Joey's strange turn in behavior again that night, though the characteristically cheerful man was as quiet as a corpse at camp, until the Kings gathered for a completed yet slightly charred supper. Ever the crowd-pleasing leader, David tried to compensate for the silence with wild stories he had both heard and experienced, but the atmosphere was not the same. Normally Kyle would have scrambled to hear David's lurid tale of the stolen stagecoach and the governor's daughter, but the sunny disposition David held while storytelling felt forced, filling up the awkward silence.
Even Neal, making it a personal mission to be stoic and standoffish that evening, commented on Joey's strange behavior. For the Dr. to be a man of few words was commonplace; for Joey it was unnerving. "Something crawl up your longjohns and nest there?" he asked, a remark that normally would have Joey cracking a joke with a grin, but this time he was unresponsive, sluggish even in noticing Neal addressed him. "You're lookin' damn rough, Clement."
Joey assured the other Kings that he was fine, and once again Kyle didn't believe him, the sneaking suspicion that something Joey had heard in David and Ryan's conversation was the cause. If he had only known what it was, he could have tried to help Joey fix it, look out for the older man like the other outlaws had watched out for him. But not even David knew the story behind Joey's past, what had brought him to the life of an outlaw; there were some questions Kyle knew he should not ask, questions to which he would never receive a truthful answer.
***
"There's law in that town." Andy grasped the mug of coffee and whiskey in both palms, the metal tankard warming his fingers after an unseasonably cold ride back to camp. Kyle had been developing his skills at brewing coffee over the months he camped with the Kings, but Andy, who didn't care for the stuff much less Kyle's particular blend, still smuggled in a swallow of liquor from Neal's flask.
The statement didn't even cause David to raise his eyes from the fire, his mind deeply rooted in the planning stages of a heist from which very little, even the warnings of Andy Skib, could rouse him. There was very little variation in their strategies from town to town merely because the banks themselves held little variety: all the tellers, the locks, were the same, and even the safes started all blurring together in David's mind. "What makes that different than anywhere else we've been?" he asked, faces of countless ineffectual sheriffs running through his head, some who met a bad end at the barrel of David's revolver, others too apathetic or terrified to do their jobs and fight back.
Riding with the Kings on the other side of the law--a line that blurred at best in most lands--Kyle learned much about the duality of sheriffs, their true nature as complicated as that of an outlaw. While most established towns had elected sheriffs charged to police the town and protect it from outside dangers, rarely did they find a man willing to live up to the job. If the case did not affect them personally sheriffs hardly ever pursued a crime, preferring to save their own skin over any idealized notions of restoring justice. Rallying oneself up against the Kings was a tall order; if any sheriff ever had the courage to face the outlaws, David always joked, they wouldn't be a sheriff, hanging around a town, bullying drunks and waiting for something actually interesting to ride in. Bounty hunters chased after the Kings for the rewards on their heads; lawmen did it for the thrill and a cold, calculating way of hunting and shooting down prey other than buffalo. Sheriffs typically donned a badge for the steady paycheck, and let other authorities take care of outlaw gangs.
But the grim expression on Andy's face told him this case might be different. "This town they actually seem to care about their gunmen. Got a sheriff and a deputy, though from what I've heard there isn't much love between the two." He had seen the deputy himself, expertly eavesdropping on his conversation with the doorman at the local brothel; the enmity on the man's face was nearly palpable when mentions of the sheriff drifted into their conversation. It was something to investigate, surely, if the need would arise. It all depended on how fast the outlaws could get out of that bank and back on the road out of New Mexico.
"Only means more targets to me," Neal smirked, half-joking.
Andy shook his head, taking a sip from the mug. "You didn't see this guy," he said. Short and slight, the deputy looked even less of a threat than Kyle, a clean-shaven face giving away both his optimism and his youth. But what he may have lacked in age and experience--an appearance that, Andy cautioned himself, that fooled many presumptuous men about the young Kings themselves--anyone from here to Cimarron could see he made up for in integrity. The deputy carried himself with a confidence that wasn't arrogant, but more like secure in his duty to the town: he would protect it always, and unlike others sworn into his profession he was willing to give his life for it. "He cares about this town...these people."
"You think he'll care enough to stop us?" Kyle spoke up, overriding propriety. Ever since Fox Canyon he sat back and, as Joey called it, watched the magic of the three senior Kings as they communicated through looks, clipped words, and slightest nods of the head that Kyle couldn't even pick up in the flickering light of a fire. But there were times he knew to step back and let more experienced heads prevail; and sometimes, even the greenhorn knew to take action.
Andy shrugged; he was an observer, not a mind reader. "The sheriff himself, from what I've gathered, cares less about protecting the town and more about doing what'll make him look good."
"Sounds like a sheriff," Joey said lowly, arms crossed against his chest. He was even more distant than usual, taking frequent glances over his shoulder and voice falling down to a grumble that even Kyle, who sat next to him, could barely hear. Andy could tell something was amiss with him the moment he rode back into camp, but it wasn't his part to pry; he did enough spying for the day in Hope, and Joey's secrets were his to keep.
"The deputy's hard-willed but he's still just a dep. Going against a sheriff could mean he's in the clink himself. And, win or lose--" Andy looked up from his mug, briefly catching the gaze of Neal from across the camp's fire. "He won't get the best of us."
A silence of doubt drifted through the campsite, the seeds planted by Andy's report and cultivated in each outlaw's imagination. The shadow's last remark was woefully unconvincing. Kyle thought of the training he had endured over the past few months, and he hoped he would not be forced to put those skills to the test. It was quite different shooting at a cactus, he realized, than shooting back at another man.
"It doesn't matter."
It was David who broke the silence, a determined, thoughtful glare boring into the deepest heat of the fire, the flames casting shadows across his face, darkening his eyes. Never had he looked more like a stoic leader of men; never had he looked more like a seasoned veteran of the outlaw life, who had seen men put down into their graves and dreaded witnessing more. "Sheriff, deputy...I don't care if the whole town's been deputized and armed to the teeth. We're going in there, and we do what we came here to do." David had only backed down from robbing a bank once, and an idealistic deputy was hardly the reason.
His deadly serious tone and the unflinching expression on his face brought a reinvigorated spirit to the outlaws, turning downtrodden faces into determined nods, uncertain silence into confidence. With his charisma and skill to back up his boldness he could have been a general in a former life, heralding armies to victory, inspiring men to fight, live or die on the battlefields. He could have won the confidences of millions, of entire nations; become a country's hero. But he was born in this life, in a doomed little homestead in Missouri to a doomed little family, trailing his life from one heist to the next. And in this life, his only victory was inciting the Kings to rob the town of Hope blind, no matter what the consequence.
David looked each outlaw in the eye, staring them down until his conviction bore into them like a Colt's bullet right through to the brain. It took months after that night for Kyle to realize David's speech was to exorcise his own demons, battle against his own fears about a lawman's bullet stealing his chances of ever seeing his Kelly again. "And if we've got to kill every gunman in town to do it...then let it be done."
***
Feed and water the horses. Loosen their tethers so they won't be so wild when you start to ride. Douse and dirt the fire; scatter the ashes to make it look natural instead of a campfire.
Kyle repeated his own instructions to himself as he worked industriously in the dark, his skills at striking camp perfected over the months with the Kings. It was like second nature to him now, knowing the temperaments of each outlaw's horse--how Sugarfoot had to be approached by her right flank, the way her beloved left-handed owner approached, or how Sixx would become so friendly after being fed he would attempt to lick Kyle's face like a lapdog. The Kings's horses were all saddled now, each steed energized and ready for an anxious wait and then a breakneck escape after the heist. Before the outlaws would dismount, leaving Kyle alone with their horses to serve as lookout, he had to promise David, as he did before every robbery now, that he would not spearhead another stampede.
The days were getting shorter now, with winter rearing its icy head just beyond the horizon, sending cold breezes past them in the New Mexican predawn. By midday it would be sweltering again, a wilting heat that made Kyle want to droop in his saddle and collapse, but for now the crisp air cast a cold, forbidding feeling across the desert, from the numbness in Kyle's fingertips to the visible, fogged breath of the horses.
The only one not with them now was Andy, who as always left in the dead of night to return to his position as an innocent traveler in Hope, trying not to boast about the luxurious accommodations at the Lambert Inn. Kyle wondered if it had been as cool when Andy left as it was now, if the still air had felt just as cold and ominous.
When he had been on the ranch, cold snaps like this--while not nearly as extreme in California as out here on the unprotected range--always meant a time of harvest, discovering the fruits of their labor in the fields, bringing in the Peek family livestock for sale and slaughter. Now, as he gave his silent nod to the other Kings, each man taking the reins of his mount and setting off for Hope, just like back home, the cold meant it was time to reap what they had sown.
***
Empty. The streets of Hope were empty, the townspeople taking refuge from the cold and returning to their houses, the patterns of their everyday lives disrupted by the weather. The day would undoubtedly warm, as desert autumns tended to do, and the town would go about their busy, carefree lives, albeit a bit behind schedule.
The emptiness was unnerving Andy Skib to no end.
In normal circumstances--a bustling, cheery town center, with Hope's inhabitants blissfully going about their business and greeting each other with the warmth of a closely-knit community--Andy could blend in flawlessly, slipping in between shadows and being cleverly overlooked in the crowds of the morning. It was how he worked best, especially on the day of a heist: hiding in plain sight, he could keep watch on the bank as his fellow Kings raided its coffers without anyone being the wiser of his presence. Andy discovered early on in their adventures how convincing he could be when feigning shock at the news of a bank just being robbed.
But in Hope there was no place to hide, no spur of wagon wheel dust or the buzzing chatter of the early morning. The bank, made only of wooden beams and timber and not nearly as solid as the oldest building, the inn, was at the center of town, with a clear view of the saloon, the main street storefronts...and the sheriff's office. The late risers of Hope were a detriment for some reasons, but a blessing for others; with any luck the streets could be as deserted as they had ever seen them, as empty and unassuming as Fox Canyon.
Andy squeezed his slender frame into an alleyway with a clear shot of the bank's entrance, hiding his shadow behind an old pickle barrel. He remembered the idealist little deputy, who made up with resolve what he lacked in experience, and how Andy monitored his daily routine of patrolling the town.
This was no Fox Canyon; Andy wasn't going to let another deadly detail get by him again.
***
Hope was built in a desolate plain, with no mountains or crevices to hide from the elements or deadly desert predators, animal or otherwise. A small irrigation channel ran by its western border, with one hard-packed dirt road leading in and out of the town. David needn't even have asked his intelligence gatherer to guess it was dubbed Main Street; they all were, and Hope was no different.
He handed Sugarfoot's reins over to Kyle, his backup already dismounted and anxious for action. As a model of its citizens' hospitable Christian behavior, Hope was a weaponless town--only the sheriff and his men were allowed to carry firearms in public. While many other towns also touted this virtuous law, rarely did any of its inhabitants ever abide by it, choosing instead to conceal their guns with shoulder holsters or underneath heavy dusters, Andy said the town overwhelmingly supported the new rules, the law of Hope in a state of flux that left the town wide open for invasion.
David narrowed his eyes at the boom town, the fledgling bank dwarfed by the established adobe brothel at the center of town. The ironies dwelling on each side street and avenue here were rich enough to eat with a spoon, but David had no time to ponder them; he had a bank to rob.
"Come on, fellas," he said, taking the lead and feeling Joey and Neal's presences behind him, falling into step, guns at the ready. "Let's show them what we got."
***
It was Matt Giraud at the dry goods store that saw the outlaws first, watched initially with sleep-blurred eyes as he opened his shop up for business that morning. The sun was barely over the horizon, casting deep shadows of the outlaws across Main Street, the illusion making them look larger than life. It was that same sun that betrayed them: Giraud would have taken them just as early morning travelers, making their way along the road towards California's sunny coasts or Texas's liquid riches, if it had not been for the sunlight glinting off their guns.
There was little else he could do but run as the trio made a beeline for the bank, their steps hurried but solid and deliberate, and they burst the door open with a stunning force. There was no one else on the street at that hour, the town giving in to their comfortable desires and sleeping off the morning chill. He had to tell someone; he had to warn them.
He had no firearm of his own; as the adrenaline pumped in Giraud's ears, a hand clamped over his mouth to stop himself from panting so audibly as he ran, he regretted not keeping a shotgun underneath the store's countertop as others had suggested to him. He thought it was too risky, citing that someone out to rob him could very easily turn the tables and steal the shotgun from him, or consider him a deadly threat and shoot him down before Giraud ever got to loading the gun's bulky cartridges. Hope was a safe place to live, he thought, with good, pleasant citizens and righteous men of the law; he would never require such a thing, and with his luck would probably shoot off his own foot in the process.
Giraud slipped out the back door of the store, careful not to catch the attention of the man standing watch by the bank's door, menacing shotgun in hand, and then ran as fast as his legs could take him, the dirt and loose pebbles of the hard-packed earth kicking up underneath his soles, slowing him down and nearly knocking him off balance. He heard the shouts in the bank and prayed they did not escalate to gunshots, not before it was too late.
Reaching his destination in record time, it took him a moment and a few gulps of cold morning air before he could finally get out his words, the only inhabitant of the building holding his breath, already knowing from the panic struck on Giraud's face the news would be dire.
"Bank...bank robbery," Matt gasped out, clutching onto the doorframe of the sheriff's office. His bleary eyesight cleared instantly when he knew it had mattered, and the faces he saw break into Hope's bank were known throughout the West. "You gotta get there, fast. It's the Kings."
A lump of fear instantly formed deep in Danny Gokey's stomach, mouth hung open in shock, and despite all his mind's warnings his legs took him out of the sheriff's office and running down towards the bank, leaving behind in his haste the holster carrying his sheriff's revolver, hanging off the armrest of his chair.
***
"One minute!"
David dug into his shirt pocket as Joey called out their time remaining inside the bank, only sixty seconds until Kyle would be ready with the horses and the four of them could make an effective escape. The metallic clinking of coins sagged heavily in his sack, and rustling behind him indicated Neal was also taking his fill. It'd be a godsend if these territories switched to reliable bank notes instead of using precious metals as their standard; all this heavy lifting was murder on David's back.
"You've been right hospitable today, sir," David couldn't mask the gleeful condescension in his voice, self-satisfied grin reaching his eyes and spreading all over his face. The bank owner trembled where he stood, half-hiding behind a ficus. He had surrendered quickly and bartered sparing his own life for the contents of the safe. David never mentioned to him that the negotiation was unnecessary: he never actually wanted to kill the banker, and the Kings planned to take that money whether or not the solitary bank owner allowed them to.
Handing him a playing card they had picked up from a deck in Colorado, David flashed the banker a grin, another heist successfully ended. The King of Hearts stared back at the banker, who was shaking like a wheat stalk in a twister, the figure's sword stoically pointed towards his own head. "You tell the rest of your town 'good morning' for us," David quipped, tipping his hat in an ironic gesture of courtesy, as his compatriots made their quick exit. He probably would have liked Hope some, if he hadn't been so intent on robbing it. "It's been a pleasure."
***
The sun's rays were already blinding, racing across the landscapes of the town as Danny himself ran to the scene of the crime, his ears thundering with adrenaline and fear. There was little else he wanted to do than bury himself underneath his sheriff's desk and wait for everything to blow over--or perhaps discover it had all been a terrible nightmare. But Matt Giraud had come directly to him once the robbery broke out, and Danny knew he couldn't even attempt to feign ignorance later.
He wished he had stayed an extra hour in bed, the warm security of the covers mocking him now as the cold breezes of the morning hit him head-on as he ran. Then perhaps that carpetbagger deputy of his might have been in the office instead of him; Kris seemed always up for a new way to prove his loyalty for the town, and God knew he was eager enough.
If only that damn deputy was here, he thought, then Kris might be the target for the Kings's bullets rather than him.
The front door to the bank was already crushed in, the splinters littering Main Street, and while Danny heard no commotion from inside, no gunshots or rage-filled shouts, he wasn't anywhere near willing to get closer and investigate. With a swift breeze to his right, against the wind, he turned, fleetingly watching Matt Giraud retreat back to the safety of his store, bolting the front door behind him, leaving the newly-elected sheriff alone in the street to handle the outlaws. Danny cursed Giraud's cowardice while wishing at the same time that he could join him.
When movement came once again from the bank, three figures making their way through the remnants of the door, Danny felt his joints lock in fear, the shock of witnessing the robbery--of being the man responsible for stopping it--overwhelming him. His hands fell stiffly to his sides, mouth agape, his eyes widening as he caught the outlaws escaping with Hope's riches.
Giraud had been right; it was the Kings, ready and armed to the teeth, standing not thirty feet from the sheriff, making their getaway. The Kings, one of the most successful and notorious outlaw gangs in the West, in his town, with nothing but a quick glance at his badge and a well-placed bullet standing between life and death.
Goddamnit, where was that blasted deputy of his??
***
Hope felt like a different town once they emerged from the bank, the sun brightening every strip of bare timber, the empty streets feeling hollow and dead; it was starkly different from the pregnant anticipation the dawn had awarded it, then its barren streets simply waiting for its people, waiting to be filled. David guessed he should have taken the empty streets as a blessing, as a chance for a perfect escape, but it kept him guarded. He didn't want to get over-confident and lead the Kings straight into an ambush.
With quick strides he led the way towards Kyle and the horses; he could already hear the familiar sounds of a small herd in gallop, their mounts gaining the necessary momentum to leave Hope at top speed, hit the ground running. He steeled himself, setting his jaw and honing in on his destination, forcing himself to let go of the cockiness he had expressed back in the bank. Joey kept his head down and his finger on the trigger, his mind still muddled by the overheard conversation the night before, cagily wondering where that vigilante posse would head next in search of their prize. But Neal, covering the Kings's rear, scanned the desolate streets, eyes sweeping around and behind them, focusing on any movement that could give away a second-story sniper, or a lookout waiting to execute the sign for a strike.
No threats bore down upon the Kings in Hope, no town ambush or a lone gunman seeking a name for himself by taking them down. There was but one figure visible in town, standing at the center of the street close to the bank's exterior walls, frozen like a statue. He was hardly an imposing man, average in every way Neal deemed imaginable, donning thick-rimmed spectacles glinting in the sun. But even their reflection could not hide the shock in the man's eyes, mouth hanging open, as he watched the Kings clean Hope's bank dry.
Neal didn't notice a holster on him, and he didn't reach for a weapon at all. He didn't appear to be a threat; he seemed barely able to comprehend the Kings's existence in Hope, much less be capable of stopping them. The rays of the morning sun caught on the tin star tacked to his vest, garnering the Dr.'s further attention; could this be the steadfast deputy Andy had warned them about?
Narrowing his eyes and keeping a firm grip on his revolver, Neal observed only fear and doubt in the other man. He saw none of the passionate loyalty of the deputy Andy had spoken of, the resolve that the deputy was willing to kill to protect this town or to die for it. This must be the opportunistic sheriff, he surmised; his fear was quite reminiscent of local marshals the Kings had encountered in the past, proving that it took more than a badge and a firearm to instill true courage. The sheriff was no threat to him, no danger; he'd be no hero if he shot the man down simply because he was there.
Disregarding the enlivened speech David had given the night before, cautioning the others that no man should get in their way that morning, Neal left the sheriff unharmed, backing away slowly and maintaining a keen eye on the frozen figure in case his fear was a clever disguise. He would never be foolish enough to turn his back to a lawman, especially not when carrying a freshly-looted sack full of the bank's valuable stock, but this encounter told him the sheriff of Hope was certainly not a man to fear. Neal doubted he would even scrounge up a posse to search for the outlaws; he'd probably be too busy counting every little blessing on his head that the infamous Dr. aimed a gun at him and didn't pull the trigger.
A quick, high-pitched whistle from David called Neal back to attention and back to the Kings's retreat, and he quickened his pace to catch up with the others. It marked the ending of the standoff that never was, and the only standoff in Neal's life where he allowed the other man to live.
***
"Hey! Sheriff--hey!"
Time had seemed to be as frozen as his limbs when Sheriff Gokey met the eyes of one of the infamous Kings, outlaws feared up and down the deserts and open plains, close enough to see the gunman's trigger finger itch as he sized Danny up, debating if he was even worth the value of the bullet he would leave behind.
When the voice called out from the safety of the dry goods store it startled Danny, jump-starting time once more. It had only been thirty seconds since he arrived on the scene, witnessing the only bank robbery in Hope's history and its culprits almost strut out of the town with their riches in tow, but the sun seemed much higher in the sky now, its rays much stronger, bearing down upon Danny to the point of discomfort. His arms and legs still had yet to thaw when Matt Giraud emerged from his hiding place, running over to Gokey with a look of confusion across his features.
"What are you doing?!" Giraud asked; Danny's mouth didn't even attempt to form words, still hanging open in shock from before. "Why'd you just let them go? You should have shot at them!"
It was only then that Danny slid his hand down the right side of his frame, noting with equal amounts of dread and relief that his holster was missing, abandoned in his office in his hurry. His mistake was probably the only reason his life had been spared.
But Giraud gave him no time to make excuses for his behavior. Giraud ran down Main Street, shouting at each storefront and windowframe, wresting the town from an extended sleep to the jarring news that the bank had been robbed. Heads began to peek out from doors and windows, townspeople rubbing the slumber from their eyes, confused about the sudden commotion and its cause--and waking to find their elected sheriff standing in the middle of its aftermath.
"Robbery! Robbery! Everyone up--the bank's been robbed!"
There was probably some noise ordinance or decency violation Gokey could have slapped onto Giraud for this spectacle, but his mind was still reeling from the robbery, barely noticing the growing gathering of townspeople streaming into the street, expressions of disbelief on their faces, their confusion gradually turning to outrage.
"Did you see it, sheriff?" one woman asked, clutching an infant to her chest frantically, as if the outlaws were still in town and would snatch her child from her arms at any moment.
"We can't catch them now," a young man in longjohns contributed, squinting in the sun, trying to pinpoint specks of movement in the distance and determine if they were Hope's errant outlaws. "Giraud's screamin' his head off it was the Kings; don't know if I want to try and catch them."
"Why didn't you stop them?!" cried another voice from the crowd, directed at the sheriff. "Why--why didn't you protect us?!"
The murmurs among the crowd grew louder, and more hostile: it was evident to the good people of Hope that their newly-elected sheriff, the hometown hero who had declared loudly and enthusiastically that he would always keep the best interests of the people in mind, was not as gallant as he claimed.
Faces that beamed at him only weeks before, fervent supporters of him during the campaign, suddenly turned cold towards him, accusing; asking for explanations, for answers. Danny Gokey had none.
He would have to do something to regain their trust, or else his sheriff's badge wasn't the only thing at stake.
***
Andy watched with a grim satisfaction as the townspeople converged around their cowardly sheriff, all of Hope fully awake now with the dire news that theirs was a bank plundered by the infamous Kings. His feelings towards authority wavered from apathy, at best, to a grand distaste when reminded of the atrocities the Cook family were subjected to by a hell-bent lawman. He hadn't met the sheriff of Hope but from what he had gleaned in his observations of the town, the conversation involving his own deputy the most telling, Danny Gokey never troubled himself with thoughts of goodwill or justice, focusing instead on his own ambitions and impressing them upon the rest of the town.
It almost made Andy want to smile with indulgence; from the way the town was slowly turning against him, Danny Gokey looked like he was getting his just desserts.
He had come dangerously close to changing the course of the robbery, Andy's senses heightened and his nerves taut while standing lookout, providing the hidden backup the other Kings had come to depend upon over the years. Performing his research of the town carefully, he knew the daily schedule of the diligent deputy, Kris Allen's morning patrol so reliable one could set his pocketwatch to it. Andy planned to prevent a showdown as much as possible: he had his revolver at the ready, waiting for a shot at the approaching deputy before he ever reached the bank, before any of his partners could be in danger. Hidden, crouching in an alleyway, waiting to shoot an unsuspecting lawman...it wasn't a dignified ambush in the least, but Andy learned long ago beggars couldn't be choosers.
The only thing was, the moment never arrived. Much like the rest of the town, the deputy was nowhere to be found, and Andy found himself waiting for a phantom, his preparations to take the lawman down all for nothing. When the sheriff had arrived, it was clear to Andy he would pose no threat compared to the deputy: unarmed and overwhelmed, Danny Gokey wouldn't fare well against a child's toy pop gun, much less the skilled gunmen. He had the fleeting thought of doing the sheriff in anyway, ensuring there would be one less lawman on their trail to worry about; but if shooting an armed man from the safety of a well-hidden alleyway felt wrong, this was far worse, and Andy wouldn't even let a man like Gokey burden his conscience.
Whatever the unexpected bumps in the plan, the outcome was the same: the rest of the Kings were already off, fading into the distance to live and rob another day. He'd meet with them as soon as he could wrest himself away from the town, particularly those swell accommodations he booked at the Lambert Inn--he never imagined an oasis of comfort and luxury would exist in a boomtown in New Mexico, when he was used to straw mattresses and bare wooden walls, at best. He hadn't partaken in any of the saloon girls up for sale inside, preferring not to mix business with pleasure, but certainly raised an eyebrow when the owner of the inn, a tall man with dark, well-coiffed hair and flashy attire, asked if he would be interested in one of the more masculine residents of the Lambert Inn.
His thoughts drifted from the heist as he holstered his weapon and rose to his feet, putting on a bewildered expression best suited for an innocent traveler caught up in a town's frenzy over a sensational robbery. He had spent time worrying for nothing. Hope had ended up like any other town, their banks falling quickly under the bootheels of the Kings. Andy should have never thought otherwise.
***
"Mmmm...you're hogging the blanket." Kris buried his head further into the pillow, eyes still closed but mouth upturned into a sleepy, contented smile. The goosefeather pillow smelled like Adam; the entire room had that faint scent of sandalwood and musk, face powder and leather, and Kris couldn't get enough of it. His words were muffled into the fluffy pillow, feeling his lover's hot breath dance across the back of his neck, and suddenly he didn't mind at all if Adam monopolized the comforter.
The laugh was light and sleepy in his ear, tickling the flesh there and sending shivers of emotion down his spine. Adam's fingers soon joined that shiver, trailing along Kris's exposed shoulderblades, Adam's eyes intent on watching Kris's skin react to his touch. "It's mine," he said, and Kris couldn't tell if he was referring to the blanket, or to the deputy's own body. He enjoyed the outcome either way. "And I get to do what I want with it."
Those fingers swooped down over the curves of Kris's back, dipping low underneath the covers, and he hummed in satisfaction. "Well," he opened his eyes to see startling blue-gray eyes staring into his, heavy-lidded with sleep but clear, free of the dark rings of kohl and imported makeup Adam used when in the company of others, his fresh, freckled face rarely seen by anyone but Kris. He cherished that privilege, of knowing the real Adam Lambert inside and out. "What do you want to do with it?"
With a wicked grin on his face--a smile that reminded Kris of blooming desert flowers, of sweet bourbon in crystal glasses, of joy--Adam pulled the covers over both of their heads, shrouding them in the darkness the blanket provided, and leaned in to give him a smiling, breathless kiss. They stayed naked underneath the bedsheets for a time, reveling in the pleasure of each other's touch, four legs tangled in the blanket and each other. Kris knew every part of Adam by now without even the aid of light, his other senses enhanced as if he were struck blind: in the months they had been together he memorized the saloon owner's body by touch, the scent of him overwhelming Kris's senses, even the taste of Adam was burned into his mind.
He felt a hand brush against his cheek, Adam's fingers cupping his chin, his eyes on him even in the darkness. "I'm glad you stayed last night," he whispered, leaning their foreheads together, breathing in the same air.
Kris wrapped his arms around Adam's waist, bringing him in closer, never wanting to let go and lose that connection. He didn't typically stay at Adam's through the night, preferring to leave during the height of the Lambert Inn's busy nightly hours, knowing just another shadow among many would pass by unnoticed. But the previous night's supper at the preacher's house had gone dismally, and Kris fled as soon as the opportunity arose to the inn, finding understanding and comfort in Adam's arms. When it had come time for him to depart as he always did, Kris nestled himself in closer to Adam's body in his bed, letting the crisp night air and the soft pull of slumber convince him not to move.
"Me too." Kris was sure it was late, the sun's rays peeking into Adam's room even through the blanket, casting a dark, intimate light over their features. He'd be terribly late on his morning routine, but hopefully the rest of the town would take no mind, the unseasonable chill of the morning an easy excuse for his tardiness, and not an entirely false one at that. "You would have done the same thing in my situation; they actually asked point-blank if getting Brooke into 'the family way' would speed up a proposal. Poor Brookie looked just about to keel over in her napkin."
He felt a peck land on the tip of his nose; it always amused Kris when Adam--strong-willed, defiant Adam, who challenged strangers in his heels, makeup and glitter to ever call him effeminate--dared to reveal his cute side. "Poor, poor Kristopher," he cooed, condescension stripped bare. "Forced by society to parade around town with a woman on his arm, when all he wants to do is race back here and be dominated." Those hands of his swooped down again on Kris's body, reminding Kris of how they held him last night, how they gripped, slapped yielding, willing flesh. Kris whimpered.
"I would never be in your situation," Adam explained, satisfied by the low, hungry growl emanating from his lover's throat, knowing he was the cause of it. "I don't put on appearances, I don't need to. Everyone knows who I am, and if they don't like it--" he shrugged, understating his pride. With nearly everything about his identity going against him in the West, where fear and hatred ran as wide and numerous as the cattle drives, Kris knew how important it was to Adam to be exactly who he wanted to be, regardless of consequences. It was this quality that earned Kris's respect the moment he met him, and gradually, his love. "--They know the fastest way outta town."
The smile on Kris's face faded, Adam's indignance reminding him of the news he received the day before. "Gokey's tryin' to do that to you, isn't he." The threats of raids, the decency ordinances...Kris knew it was all leading up to a war between the Lambert Inn and the law, and he felt a deep loyalty to both parties involved.
They spoke about it before, the night Gokey had tried to slap fines on the inn for noise disturbances despite the county judge being in the establishment, getting thoroughly entertained by an ironically-named black woman who was anything but little. Adam had ranted and paced through his private rooms above the parlor while Kris watched with patient eyes, knowing more to both sides of this story than anyone else in the town ever could. Adam had even considered giving in to the sheriff and moving his operation to greener pastures in California, but he knew he would never leave Kris, and Kris would never leave Hope.
So he and the sheriff remained in their battle, with Kris in the middle, left free to take sides. "Well, he won't succeed, that's for damn sure," Adam grumbled, approaching the only topic able to sour his mood while Kris was lying in bed with him. The Lambert Inn brought too much business to Hope for the townspeople to ever decry purity over commerce. Gokey was trying to sway public opinion, but only time would tell if he could be successful. "My father built this place from dirt and sand; it means too much to me to lose it. Especially to someone like him."
He thought of Kris's own devastating loss to Gokey, remembering how the sheriff's election hit the deputy hard, his love and trust for Hope damaged, tarnished. He wouldn't let the man take both of them down. Pulling the smaller man closer he eased Kris into another kiss, letting the warmth of the other man's body against his fully distract him from thoughts of the wiley sheriff and their troubles. Adam had felt the attraction to the young deputy the moment he introduced himself at the Lambert Inn's doors, but it took much longer for him to realize Kris would be so much more to him than a pretty face--a surprising intellectual, a confidante; a lover that never failed to take his breath away. While it was a relationship they sadly had to keep behind closed doors, hiding their companionship from a town that accepted sexual eccentricities in their brothel owners but not in their deputies, Adam cherished the moments they did share, the stolen glances and touches in the inn as well as their lovemaking, and the happy, uninhibited moments like this, where they could kiss and laugh and just be.
A sharp rapping came from the bedroom door, and immediately their ministrations ceased, both men lying frozen underneath the bedsheets, barely breathing in case their presence was discovered. Adam gave Kris an apologetic look before he shouted a response. "What d'ya want?" he didn't bother to hide the irritation in his tone, nor did he think to get out of bed and give the interloper an audience. The door was locked and barred, for Adam's safety as well as his privacy; if this were some misguided, perpetually drunk client knocking at the wrong door, there would certainly be hell to pay.
But it was his emcee's voice that projected back to him, Blake's energy seeming more jittery and off-kilter than exuberant. "Just got word, there's been a robbery," he warned through the door. "Bank's been cleaned out, someone's screaming their head off down there that it was the Kings." A parting knock on the wood told Adam that Blake would press no further; like the old saying went, looked like Lambert had another man for breakfast. "Thought you should know. The whole town's lookin' to Gokey for answers--I almost feel bad for them."
When the sound of Blake's retreating steps faded into silence, Adam took a deep sigh, thankful the moment had passed quickly and without incident; Kris, lying next to him still as a corpse, did not take such a saving breath. His hands gripped the sheets, eyes staring out without seeing, his focus not on the couple's close call but on the actual content of the message.
His own concerns quickly turning to the reaction of his lover, Adam tilted Kris's chin with his thumb, their eyes meeting, though for once Kris's thoughts were not on the beauty of the blue-gray eyes staring back at him. Adam's eyes were his words, asking without ever taking a breath; but just as Kris could read the concern on Adam's features, silently asking if he was okay, Adam could decipher the shock and anxiety from Kris, his duty colliding with his desires.
"I have to go," Kris whispered abruptly, so sudden it caused the breath to catch in Adam's throat. With no further pomp the deputy pulled himself out of his lover's embrace and emerged from underneath the covers. The sun was streaming brightly through the high window of the inn, bypassing even the heavy damask curtains Adam had shipped from some country in Europe Kris had never even heard of. He blinked, eyes adjusting to the new, harsh levels of light in the room, and his small hesitation allowed a hand to wrap around his wrist.
"But--" Now that Adam had experienced waking up with Kris in his arms, feeling a warmth beside him that went farther than mere body temperature, he didn't want to let it go so suddenly. "Can't you--"
"Adam." His voice wasn't stern but there was authority behind it, a finality that told Adam the issue was no longer up for discussion, it never was. A glimmer of light shone into Adam's eye, sunlight catching off the polished metal star pinned with pride onto Kris's vest, laying lifelessly draped over a chair where it had been discarded the night before. It was all the answer Kris needed to give: Adam knew that the deputy's heart was split in two, that his affections were shared between his love for the saloon owner and his love for his job, for the town; for justice itself. Adam had to expect Kris would begrudgingly forsake one when the other was in such danger as it were now. He was still the law in this town, and he was needed on Main Street more than he was needed in that bedroom.
With a silent nod of understanding Adam relinquished his grip on Kris's wrist, the younger man taking one longing look at the warm bed and the warm body still inside it before gathering his clothes. He tried to hide from Adam how his hands shook at the prospect of what dangers he might find downstairs. He may have been the beloved deputy of Hope, but he had still never encountered so much as a lad stealing penny candy from the general store, much less ruthless bank robbers. He would have been a fool if he wasn't terrified.
"I should go, too," Adam decided, pulling himself out of bed and searching for clothes of his own. There wasn't much point to sleeping in if he were forced to sleep in alone. "See what happened. At the very least, it's worth it to watch Gokey's ego get knocked down a peg or two."
Kris breathed out a heavy sigh, sharing the sentiment but not admitting it aloud; that was, after all, supposed to be his boss they were talking about. "I've got to listen to some witnesses, take a look at the damage done to the bank..." His breath came out shaky, and this time there was no hiding it from Adam. They didn't often keep secrets from one another, each of them having their fill of lying when out in public, and Kris knew his emotions were always far from subtle. "...see if there are injuries."
The name Blake had uttered through the heavy wooden door was no light matter, and it struck fear into the hearts of all settlers in the open West, including Kris. Everyone had heard the stories of the bloody trail of plunder and destruction the Kings left in their wake, meek frontier towns terrorized by their wrath. Kris had spent the past two years as deputy hoping for his beloved town to be spared; now, he saw it had only been a matter of time before disaster struck. He prayed he only had to investigate shattered bank windows and empty safes, and not bloodied, broken bodies strewn across Main Street. The Kings were not known for being merciful.
He felt a presence behind him as he slipped on his vest, the tin star hanging heavily against his chest, and soon two strong, comforting arms were around him, a soothing and familiar voice in his ear. "It'll be alright," Adam murmured, a soft kiss against the shell of Kris's ear, and already the deputy could feel the tension draining from his bones as he leaned into the touch. He really couldn't fathom how he ever got by without him. "I promise."
"You can't promise," the words escaped Kris's thoughts before he could curb them, his eyes closed, brow stitched into an uncertain furrow. He regretted his mumblings but Adam knew he was right; security and safety were never guarantees in the West, and even the most prudent, pious man could be cut down by an outlaw's bullet with no account to his virtue. He was trying to give support but it was an empty gesture, transparent; one that Kris could easily see through.
Adam changed his tactics, comforting Kris with practicalities, not platitudes. "If it really was them, they'd be long gone by now," he reasoned; if he were an outlaw, he'd never stick around long enough to see the aftermath of his thievery. "They're the Kings of bank robbing for a reason; I love you, Kris, but you're not going to be the lawman to stop them." He felt the chuckle pass through Kris's body, and instinctively his arms hugged him closer, Adam's palm spreading warmly above Kris's heart. "And once you get down there, I'm sure you can fix whatever damage Gokey's already done to the investigation. The town'll herald you a hero, rescuing them from their great sheriff's ineptitude."
He received a full laugh for his efforts, and Kris turned around in his arms to face Adam. "So get your adorable little ass down there," Adam instructed, his spirits lifting just by seeing the light dance in Kris's eyes once again. "Because the faster you get everything sorted out, the faster you can get back here."
"I'll try," was Kris's response, but the kiss that he quickly gave Adam--powerful but not desperate, a deliberate press of lips and the slightest flicker of a tongue against Adam's teeth--told the saloon owner that nothing short of a second bank robbery would keep Kris from his arms that night.
They returned to the task of finding their clothes from the previous night, and with a lingering parting kiss that threatened to send them both back to Adam's featherbed mattress, Kris left through Adam's private exit door, originally designed as a security measure but now proved to be useful for their secret meetings as well. It led out to a tiny fire staircase within the Lambert Inn and deposited Kris in the alleyway behind the building, emerging within the shadows to find a slender man in black with his back turned, watching the aftermath of the robbery unfold while keeping refuge behind the inn.
Kris raised an eyebrow, startled to find a soul in that alleyway, and tried to sneak away silently, but the back door had other things in mind and slammed shut with a loud bang, causing the lone traveler to spin around on his heels, suddenly facing Kris.
Both men were shocked to silence at the other's presence; the man in black, whom Kris remembered faintly from the day before, stared with a wide gaze, his large eyes closely trained on Kris and the deputy's revolver at his hip. Kris realized he would have to be more careful when leaving Adam's room; the stranger didn't know Kris Allen any more than Kris knew him, simply assuming the poor traveler got caught in Hope during a bank robbery on his way to the West coast. But the next time it could have been someone who easily recognized Kris, clothes and hair disheveled and smelling of sex, and then whatever tenuous path he and Adam were following would quickly run out.
The deputy diffused the situation with a polite tip of his hat towards the stranger, and let out a breath he didn't know he was holding when the other man solemnly nodded once, their introductions unnecessary. Kris lit off briskly towards the center of town, far more important matters on his mind now than being caught sneaking out of his lover's back door by a stranger, leaving the man in black to his own thoughts and devices. All men had their secrets, Kris mused, but the morning the Kings robbed Hope's bank was not the day to reveal them.
Historical note: (Don't worry, I won't be doing these every chapter) The gunfight and arrest Ryan talks about in the first part of this chapter really happened and solidified the date for this story to be 1879. The famous gunfighter and dentist Doc Holliday had been in a saloon in Las Vegas, New Mexico when a fight broke out between him and a veteran over one of the saloon girls. I don't know if there was a posse that came through town that arrested Holliday, but it fit in well with the other details of the story. Also, I just really, really love me some cowboy!Ryan Star. Hee. :D
Chapter 11
Author: honestys_easy
Rating: R
Pairing: Skibmann (Neal Tiemann/Andy Skib), Cookson (David Cook/Kelly Clarkson), Kradam (Kris Allen/Adam Lambert), various others, both slash and het
Disclaimer: Don't know, don't own; never happened, never will.
Summary: For his entire life, Kyle Peek always longed for the thrill and adventure in the open lands of the wild West. He gets more than he ever bargained for when he joins up with the legendary outlaw gang known only as The Kings.
Notes: I have been working on this story for the past nine months and I am SO excited to finally be posting it. What started out as a fledgling idea grew to be a huge AU and I'm very grateful to share it with you. A ginormous thank you goes out to dreamerren, for her work as beta and practically as the story's second author. Title credit goes to Nick Gibson for his song "Outlaw's Prayer."
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5, part one
Chapter 5, part two
Chapter 6
Chapter 7, part one
Chapter 7, part two
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
"I will get every man who killed [them]. I will not stop killing until I do, and I will never be taken alive." - Tom Starr, after the murders of his father and brother
"I ain't your personal Wells Fargo, Cook."
The remark was one he had heard before, and it was accompanied by an easygoing smile spread across Ryan Star's face. David always took Ryan's grumblings with a grain of salt, his complaints the cowboy's special brand of endearment. If Ryan had wanted to end this business agreement, it would have already been over years ago; David would have never let a man he didn't trust get so close to the Kings, let alone entrust him with his correspondence with Kelly. Ryan had proven himself loyal time and again, and while he opted to earn his money in more conventional and legal ways than the Kings, David made sure to let him know he was welcome.
"That you aren't," he replied, handing over his most recent letter and receiving one in return. "You're better then Wells Fargo. You never get robbed." Ryan rode through the frontier in a state of security; no one dared cross a friend of the Kings, outlaw nor lawman, lest their retaliation be swift and excruciating. Ryan himself was no Pony Express orphan: tall and lanky, the Jewish cowboy rode proudly in his own right, and like any man planning to stay alive he could handle his own in a gunfight. Just because he had no taste for the outlaw life did not mean he was incapable.
Sometimes a letter was all that awaited David in Ryan's satchel, Kelly's words succinct and practical, never revealing anything crucial in case their missives fell into the wrong hands. Sometimes the packages held a small trinket, a token of affection condensed into the earthen clay of a poker chip, the delicate leaves of a pressed flower between sheets of linen. David kept everything, despite having very few places to hold his many memories on the road; he had even contemplated swapping out the group's bulky cooking tools Kyle bore upon Gangles's back, but decided against it, not quite trusting the kid to hold onto something David deemed so valuable.
And he had sent back anything, everything that reminded him of her, knowing she kept them as close to her heart as he did for her. A beaded white blanket he had been told was an old Manakata courtship gift, from a tribe's warrior to the woman he loved. A golden scarf pin he had taken from a wealthy banker in South Dakota, the pristine blue of the gem in the center hearkening him back to the blue waters of Burleson's creek. He never sent a ring, fearing the gesture would be too bold, but once to Ryan's befuddlement he handed him a dressmaking pattern for a skirt, with a brief note lovingly reminding her he would love her all the same either way.
This time his letter included a sprig of dried black hyacinth, its scent still strong even weeks after he had found the determined flowers sprouting after a desert rain, destined to wither and die in the next day's sun but still soldiering on. The scent would fade eventually, he surmised, and the petals would one day crumble into dust, but the sentiment would always be there.
"You're sending a flower." Ryan deadpanned as David pulled the cinches tight on a leather drawstring pouch, the hyacinth safely inside.
He responded with a quirk of his eyebrow. Ryan was one to talk; he had a woman of his own stashed away in one of the territories, never breathing a word about her to David or the other Kings, and while on the trail he kept her favor tucked away in his pocket, unseen by any eyes but his.
"I'm sending a flower," he confirmed, his matter-of-fact tone daring Ryan to question it further.
Ryan shrugged, his thoughts not on the content of the gift but of its value. "Thought a gunslinger like you would put a little more bread into his offerings." He rubbed his thumb and forefinger together through thick leather gloves. One needn't be a confidante of the Kings to know they fared more than decently on their bank heists. "Drown his girl in gold and diamonds. Get her nothing but the best."
Diamonds were too rare on the range and could possibly be traced if he stole them; he had given her fine gold jewelry and coins a number of times, but they felt impersonal, cold. Every time David tried to imagine Kelly adorning herself in jewels and glittering gold, he instead saw only his silver star pendant around her neck on the leather cord, her smile and the light in her eyes outshining any precious metal. With the money he had raised from the Kings's heists he could buy her the world, but he knew that all she would truly desire from him was to have him in her arms once more.
"It's the thought that counts," David noted, but as he tossed the pouch over to Ryan, the older man felt the weight of the gift inside the pouch, heard the unmistakable clink of gold and silver rattle along with the hyacinth blossoms. Minted coins, too easy to trace if the Kings bartered with them on the open plain, but easy enough to melt down and reserve; Kelly, so close to her banker father, would have known this for years now, known exactly where and how to hide David's amassed fortune. David Cook was a sentimental one, Ryan realized, but he was far from stupid.
The gift was only the first matter of business between the two: besides being David's well-paid personal courier, Ryan also carried crucial news along with him on the range, inside information that would never be published in the newspapers. David always made sure to ask Ryan to put his ear to the ground for them, and always threw in hefty compensation for his troubles.
"A nasty gunfight up north," Ryan recalled as the scent of grilling meat wafted towards the two men; Kyle and Joey were at the fire preparing supper, the kid carefully watching the sizzling pan of bacon while Joey grumbled about the lack of beans in their supplies. Neal once again perched towards the horizon, the scowl scrawled across his face unable to be lifted even with Ryan's presence. Kyle kept his distance not out of fear but respect: he understood now why the Dr. needed his space, especially on the long days Andy was off gathering information in the latest town on their travels. "Nothing out of the ordinary, though; heard it was over a woman."
David chuckled, opening his arms wide for effect. "Ah, the power of love," his voice boomed with grandiosity, distracting Kyle momentarily from his task, noticing that Joey had suddenly become keenly aware of Ryan's presence at camp. "It does us all in, eventually. Either by the gun--" he pointed his finger as if it were a revolver, mimicking cocking the hammer with his thumb. Aiming at the silver band on Ryan's left hand, David pretended to press the trigger. "--or by the finger."
"Watch it," Ryan warned good-naturedly, protectively covering his ringed finger with his other hand. Regardless of David's musings, the argument Ryan had heard occurred at Holliday's saloon did happen over a woman, but the men were hardly battling for her love. And most disputes that ended by the gun weren't newsworthy enough for the Kings, but from what Ryan heard about the aftermath of the shooting, he deemed it near essential. "There's a whole investigation underway, the law got right on top of ol' Holliday even before the smoke cleared."
The smile faded from David's face, replaced with an expression of deep concern. "How--"
"A posse rolling through town," he quickly supplied, already knowing the question David was about to ask. Rarely a gunfight ended in arrests so soon after the fact, especially when the man left standing was a respectable citizen defending what was left of a woman's honor. "Got their noses into it on their way." Ryan leaned in, his voice low for sake of secrecy, though the wind still picked up his words and carried them towards Kyle's ears, hushed but distinct. "Though from what I heard, it wasn't the most orderly of arrests. It's a posse alright, but word has it they've got nothing to do with law."
Looking grim, David nodded once, urging Ryan to continue. Bounty hunters commonly rustled up groups of hired guns in a town if they planned to smoke out an outlaw, but it was rare for a posse to follow a wanted man, particularly across territory lines. Rarely even a lawman cared enough to chase an outlaw out of his jurisdiction. This seemed to have the markings of a personal vendetta, which was thankfully, David thought, not the Kings's style.
"We're not the ones they're looking for?" David raised an eyebrow; the question still needed to be asked. It was never safe to be under the nose of a posse, but if the group was so hell-bent on their prey, the Kings could bypass them unscathed.
He didn't realize the tension coiled into his veins until Ryan shook his head and it all released in a relieved sigh, David's shoulders feeling instantly lighter. "Talked with one of the witnesses at Holliday's; said they were looking for a man out of Arizona."
"Haven't been around there in over a year," David replied. No one held a grudge over a robbed bank for that long; Prescott probably wouldn't have even been able to rustle up a judge who could care enough to convict them.
"Looks like you and your boys dodged a bullet, then." The business end of their meeting complete, Ryan tipped his hat to the outlaw and gave a parting wave towards Kyle and Joey; he knew better than to say goodbye to Neal as he would get nothing in response. "Better get a move on. Want to head back to that town a few miles up." He hiked his thumb towards the direction of Hope, a devilish smile on his face. "Heard the saloon's a fine one. Brothel ain't too bad, either." Behind the courier's back Neal deepened his scowl; the timbre of Ryan's voice tended to travel farther than he thought.
David said his goodbyes to Ryan with a handshake full of coin, the precious metals guaranteed to be valuable wherever the rider's travels would next take him. Kyle offered their extra ration of supper to him, but Ryan respectfully declined, stating that he and bacon didn't make a winning combination.
"Guess those beans really would have come in handy," Kyle joked with Joey once the rider had departed, his figure scratching a long shadow across the ground by the sunset. He waited for a laugh and a quick retort, the typical response from the sandy-haired outlaw, but Joey was silent, staring off in the distance after Ryan's retreating shadow. His eyes were cloudy, a frown upon his face, and Kyle couldn't recall in the months he had been with the Kings another time when Joey had ever been so quiet.
Kyle narrowed his eyes, trying to gauge the strange expression on Joey's face; he had seen him content before, always up for a quick laugh, charmingly taking a joke three steps farther than anyone cared to hear. And he had seen Joey's anger, the emotion overboiling like a coffeepot on the kiln. He wished he were a better observer, like Andy, or more attuned to judge a man's character, like David; Kyle felt this wasn't a matter Joey was going to easily discuss. "Joey?" he asked hesitatingly. "...You okay?"
Joey looked up as if in a daze, barely registering Kyle's question at all. His mind seemed to be elsewhere, focused on the words they had overheard, conversations Kyle had dismissed as typical small talk, not even important enough to bring the familiar yet serious contemplative look to David's face. "What? Oh...fine. I'm fine, Kid." He stuttered the words, caught off-guard by Kyle's concern, and wandered away, the burrs in Gilbert's hair suddenly of more interest to him than answering any more of Kyle's questions.
With the bacon quickly sizzling and burning in the cooking pan, Kyle's attentions turned back to his task at hand, now short one outlaw to help him. He hadn't reconsidered Joey's strange turn in behavior again that night, though the characteristically cheerful man was as quiet as a corpse at camp, until the Kings gathered for a completed yet slightly charred supper. Ever the crowd-pleasing leader, David tried to compensate for the silence with wild stories he had both heard and experienced, but the atmosphere was not the same. Normally Kyle would have scrambled to hear David's lurid tale of the stolen stagecoach and the governor's daughter, but the sunny disposition David held while storytelling felt forced, filling up the awkward silence.
Even Neal, making it a personal mission to be stoic and standoffish that evening, commented on Joey's strange behavior. For the Dr. to be a man of few words was commonplace; for Joey it was unnerving. "Something crawl up your longjohns and nest there?" he asked, a remark that normally would have Joey cracking a joke with a grin, but this time he was unresponsive, sluggish even in noticing Neal addressed him. "You're lookin' damn rough, Clement."
Joey assured the other Kings that he was fine, and once again Kyle didn't believe him, the sneaking suspicion that something Joey had heard in David and Ryan's conversation was the cause. If he had only known what it was, he could have tried to help Joey fix it, look out for the older man like the other outlaws had watched out for him. But not even David knew the story behind Joey's past, what had brought him to the life of an outlaw; there were some questions Kyle knew he should not ask, questions to which he would never receive a truthful answer.
***
"There's law in that town." Andy grasped the mug of coffee and whiskey in both palms, the metal tankard warming his fingers after an unseasonably cold ride back to camp. Kyle had been developing his skills at brewing coffee over the months he camped with the Kings, but Andy, who didn't care for the stuff much less Kyle's particular blend, still smuggled in a swallow of liquor from Neal's flask.
The statement didn't even cause David to raise his eyes from the fire, his mind deeply rooted in the planning stages of a heist from which very little, even the warnings of Andy Skib, could rouse him. There was very little variation in their strategies from town to town merely because the banks themselves held little variety: all the tellers, the locks, were the same, and even the safes started all blurring together in David's mind. "What makes that different than anywhere else we've been?" he asked, faces of countless ineffectual sheriffs running through his head, some who met a bad end at the barrel of David's revolver, others too apathetic or terrified to do their jobs and fight back.
Riding with the Kings on the other side of the law--a line that blurred at best in most lands--Kyle learned much about the duality of sheriffs, their true nature as complicated as that of an outlaw. While most established towns had elected sheriffs charged to police the town and protect it from outside dangers, rarely did they find a man willing to live up to the job. If the case did not affect them personally sheriffs hardly ever pursued a crime, preferring to save their own skin over any idealized notions of restoring justice. Rallying oneself up against the Kings was a tall order; if any sheriff ever had the courage to face the outlaws, David always joked, they wouldn't be a sheriff, hanging around a town, bullying drunks and waiting for something actually interesting to ride in. Bounty hunters chased after the Kings for the rewards on their heads; lawmen did it for the thrill and a cold, calculating way of hunting and shooting down prey other than buffalo. Sheriffs typically donned a badge for the steady paycheck, and let other authorities take care of outlaw gangs.
But the grim expression on Andy's face told him this case might be different. "This town they actually seem to care about their gunmen. Got a sheriff and a deputy, though from what I've heard there isn't much love between the two." He had seen the deputy himself, expertly eavesdropping on his conversation with the doorman at the local brothel; the enmity on the man's face was nearly palpable when mentions of the sheriff drifted into their conversation. It was something to investigate, surely, if the need would arise. It all depended on how fast the outlaws could get out of that bank and back on the road out of New Mexico.
"Only means more targets to me," Neal smirked, half-joking.
Andy shook his head, taking a sip from the mug. "You didn't see this guy," he said. Short and slight, the deputy looked even less of a threat than Kyle, a clean-shaven face giving away both his optimism and his youth. But what he may have lacked in age and experience--an appearance that, Andy cautioned himself, that fooled many presumptuous men about the young Kings themselves--anyone from here to Cimarron could see he made up for in integrity. The deputy carried himself with a confidence that wasn't arrogant, but more like secure in his duty to the town: he would protect it always, and unlike others sworn into his profession he was willing to give his life for it. "He cares about this town...these people."
"You think he'll care enough to stop us?" Kyle spoke up, overriding propriety. Ever since Fox Canyon he sat back and, as Joey called it, watched the magic of the three senior Kings as they communicated through looks, clipped words, and slightest nods of the head that Kyle couldn't even pick up in the flickering light of a fire. But there were times he knew to step back and let more experienced heads prevail; and sometimes, even the greenhorn knew to take action.
Andy shrugged; he was an observer, not a mind reader. "The sheriff himself, from what I've gathered, cares less about protecting the town and more about doing what'll make him look good."
"Sounds like a sheriff," Joey said lowly, arms crossed against his chest. He was even more distant than usual, taking frequent glances over his shoulder and voice falling down to a grumble that even Kyle, who sat next to him, could barely hear. Andy could tell something was amiss with him the moment he rode back into camp, but it wasn't his part to pry; he did enough spying for the day in Hope, and Joey's secrets were his to keep.
"The deputy's hard-willed but he's still just a dep. Going against a sheriff could mean he's in the clink himself. And, win or lose--" Andy looked up from his mug, briefly catching the gaze of Neal from across the camp's fire. "He won't get the best of us."
A silence of doubt drifted through the campsite, the seeds planted by Andy's report and cultivated in each outlaw's imagination. The shadow's last remark was woefully unconvincing. Kyle thought of the training he had endured over the past few months, and he hoped he would not be forced to put those skills to the test. It was quite different shooting at a cactus, he realized, than shooting back at another man.
"It doesn't matter."
It was David who broke the silence, a determined, thoughtful glare boring into the deepest heat of the fire, the flames casting shadows across his face, darkening his eyes. Never had he looked more like a stoic leader of men; never had he looked more like a seasoned veteran of the outlaw life, who had seen men put down into their graves and dreaded witnessing more. "Sheriff, deputy...I don't care if the whole town's been deputized and armed to the teeth. We're going in there, and we do what we came here to do." David had only backed down from robbing a bank once, and an idealistic deputy was hardly the reason.
His deadly serious tone and the unflinching expression on his face brought a reinvigorated spirit to the outlaws, turning downtrodden faces into determined nods, uncertain silence into confidence. With his charisma and skill to back up his boldness he could have been a general in a former life, heralding armies to victory, inspiring men to fight, live or die on the battlefields. He could have won the confidences of millions, of entire nations; become a country's hero. But he was born in this life, in a doomed little homestead in Missouri to a doomed little family, trailing his life from one heist to the next. And in this life, his only victory was inciting the Kings to rob the town of Hope blind, no matter what the consequence.
David looked each outlaw in the eye, staring them down until his conviction bore into them like a Colt's bullet right through to the brain. It took months after that night for Kyle to realize David's speech was to exorcise his own demons, battle against his own fears about a lawman's bullet stealing his chances of ever seeing his Kelly again. "And if we've got to kill every gunman in town to do it...then let it be done."
***
Feed and water the horses. Loosen their tethers so they won't be so wild when you start to ride. Douse and dirt the fire; scatter the ashes to make it look natural instead of a campfire.
Kyle repeated his own instructions to himself as he worked industriously in the dark, his skills at striking camp perfected over the months with the Kings. It was like second nature to him now, knowing the temperaments of each outlaw's horse--how Sugarfoot had to be approached by her right flank, the way her beloved left-handed owner approached, or how Sixx would become so friendly after being fed he would attempt to lick Kyle's face like a lapdog. The Kings's horses were all saddled now, each steed energized and ready for an anxious wait and then a breakneck escape after the heist. Before the outlaws would dismount, leaving Kyle alone with their horses to serve as lookout, he had to promise David, as he did before every robbery now, that he would not spearhead another stampede.
The days were getting shorter now, with winter rearing its icy head just beyond the horizon, sending cold breezes past them in the New Mexican predawn. By midday it would be sweltering again, a wilting heat that made Kyle want to droop in his saddle and collapse, but for now the crisp air cast a cold, forbidding feeling across the desert, from the numbness in Kyle's fingertips to the visible, fogged breath of the horses.
The only one not with them now was Andy, who as always left in the dead of night to return to his position as an innocent traveler in Hope, trying not to boast about the luxurious accommodations at the Lambert Inn. Kyle wondered if it had been as cool when Andy left as it was now, if the still air had felt just as cold and ominous.
When he had been on the ranch, cold snaps like this--while not nearly as extreme in California as out here on the unprotected range--always meant a time of harvest, discovering the fruits of their labor in the fields, bringing in the Peek family livestock for sale and slaughter. Now, as he gave his silent nod to the other Kings, each man taking the reins of his mount and setting off for Hope, just like back home, the cold meant it was time to reap what they had sown.
***
Empty. The streets of Hope were empty, the townspeople taking refuge from the cold and returning to their houses, the patterns of their everyday lives disrupted by the weather. The day would undoubtedly warm, as desert autumns tended to do, and the town would go about their busy, carefree lives, albeit a bit behind schedule.
The emptiness was unnerving Andy Skib to no end.
In normal circumstances--a bustling, cheery town center, with Hope's inhabitants blissfully going about their business and greeting each other with the warmth of a closely-knit community--Andy could blend in flawlessly, slipping in between shadows and being cleverly overlooked in the crowds of the morning. It was how he worked best, especially on the day of a heist: hiding in plain sight, he could keep watch on the bank as his fellow Kings raided its coffers without anyone being the wiser of his presence. Andy discovered early on in their adventures how convincing he could be when feigning shock at the news of a bank just being robbed.
But in Hope there was no place to hide, no spur of wagon wheel dust or the buzzing chatter of the early morning. The bank, made only of wooden beams and timber and not nearly as solid as the oldest building, the inn, was at the center of town, with a clear view of the saloon, the main street storefronts...and the sheriff's office. The late risers of Hope were a detriment for some reasons, but a blessing for others; with any luck the streets could be as deserted as they had ever seen them, as empty and unassuming as Fox Canyon.
Andy squeezed his slender frame into an alleyway with a clear shot of the bank's entrance, hiding his shadow behind an old pickle barrel. He remembered the idealist little deputy, who made up with resolve what he lacked in experience, and how Andy monitored his daily routine of patrolling the town.
This was no Fox Canyon; Andy wasn't going to let another deadly detail get by him again.
***
Hope was built in a desolate plain, with no mountains or crevices to hide from the elements or deadly desert predators, animal or otherwise. A small irrigation channel ran by its western border, with one hard-packed dirt road leading in and out of the town. David needn't even have asked his intelligence gatherer to guess it was dubbed Main Street; they all were, and Hope was no different.
He handed Sugarfoot's reins over to Kyle, his backup already dismounted and anxious for action. As a model of its citizens' hospitable Christian behavior, Hope was a weaponless town--only the sheriff and his men were allowed to carry firearms in public. While many other towns also touted this virtuous law, rarely did any of its inhabitants ever abide by it, choosing instead to conceal their guns with shoulder holsters or underneath heavy dusters, Andy said the town overwhelmingly supported the new rules, the law of Hope in a state of flux that left the town wide open for invasion.
David narrowed his eyes at the boom town, the fledgling bank dwarfed by the established adobe brothel at the center of town. The ironies dwelling on each side street and avenue here were rich enough to eat with a spoon, but David had no time to ponder them; he had a bank to rob.
"Come on, fellas," he said, taking the lead and feeling Joey and Neal's presences behind him, falling into step, guns at the ready. "Let's show them what we got."
***
It was Matt Giraud at the dry goods store that saw the outlaws first, watched initially with sleep-blurred eyes as he opened his shop up for business that morning. The sun was barely over the horizon, casting deep shadows of the outlaws across Main Street, the illusion making them look larger than life. It was that same sun that betrayed them: Giraud would have taken them just as early morning travelers, making their way along the road towards California's sunny coasts or Texas's liquid riches, if it had not been for the sunlight glinting off their guns.
There was little else he could do but run as the trio made a beeline for the bank, their steps hurried but solid and deliberate, and they burst the door open with a stunning force. There was no one else on the street at that hour, the town giving in to their comfortable desires and sleeping off the morning chill. He had to tell someone; he had to warn them.
He had no firearm of his own; as the adrenaline pumped in Giraud's ears, a hand clamped over his mouth to stop himself from panting so audibly as he ran, he regretted not keeping a shotgun underneath the store's countertop as others had suggested to him. He thought it was too risky, citing that someone out to rob him could very easily turn the tables and steal the shotgun from him, or consider him a deadly threat and shoot him down before Giraud ever got to loading the gun's bulky cartridges. Hope was a safe place to live, he thought, with good, pleasant citizens and righteous men of the law; he would never require such a thing, and with his luck would probably shoot off his own foot in the process.
Giraud slipped out the back door of the store, careful not to catch the attention of the man standing watch by the bank's door, menacing shotgun in hand, and then ran as fast as his legs could take him, the dirt and loose pebbles of the hard-packed earth kicking up underneath his soles, slowing him down and nearly knocking him off balance. He heard the shouts in the bank and prayed they did not escalate to gunshots, not before it was too late.
Reaching his destination in record time, it took him a moment and a few gulps of cold morning air before he could finally get out his words, the only inhabitant of the building holding his breath, already knowing from the panic struck on Giraud's face the news would be dire.
"Bank...bank robbery," Matt gasped out, clutching onto the doorframe of the sheriff's office. His bleary eyesight cleared instantly when he knew it had mattered, and the faces he saw break into Hope's bank were known throughout the West. "You gotta get there, fast. It's the Kings."
A lump of fear instantly formed deep in Danny Gokey's stomach, mouth hung open in shock, and despite all his mind's warnings his legs took him out of the sheriff's office and running down towards the bank, leaving behind in his haste the holster carrying his sheriff's revolver, hanging off the armrest of his chair.
***
"One minute!"
David dug into his shirt pocket as Joey called out their time remaining inside the bank, only sixty seconds until Kyle would be ready with the horses and the four of them could make an effective escape. The metallic clinking of coins sagged heavily in his sack, and rustling behind him indicated Neal was also taking his fill. It'd be a godsend if these territories switched to reliable bank notes instead of using precious metals as their standard; all this heavy lifting was murder on David's back.
"You've been right hospitable today, sir," David couldn't mask the gleeful condescension in his voice, self-satisfied grin reaching his eyes and spreading all over his face. The bank owner trembled where he stood, half-hiding behind a ficus. He had surrendered quickly and bartered sparing his own life for the contents of the safe. David never mentioned to him that the negotiation was unnecessary: he never actually wanted to kill the banker, and the Kings planned to take that money whether or not the solitary bank owner allowed them to.
Handing him a playing card they had picked up from a deck in Colorado, David flashed the banker a grin, another heist successfully ended. The King of Hearts stared back at the banker, who was shaking like a wheat stalk in a twister, the figure's sword stoically pointed towards his own head. "You tell the rest of your town 'good morning' for us," David quipped, tipping his hat in an ironic gesture of courtesy, as his compatriots made their quick exit. He probably would have liked Hope some, if he hadn't been so intent on robbing it. "It's been a pleasure."
***
The sun's rays were already blinding, racing across the landscapes of the town as Danny himself ran to the scene of the crime, his ears thundering with adrenaline and fear. There was little else he wanted to do than bury himself underneath his sheriff's desk and wait for everything to blow over--or perhaps discover it had all been a terrible nightmare. But Matt Giraud had come directly to him once the robbery broke out, and Danny knew he couldn't even attempt to feign ignorance later.
He wished he had stayed an extra hour in bed, the warm security of the covers mocking him now as the cold breezes of the morning hit him head-on as he ran. Then perhaps that carpetbagger deputy of his might have been in the office instead of him; Kris seemed always up for a new way to prove his loyalty for the town, and God knew he was eager enough.
If only that damn deputy was here, he thought, then Kris might be the target for the Kings's bullets rather than him.
The front door to the bank was already crushed in, the splinters littering Main Street, and while Danny heard no commotion from inside, no gunshots or rage-filled shouts, he wasn't anywhere near willing to get closer and investigate. With a swift breeze to his right, against the wind, he turned, fleetingly watching Matt Giraud retreat back to the safety of his store, bolting the front door behind him, leaving the newly-elected sheriff alone in the street to handle the outlaws. Danny cursed Giraud's cowardice while wishing at the same time that he could join him.
When movement came once again from the bank, three figures making their way through the remnants of the door, Danny felt his joints lock in fear, the shock of witnessing the robbery--of being the man responsible for stopping it--overwhelming him. His hands fell stiffly to his sides, mouth agape, his eyes widening as he caught the outlaws escaping with Hope's riches.
Giraud had been right; it was the Kings, ready and armed to the teeth, standing not thirty feet from the sheriff, making their getaway. The Kings, one of the most successful and notorious outlaw gangs in the West, in his town, with nothing but a quick glance at his badge and a well-placed bullet standing between life and death.
Goddamnit, where was that blasted deputy of his??
***
Hope felt like a different town once they emerged from the bank, the sun brightening every strip of bare timber, the empty streets feeling hollow and dead; it was starkly different from the pregnant anticipation the dawn had awarded it, then its barren streets simply waiting for its people, waiting to be filled. David guessed he should have taken the empty streets as a blessing, as a chance for a perfect escape, but it kept him guarded. He didn't want to get over-confident and lead the Kings straight into an ambush.
With quick strides he led the way towards Kyle and the horses; he could already hear the familiar sounds of a small herd in gallop, their mounts gaining the necessary momentum to leave Hope at top speed, hit the ground running. He steeled himself, setting his jaw and honing in on his destination, forcing himself to let go of the cockiness he had expressed back in the bank. Joey kept his head down and his finger on the trigger, his mind still muddled by the overheard conversation the night before, cagily wondering where that vigilante posse would head next in search of their prize. But Neal, covering the Kings's rear, scanned the desolate streets, eyes sweeping around and behind them, focusing on any movement that could give away a second-story sniper, or a lookout waiting to execute the sign for a strike.
No threats bore down upon the Kings in Hope, no town ambush or a lone gunman seeking a name for himself by taking them down. There was but one figure visible in town, standing at the center of the street close to the bank's exterior walls, frozen like a statue. He was hardly an imposing man, average in every way Neal deemed imaginable, donning thick-rimmed spectacles glinting in the sun. But even their reflection could not hide the shock in the man's eyes, mouth hanging open, as he watched the Kings clean Hope's bank dry.
Neal didn't notice a holster on him, and he didn't reach for a weapon at all. He didn't appear to be a threat; he seemed barely able to comprehend the Kings's existence in Hope, much less be capable of stopping them. The rays of the morning sun caught on the tin star tacked to his vest, garnering the Dr.'s further attention; could this be the steadfast deputy Andy had warned them about?
Narrowing his eyes and keeping a firm grip on his revolver, Neal observed only fear and doubt in the other man. He saw none of the passionate loyalty of the deputy Andy had spoken of, the resolve that the deputy was willing to kill to protect this town or to die for it. This must be the opportunistic sheriff, he surmised; his fear was quite reminiscent of local marshals the Kings had encountered in the past, proving that it took more than a badge and a firearm to instill true courage. The sheriff was no threat to him, no danger; he'd be no hero if he shot the man down simply because he was there.
Disregarding the enlivened speech David had given the night before, cautioning the others that no man should get in their way that morning, Neal left the sheriff unharmed, backing away slowly and maintaining a keen eye on the frozen figure in case his fear was a clever disguise. He would never be foolish enough to turn his back to a lawman, especially not when carrying a freshly-looted sack full of the bank's valuable stock, but this encounter told him the sheriff of Hope was certainly not a man to fear. Neal doubted he would even scrounge up a posse to search for the outlaws; he'd probably be too busy counting every little blessing on his head that the infamous Dr. aimed a gun at him and didn't pull the trigger.
A quick, high-pitched whistle from David called Neal back to attention and back to the Kings's retreat, and he quickened his pace to catch up with the others. It marked the ending of the standoff that never was, and the only standoff in Neal's life where he allowed the other man to live.
***
"Hey! Sheriff--hey!"
Time had seemed to be as frozen as his limbs when Sheriff Gokey met the eyes of one of the infamous Kings, outlaws feared up and down the deserts and open plains, close enough to see the gunman's trigger finger itch as he sized Danny up, debating if he was even worth the value of the bullet he would leave behind.
When the voice called out from the safety of the dry goods store it startled Danny, jump-starting time once more. It had only been thirty seconds since he arrived on the scene, witnessing the only bank robbery in Hope's history and its culprits almost strut out of the town with their riches in tow, but the sun seemed much higher in the sky now, its rays much stronger, bearing down upon Danny to the point of discomfort. His arms and legs still had yet to thaw when Matt Giraud emerged from his hiding place, running over to Gokey with a look of confusion across his features.
"What are you doing?!" Giraud asked; Danny's mouth didn't even attempt to form words, still hanging open in shock from before. "Why'd you just let them go? You should have shot at them!"
It was only then that Danny slid his hand down the right side of his frame, noting with equal amounts of dread and relief that his holster was missing, abandoned in his office in his hurry. His mistake was probably the only reason his life had been spared.
But Giraud gave him no time to make excuses for his behavior. Giraud ran down Main Street, shouting at each storefront and windowframe, wresting the town from an extended sleep to the jarring news that the bank had been robbed. Heads began to peek out from doors and windows, townspeople rubbing the slumber from their eyes, confused about the sudden commotion and its cause--and waking to find their elected sheriff standing in the middle of its aftermath.
"Robbery! Robbery! Everyone up--the bank's been robbed!"
There was probably some noise ordinance or decency violation Gokey could have slapped onto Giraud for this spectacle, but his mind was still reeling from the robbery, barely noticing the growing gathering of townspeople streaming into the street, expressions of disbelief on their faces, their confusion gradually turning to outrage.
"Did you see it, sheriff?" one woman asked, clutching an infant to her chest frantically, as if the outlaws were still in town and would snatch her child from her arms at any moment.
"We can't catch them now," a young man in longjohns contributed, squinting in the sun, trying to pinpoint specks of movement in the distance and determine if they were Hope's errant outlaws. "Giraud's screamin' his head off it was the Kings; don't know if I want to try and catch them."
"Why didn't you stop them?!" cried another voice from the crowd, directed at the sheriff. "Why--why didn't you protect us?!"
The murmurs among the crowd grew louder, and more hostile: it was evident to the good people of Hope that their newly-elected sheriff, the hometown hero who had declared loudly and enthusiastically that he would always keep the best interests of the people in mind, was not as gallant as he claimed.
Faces that beamed at him only weeks before, fervent supporters of him during the campaign, suddenly turned cold towards him, accusing; asking for explanations, for answers. Danny Gokey had none.
He would have to do something to regain their trust, or else his sheriff's badge wasn't the only thing at stake.
***
Andy watched with a grim satisfaction as the townspeople converged around their cowardly sheriff, all of Hope fully awake now with the dire news that theirs was a bank plundered by the infamous Kings. His feelings towards authority wavered from apathy, at best, to a grand distaste when reminded of the atrocities the Cook family were subjected to by a hell-bent lawman. He hadn't met the sheriff of Hope but from what he had gleaned in his observations of the town, the conversation involving his own deputy the most telling, Danny Gokey never troubled himself with thoughts of goodwill or justice, focusing instead on his own ambitions and impressing them upon the rest of the town.
It almost made Andy want to smile with indulgence; from the way the town was slowly turning against him, Danny Gokey looked like he was getting his just desserts.
He had come dangerously close to changing the course of the robbery, Andy's senses heightened and his nerves taut while standing lookout, providing the hidden backup the other Kings had come to depend upon over the years. Performing his research of the town carefully, he knew the daily schedule of the diligent deputy, Kris Allen's morning patrol so reliable one could set his pocketwatch to it. Andy planned to prevent a showdown as much as possible: he had his revolver at the ready, waiting for a shot at the approaching deputy before he ever reached the bank, before any of his partners could be in danger. Hidden, crouching in an alleyway, waiting to shoot an unsuspecting lawman...it wasn't a dignified ambush in the least, but Andy learned long ago beggars couldn't be choosers.
The only thing was, the moment never arrived. Much like the rest of the town, the deputy was nowhere to be found, and Andy found himself waiting for a phantom, his preparations to take the lawman down all for nothing. When the sheriff had arrived, it was clear to Andy he would pose no threat compared to the deputy: unarmed and overwhelmed, Danny Gokey wouldn't fare well against a child's toy pop gun, much less the skilled gunmen. He had the fleeting thought of doing the sheriff in anyway, ensuring there would be one less lawman on their trail to worry about; but if shooting an armed man from the safety of a well-hidden alleyway felt wrong, this was far worse, and Andy wouldn't even let a man like Gokey burden his conscience.
Whatever the unexpected bumps in the plan, the outcome was the same: the rest of the Kings were already off, fading into the distance to live and rob another day. He'd meet with them as soon as he could wrest himself away from the town, particularly those swell accommodations he booked at the Lambert Inn--he never imagined an oasis of comfort and luxury would exist in a boomtown in New Mexico, when he was used to straw mattresses and bare wooden walls, at best. He hadn't partaken in any of the saloon girls up for sale inside, preferring not to mix business with pleasure, but certainly raised an eyebrow when the owner of the inn, a tall man with dark, well-coiffed hair and flashy attire, asked if he would be interested in one of the more masculine residents of the Lambert Inn.
His thoughts drifted from the heist as he holstered his weapon and rose to his feet, putting on a bewildered expression best suited for an innocent traveler caught up in a town's frenzy over a sensational robbery. He had spent time worrying for nothing. Hope had ended up like any other town, their banks falling quickly under the bootheels of the Kings. Andy should have never thought otherwise.
***
"Mmmm...you're hogging the blanket." Kris buried his head further into the pillow, eyes still closed but mouth upturned into a sleepy, contented smile. The goosefeather pillow smelled like Adam; the entire room had that faint scent of sandalwood and musk, face powder and leather, and Kris couldn't get enough of it. His words were muffled into the fluffy pillow, feeling his lover's hot breath dance across the back of his neck, and suddenly he didn't mind at all if Adam monopolized the comforter.
The laugh was light and sleepy in his ear, tickling the flesh there and sending shivers of emotion down his spine. Adam's fingers soon joined that shiver, trailing along Kris's exposed shoulderblades, Adam's eyes intent on watching Kris's skin react to his touch. "It's mine," he said, and Kris couldn't tell if he was referring to the blanket, or to the deputy's own body. He enjoyed the outcome either way. "And I get to do what I want with it."
Those fingers swooped down over the curves of Kris's back, dipping low underneath the covers, and he hummed in satisfaction. "Well," he opened his eyes to see startling blue-gray eyes staring into his, heavy-lidded with sleep but clear, free of the dark rings of kohl and imported makeup Adam used when in the company of others, his fresh, freckled face rarely seen by anyone but Kris. He cherished that privilege, of knowing the real Adam Lambert inside and out. "What do you want to do with it?"
With a wicked grin on his face--a smile that reminded Kris of blooming desert flowers, of sweet bourbon in crystal glasses, of joy--Adam pulled the covers over both of their heads, shrouding them in the darkness the blanket provided, and leaned in to give him a smiling, breathless kiss. They stayed naked underneath the bedsheets for a time, reveling in the pleasure of each other's touch, four legs tangled in the blanket and each other. Kris knew every part of Adam by now without even the aid of light, his other senses enhanced as if he were struck blind: in the months they had been together he memorized the saloon owner's body by touch, the scent of him overwhelming Kris's senses, even the taste of Adam was burned into his mind.
He felt a hand brush against his cheek, Adam's fingers cupping his chin, his eyes on him even in the darkness. "I'm glad you stayed last night," he whispered, leaning their foreheads together, breathing in the same air.
Kris wrapped his arms around Adam's waist, bringing him in closer, never wanting to let go and lose that connection. He didn't typically stay at Adam's through the night, preferring to leave during the height of the Lambert Inn's busy nightly hours, knowing just another shadow among many would pass by unnoticed. But the previous night's supper at the preacher's house had gone dismally, and Kris fled as soon as the opportunity arose to the inn, finding understanding and comfort in Adam's arms. When it had come time for him to depart as he always did, Kris nestled himself in closer to Adam's body in his bed, letting the crisp night air and the soft pull of slumber convince him not to move.
"Me too." Kris was sure it was late, the sun's rays peeking into Adam's room even through the blanket, casting a dark, intimate light over their features. He'd be terribly late on his morning routine, but hopefully the rest of the town would take no mind, the unseasonable chill of the morning an easy excuse for his tardiness, and not an entirely false one at that. "You would have done the same thing in my situation; they actually asked point-blank if getting Brooke into 'the family way' would speed up a proposal. Poor Brookie looked just about to keel over in her napkin."
He felt a peck land on the tip of his nose; it always amused Kris when Adam--strong-willed, defiant Adam, who challenged strangers in his heels, makeup and glitter to ever call him effeminate--dared to reveal his cute side. "Poor, poor Kristopher," he cooed, condescension stripped bare. "Forced by society to parade around town with a woman on his arm, when all he wants to do is race back here and be dominated." Those hands of his swooped down again on Kris's body, reminding Kris of how they held him last night, how they gripped, slapped yielding, willing flesh. Kris whimpered.
"I would never be in your situation," Adam explained, satisfied by the low, hungry growl emanating from his lover's throat, knowing he was the cause of it. "I don't put on appearances, I don't need to. Everyone knows who I am, and if they don't like it--" he shrugged, understating his pride. With nearly everything about his identity going against him in the West, where fear and hatred ran as wide and numerous as the cattle drives, Kris knew how important it was to Adam to be exactly who he wanted to be, regardless of consequences. It was this quality that earned Kris's respect the moment he met him, and gradually, his love. "--They know the fastest way outta town."
The smile on Kris's face faded, Adam's indignance reminding him of the news he received the day before. "Gokey's tryin' to do that to you, isn't he." The threats of raids, the decency ordinances...Kris knew it was all leading up to a war between the Lambert Inn and the law, and he felt a deep loyalty to both parties involved.
They spoke about it before, the night Gokey had tried to slap fines on the inn for noise disturbances despite the county judge being in the establishment, getting thoroughly entertained by an ironically-named black woman who was anything but little. Adam had ranted and paced through his private rooms above the parlor while Kris watched with patient eyes, knowing more to both sides of this story than anyone else in the town ever could. Adam had even considered giving in to the sheriff and moving his operation to greener pastures in California, but he knew he would never leave Kris, and Kris would never leave Hope.
So he and the sheriff remained in their battle, with Kris in the middle, left free to take sides. "Well, he won't succeed, that's for damn sure," Adam grumbled, approaching the only topic able to sour his mood while Kris was lying in bed with him. The Lambert Inn brought too much business to Hope for the townspeople to ever decry purity over commerce. Gokey was trying to sway public opinion, but only time would tell if he could be successful. "My father built this place from dirt and sand; it means too much to me to lose it. Especially to someone like him."
He thought of Kris's own devastating loss to Gokey, remembering how the sheriff's election hit the deputy hard, his love and trust for Hope damaged, tarnished. He wouldn't let the man take both of them down. Pulling the smaller man closer he eased Kris into another kiss, letting the warmth of the other man's body against his fully distract him from thoughts of the wiley sheriff and their troubles. Adam had felt the attraction to the young deputy the moment he introduced himself at the Lambert Inn's doors, but it took much longer for him to realize Kris would be so much more to him than a pretty face--a surprising intellectual, a confidante; a lover that never failed to take his breath away. While it was a relationship they sadly had to keep behind closed doors, hiding their companionship from a town that accepted sexual eccentricities in their brothel owners but not in their deputies, Adam cherished the moments they did share, the stolen glances and touches in the inn as well as their lovemaking, and the happy, uninhibited moments like this, where they could kiss and laugh and just be.
A sharp rapping came from the bedroom door, and immediately their ministrations ceased, both men lying frozen underneath the bedsheets, barely breathing in case their presence was discovered. Adam gave Kris an apologetic look before he shouted a response. "What d'ya want?" he didn't bother to hide the irritation in his tone, nor did he think to get out of bed and give the interloper an audience. The door was locked and barred, for Adam's safety as well as his privacy; if this were some misguided, perpetually drunk client knocking at the wrong door, there would certainly be hell to pay.
But it was his emcee's voice that projected back to him, Blake's energy seeming more jittery and off-kilter than exuberant. "Just got word, there's been a robbery," he warned through the door. "Bank's been cleaned out, someone's screaming their head off down there that it was the Kings." A parting knock on the wood told Adam that Blake would press no further; like the old saying went, looked like Lambert had another man for breakfast. "Thought you should know. The whole town's lookin' to Gokey for answers--I almost feel bad for them."
When the sound of Blake's retreating steps faded into silence, Adam took a deep sigh, thankful the moment had passed quickly and without incident; Kris, lying next to him still as a corpse, did not take such a saving breath. His hands gripped the sheets, eyes staring out without seeing, his focus not on the couple's close call but on the actual content of the message.
His own concerns quickly turning to the reaction of his lover, Adam tilted Kris's chin with his thumb, their eyes meeting, though for once Kris's thoughts were not on the beauty of the blue-gray eyes staring back at him. Adam's eyes were his words, asking without ever taking a breath; but just as Kris could read the concern on Adam's features, silently asking if he was okay, Adam could decipher the shock and anxiety from Kris, his duty colliding with his desires.
"I have to go," Kris whispered abruptly, so sudden it caused the breath to catch in Adam's throat. With no further pomp the deputy pulled himself out of his lover's embrace and emerged from underneath the covers. The sun was streaming brightly through the high window of the inn, bypassing even the heavy damask curtains Adam had shipped from some country in Europe Kris had never even heard of. He blinked, eyes adjusting to the new, harsh levels of light in the room, and his small hesitation allowed a hand to wrap around his wrist.
"But--" Now that Adam had experienced waking up with Kris in his arms, feeling a warmth beside him that went farther than mere body temperature, he didn't want to let it go so suddenly. "Can't you--"
"Adam." His voice wasn't stern but there was authority behind it, a finality that told Adam the issue was no longer up for discussion, it never was. A glimmer of light shone into Adam's eye, sunlight catching off the polished metal star pinned with pride onto Kris's vest, laying lifelessly draped over a chair where it had been discarded the night before. It was all the answer Kris needed to give: Adam knew that the deputy's heart was split in two, that his affections were shared between his love for the saloon owner and his love for his job, for the town; for justice itself. Adam had to expect Kris would begrudgingly forsake one when the other was in such danger as it were now. He was still the law in this town, and he was needed on Main Street more than he was needed in that bedroom.
With a silent nod of understanding Adam relinquished his grip on Kris's wrist, the younger man taking one longing look at the warm bed and the warm body still inside it before gathering his clothes. He tried to hide from Adam how his hands shook at the prospect of what dangers he might find downstairs. He may have been the beloved deputy of Hope, but he had still never encountered so much as a lad stealing penny candy from the general store, much less ruthless bank robbers. He would have been a fool if he wasn't terrified.
"I should go, too," Adam decided, pulling himself out of bed and searching for clothes of his own. There wasn't much point to sleeping in if he were forced to sleep in alone. "See what happened. At the very least, it's worth it to watch Gokey's ego get knocked down a peg or two."
Kris breathed out a heavy sigh, sharing the sentiment but not admitting it aloud; that was, after all, supposed to be his boss they were talking about. "I've got to listen to some witnesses, take a look at the damage done to the bank..." His breath came out shaky, and this time there was no hiding it from Adam. They didn't often keep secrets from one another, each of them having their fill of lying when out in public, and Kris knew his emotions were always far from subtle. "...see if there are injuries."
The name Blake had uttered through the heavy wooden door was no light matter, and it struck fear into the hearts of all settlers in the open West, including Kris. Everyone had heard the stories of the bloody trail of plunder and destruction the Kings left in their wake, meek frontier towns terrorized by their wrath. Kris had spent the past two years as deputy hoping for his beloved town to be spared; now, he saw it had only been a matter of time before disaster struck. He prayed he only had to investigate shattered bank windows and empty safes, and not bloodied, broken bodies strewn across Main Street. The Kings were not known for being merciful.
He felt a presence behind him as he slipped on his vest, the tin star hanging heavily against his chest, and soon two strong, comforting arms were around him, a soothing and familiar voice in his ear. "It'll be alright," Adam murmured, a soft kiss against the shell of Kris's ear, and already the deputy could feel the tension draining from his bones as he leaned into the touch. He really couldn't fathom how he ever got by without him. "I promise."
"You can't promise," the words escaped Kris's thoughts before he could curb them, his eyes closed, brow stitched into an uncertain furrow. He regretted his mumblings but Adam knew he was right; security and safety were never guarantees in the West, and even the most prudent, pious man could be cut down by an outlaw's bullet with no account to his virtue. He was trying to give support but it was an empty gesture, transparent; one that Kris could easily see through.
Adam changed his tactics, comforting Kris with practicalities, not platitudes. "If it really was them, they'd be long gone by now," he reasoned; if he were an outlaw, he'd never stick around long enough to see the aftermath of his thievery. "They're the Kings of bank robbing for a reason; I love you, Kris, but you're not going to be the lawman to stop them." He felt the chuckle pass through Kris's body, and instinctively his arms hugged him closer, Adam's palm spreading warmly above Kris's heart. "And once you get down there, I'm sure you can fix whatever damage Gokey's already done to the investigation. The town'll herald you a hero, rescuing them from their great sheriff's ineptitude."
He received a full laugh for his efforts, and Kris turned around in his arms to face Adam. "So get your adorable little ass down there," Adam instructed, his spirits lifting just by seeing the light dance in Kris's eyes once again. "Because the faster you get everything sorted out, the faster you can get back here."
"I'll try," was Kris's response, but the kiss that he quickly gave Adam--powerful but not desperate, a deliberate press of lips and the slightest flicker of a tongue against Adam's teeth--told the saloon owner that nothing short of a second bank robbery would keep Kris from his arms that night.
They returned to the task of finding their clothes from the previous night, and with a lingering parting kiss that threatened to send them both back to Adam's featherbed mattress, Kris left through Adam's private exit door, originally designed as a security measure but now proved to be useful for their secret meetings as well. It led out to a tiny fire staircase within the Lambert Inn and deposited Kris in the alleyway behind the building, emerging within the shadows to find a slender man in black with his back turned, watching the aftermath of the robbery unfold while keeping refuge behind the inn.
Kris raised an eyebrow, startled to find a soul in that alleyway, and tried to sneak away silently, but the back door had other things in mind and slammed shut with a loud bang, causing the lone traveler to spin around on his heels, suddenly facing Kris.
Both men were shocked to silence at the other's presence; the man in black, whom Kris remembered faintly from the day before, stared with a wide gaze, his large eyes closely trained on Kris and the deputy's revolver at his hip. Kris realized he would have to be more careful when leaving Adam's room; the stranger didn't know Kris Allen any more than Kris knew him, simply assuming the poor traveler got caught in Hope during a bank robbery on his way to the West coast. But the next time it could have been someone who easily recognized Kris, clothes and hair disheveled and smelling of sex, and then whatever tenuous path he and Adam were following would quickly run out.
The deputy diffused the situation with a polite tip of his hat towards the stranger, and let out a breath he didn't know he was holding when the other man solemnly nodded once, their introductions unnecessary. Kris lit off briskly towards the center of town, far more important matters on his mind now than being caught sneaking out of his lover's back door by a stranger, leaving the man in black to his own thoughts and devices. All men had their secrets, Kris mused, but the morning the Kings robbed Hope's bank was not the day to reveal them.
Historical note: (Don't worry, I won't be doing these every chapter) The gunfight and arrest Ryan talks about in the first part of this chapter really happened and solidified the date for this story to be 1879. The famous gunfighter and dentist Doc Holliday had been in a saloon in Las Vegas, New Mexico when a fight broke out between him and a veteran over one of the saloon girls. I don't know if there was a posse that came through town that arrested Holliday, but it fit in well with the other details of the story. Also, I just really, really love me some cowboy!Ryan Star. Hee. :D
Chapter 11