Part One: I've Been Walking 40 Miles Of Bad Road
His feet hurt. The flat, sandy emptiness around him looked so alien that his eyes hurt, too, and he had to squint whenever he lifted them and stared into the distance. The mountains didn't look any closer now that they had this morning or the morning before that.
He'd left his horse maybe forty miles back - she'd dropped a shoe and started slowing down, and there was no more feed anyway, so he'd taken the tack off and slapped her on the rump and watched her skitter away. She hadn't followed him when he started walking. She'd been his father's horse. A good horse, too, seventeen hands and strongly built, with sturdy, dry legs and a beautiful frame. Strong and fast, and now she was dying somewhere on this sun-beat plain.
His father's guns hung heavy on his hips, beating a dull counterpoint on his thighs with every step he took. He didn't think he really knew how to use them, so the weight felt dangerous. Ominous. He'd taken them off last night and unbuckled his jeans and pushed them down and seen a faint mottling of blue and black under the pale skin of his outer thighs where the guns had hit and hit and hit with every movement for seven days. He was too narrow around the hips for the belts; his father had been a big man, as tall as Justin himself, broad-shouldered and meaty. A strong, able man. Now he was dead. Being strong and able wasn't enough when people meant you harm. His father had been skilled with the guns, a true gunslinger, but that hadn't been enough, either.
And his feet hurt. His boots weren't made for walking, it seemed; they were city boots. He wasn't made for walking, either, so he sympathised. He felt like his boots looked: worn and dusty and cracking at the seams. He hadn't seen any waterholes in two days, and no matter how strictly he'd rationed the water in his skins, there was only a measly trickle of warm, stale liquid sloshing on the bottom of the bigger one now. He'd started to think - started around noon today when the sun was as close to zenith as it got in these parts - that he might be dying, too. Like his father's horse. Like his father, the last time he'd seen him - drawing his last, bubbly breath through blue-tinted lips.
He'd stopped then, stopped in the middle of the bone-dry plain, and stood next to a dead bush for twenty minutes, too tired and dried out to cry, but feeling the weight of his changed, wrecked, upside-down life like a cover of lead over every bone, every aching limb. He'd bitten his cracked lower lip and tasted blood; not wet enough, nauseatingly sweet and metallic. Then he'd rubbed his smarting eyes and started walking again.
By now, the thought of dying didn't make him wish he had enough tears left to cry. His legs moved mechanically, and even though it felt like he was walking on a treadmill, wearing himself out but never moving forward, he couldn't stop. He thought he might just keep on walking through dusk, sunset, the whole damn black night, because he didnt' think he could get up again if he lay down to sleep.
The reason for this, all of this insanity - the objective of his hopeless journey - seemed distant and unimportant now. Revenge sounded like such a noble and worthy cause when you were well-fed, well-rested and standing just outside your own home, a good horse by your side. It sounded like the thing to do. He'd stood over his father's grave, his uncle's hand heavy on his shoulder, and thought, I'm going to avenge my father. It had sounded good. It had sounded true. Now it echoed hollowly in his head, and the thought of seeing Chris Kirkpatrick didn't fill him with the same murderous fervour anymore. In fact, he thought, if he saw anyone now, even Kirkpatrick or one of his thugs, he might just fall on his knees and beg them for a drink of water and a safe place to sleep.
***
Part Two: The Trees Whisper Their Approval
"I don't think they're coming, sir," Lance said, his voice no more than a soft rumble in the still night. Chris shivered, suppressed it with an annoyed shrug; shivered again.
"I don't wanna get caught out there," he said, gruffer than he meant to. Lance was so goddamned wide-eyed and gullible sometimes. When they were on a job, he was completely professional, though, so frighteningly cold-headed that Chris tended to forget just how young he was. Then he'd say something dumb, or look at Chris with his big eyes comically wide in his pale, woman-soft face, and it would all come back: Lance the kid, eighteen years if he was a day, handy with the steel but none too at home in this cruel, cold world. "Rule number one of life on the shady side, kid: there's always someone out to get you. You might not remember them, but they'll remember you."
He knew this from bitter experience. Both sides. These days, both sides. They said revenge was sweet. Maybe so, but there was an aftertaste. He couldn't wash it out of his mouth, but he figured it was worth it. Mission accomplished, so easily, and it was starting to look like Lance was right. Getting away with it, you bastard. I'm getting away with it.
The night wasn't that still, really, but the sounds were so familiar that he didn't notice them until he made himself consciously aware of his surroundings. The cattle rustled and stamped and snorted; a horse whinnied softly; someone - probably Joey - laughed out loud and muttered a curse.
Lance sat beside Chris; beside him and just a little behind, like he always did. He still insisted on calling Chris sir. Chris found this amusing, but didn't comment. Lance was a good boy: well-raised, good family. He'd probably been surprised when he lost everything - mother raped and killed, house burned, livestock slaughtered. Chris knew the surprise even though he'd never felt it: he'd seen in on so many faces. Sometimes, he was the reason for it. Chris had come from nothing and wouldn't be surprised to end up right back there again.
Lance was learning, though. Just like Joey had before him, just like all the young men had. They started out so young, but you grew up fast on the road.
They'd ridden hard after the last job. Mostly because it had been a big take, but also because it had been personal this time, there had been history, and that kind of thing had a tendency to blow up in your face. They were all tired after the desert, but they had put a good week of distance between themselves and the scene of the crime. Chris had a contact in these parts, in the mountains, and he'd meet up with the man tomorrow to get the Timberlake longhorns moved. He didn't want to have them anywhere near his person. Cattle-thieving was one thing; cold-blooded murder was a whole other sack of snakes.
He looked away from the camp, out over the plain below. The true desert started only ten miles from the foothills. He wondered if there still were people coming through there, coming for him. They'd ridden by day and night; they should have outrun any pursuit. But Timberlake had been a big man in Marigold Falls, and although Chris didn't think anyone had seen the deed - the big, sprawling house had been dark and quiet, and they'd checked every room before they left - he had long since learned that assumptions were things that made asses out of good men.
The fire was a flickering, tentative heat behind him, and he could even feel the faint body heat from Lance on his right. That was another thing; the kid always seemed to want to crawl right into his pocket. On another night, Chris might have welcomed the closeness, the safety of a warm body next to his, but not tonight: he wanted this time to savour the sweetness of revenge before it slipped away and left him with nothing but the bitter aftertaste.
He turned to Lance and said, "Go get some sleep, kid."
"Yessir."
Chris grinned, feeling the suddenly-unfamiliar expression pull at the dry skin of his face. He hated the desert, the way the sand crept through his clothes and rubbed and chafed everywhere, scraping the skin bloody in the creases of his body, the way every joint creaked after a day in the saddle, as if the sand had pierced through his skin, and gotten in between muscle and tendon and bone.
Lance rose gracefully - he wasn't that much younger, but he hadn't been worn down by misery and bad food and bad times yet, and he still moved sleekly and softly like trouble didn't weigh as heavily on him as on the rest of them - and left without a sound.
Chris sat where he was until the last voices in the camp fell quiet and there was nothing around him but the whispering trees and the chilly mountain night.
***
Part Three: Not My Poker Face
He figured he was dead - he was dead, and hell was walking on bleeding feet through blistering heat.
Sometimes, he saw his father's face through the shimmering, billowing haze. Gene Timberlake, complete with greying sideburns and that deep wrinkle he got between his eyebrows when he was angry. He'd never called Justin anything but 'son'.
Other times he saw Chris Kirkpatrick; saw him cock his head before he pulled the trigger. Saw his face just like it had been when he'd killed Justin's father. Saw him stand over the dying man and spit in his face. Chris Kirkpatrick wasn't a large man, but he seemed bigger than anything else in Justin's head, bigger even than Justin's father.
He saw the funeral, of course - his brothers quiet and pale, his stepmother crying and holding them by the shoulders as if they, too, might disappear if she let them go. Justin had stood on the other side of the grave, with his uncle George. He was the man of the house now, uncle George had said. Nobody knew Justin had been there and seen what happened, not even uncle George. Nobody but Justin knew who had killed Gene Timberlake. At the funeral, just before the thought of revenge had taken final shape, he'd looked up at his uncle, the confession already in his mouth. I saw it, uncle. I saw who killed my father, and I didn't do anything. I saw everything. But uncle George had put his hand on Justin's shoulder and said, gravely, "You're the man of the house now. You have a responsibility," and that's when the thought had come. I'm going to avenge my father.
After that, he didn't see anything anymore. Nothing but the heat shimmers and his own shadow rising to meet him. He'd walked through the night, but he didn't remember any of it. The mountains loomed close, but he didn't see them.
He walked.
He stumbled over a bush, and was surprised to see green leaves on it. He staggered to his feet and walked five steps before hitting a tree. It was a small tree, hardly more than a big bush, but it was the first living tree he'd seen since leaving his home behind, and he crumpled to the ground underneath it and wished he could cry. He thought it might have felt good to be able to cry with joy. He could hear birds now. Their chirps were loud and piercing in his ears; they echoed like ricocheting bullets in his head.
A cricket hopped over his fingers. He stared at it with burning eyes. He got up again. This would be the last time, he knew. He could do it one more time.
He finally fell in a gentle slope. The first thorny bushes of the foothills had turned into the first tall firs of the mountains. He had made it a lot farther than he'd thought he could.
He tasted water, and he knew he was dead. Again. This time, he might have gone to Heaven, because there was a cold trickle of sweet, sweet water in his mouth.
"Whoah, whoah - easy," someone said above him. It was a calm, deep voice, but too young to be God. Maybe it was Jesus. He opened his eyes.
"He's alive. I'll be damned," someone else said. That wasn't God, either.
Where's God? he wanted to ask, but his tongue felt twice its usual size, and his voice was a thin, reedy croak.
"Drink slowly, just a little, okay?" the first voice said. It belonged to a pale, sweet-faced boy who might have been Justin's age. Justin blinked and looked around. It didn't much look like Heaven, unless Heaven was a gypsy camp. The boy could possibly be an angel, but he was wearing a worn, brown hat and a green bandanna around his neck.
He opened his mouth wider and gulped down water. "Hey!" the boy said, sounding worried, and then Justin's stomach twisted around the coldness and he barely had time to roll onto his side before it all came back up again.
"What did you find?" someone asked, and Justin froze mid-barf, because he'd know that voice anywhere.
"He was lying under a tree down by the--" the boy with the water started, but Justin's mouth was working, he was getting a sound out - not that he knew exactly what he was saying, but it sounded like
"Chr-Chri--" and he caught himself just in time. Saw Chris Kirkpatrick look down at him with mild interest in his black eyes. A cricket hopped through his field of vision, and he said, in a voice that finally carried, "Cricket."
"What?" Chris Kirkpatrick said. He was lifting one eyebrow just like had when he watched Justin's father die.
"My name," Justin said. His mouth hurt from saying it. "My name is Cricket."
***
Part Four: Deal In Comfort, Deal In Pain
By nightfall, the boy Cricket, whatever his name really was - the nickname was clearly thought up on the spot - was looking better. He was a healthy lad, good constitution, still had all his teeth. Another rich boy lost to violence. Another stray.
"Tell me," Chris said, handing him another mug of coffee. The boy was huddled in a blanket by the fire, still shivery and weak from puking up water and his guts all day, but keeping his fluids down now, on his way back from the steep brink of death.
"I-- my father ..." He looked up, his eyes falling in shadow. The faint reflections of firelight painted fluid shapes on the blank surfaces. "Someone killed my father. I'm going to find him."
"Uh-uh. That's a lot of purpose for a young 'un like yourself." This was, strictly speaking, bullshit. Chris had been far younger when he was filled by the same purpose. Hatred was nothing new, even in a child. The world kicked you in the nuts, and you wanted to kick it back.
"I'm not that young," the boy said hotly. The desert hadn't drained all the haughty arrogance of a privileged upbringing out of him.
"No, I guess you're not. Drink up. Eat something. You'll need your strength." He could feel the boy's hot, angry stare on the back of his neck when he walked away.
He made sure Joey slept close by the boy that night. Joey was an easy-going man, but he had a ruthless streak a mile wide, and he wouldn't hesitate to take a man - or a boy - down if the need should arise. Chris knew himself, and knew his own heart well. Because the boy was young and still innocent, Chris knew foolish compassion might make him hesitate for that one crucial second. He didn't know if young Cricket knew how to use those big, heavy guns he carried. He didn't want to find out too late.
There was a rustle of blankets and clothes, and Lance was next to him. Tonight, the moon was out and the crickets' song was loud, and Chris reached out and pulled the boy closer, let him rest his scraggly-haired head on Chris' chest. Lance used to have nightmares - when he first came around, he'd wake up the entire camp every single night with his panicky cries. Chris took to keeping him wrapped in his arms at night so he could muffle the sounds and offer some comfort. Lance slept calmer now, but he still sought out the closeness and safety of shared quarters.
Predictably, perhaps, Cricket woke him up with his nightmares. He was thrashing and kicking his ratty blanket, rolling dangerously close to the fire. Joey snored obliviously on, and Lance's breaths in Chris' ear were even and slow. Cricket wasn't screaming, just whimpering softly between sobs. Chris extricated himself from Lance's arms and tip-toed over to rescue Cricket from his plight.
He woke up as soon as Chris laid a hand on him. His eyes shone mad and red in the dying light of the fire, and he was staring up at Chris as if he hated no sight worse.
"Hey, hey, boy - you keep starin' at me like that and I'll get to thinking I accidentally gone and drowned your favourite puppy dog," he said softly, patting the boy on a trembling shoulder. Cricket just blinked, once, twice, three times, and whispered, his voice cracking a little,
"You didn't." He coughed, cleared his throat. "Kill my puppy."
Chris felt a quick stab of cold run through his gut. This boy ... he had an intensity and darkness in him that reminded Chris of himself, and not in a good way, either. "Well," he said, keeping a soothing hand still on the boy's body, "that lightens my heart. I don't like to kill puppies. There are bigger, badder things in this world."
"Yeah," the boy said, and closed his eyes. Chris stayed next to him until he slept.
***
Part Five: The Night That Covers Me
Sleeping wasn't easy. It seemed every time he closed his eyes, the nightmares fell over him like a stifling sack, and the next thing he knew, he was gasping awake, fighting the blanket and biting his fingers to stop himself from crying out loud and waking everybody. He didn't need them to resent him more than they already did.
Most times, though, Chris was there when he woke up. He probably slept like a cat - one eye open; he was usually the only one who noticed anything going on. Sometimes, he was the one to shake Justin out of the clutch of the dreams, and Justin would wake up to a hand on his shoulder, a quiet voice in his ear, a pair of black, black eyes catching the moonlight like shallow pools of oily water. And Justin was fighting down the fear and the hate because Chris was rubbing his shoulder, rubbing it so frighteningly gently, and whispering, "shhh, shhh, it's a nightmare, kiddo, it's just a bad dream," and the only person who had ever done that before was Justin's mother. And she was dead by the time he was eight years old and then there was no one but his father with his loud, angry voice and his loud, angry opinions.
He felt as alone now as he had when his mother had died, and this Chris was not the same Chris as the one who spit in Justin's father's dying face, so he accepted his touch and his comfort, and Chris held him as he tried to stop trembling, and he wanted to tear lose and he wanted to draw him closer. Chris smelled like a working man: sweat and leather and dust, and Justin remembered the last time he held anyone this close. Rachel Carter had stepped close to him when they were outside in the gardens, and he'd put his arms around her because it was clearly what she wanted. She'd been stiff and nervous in his arms, and her perfume had been sweet and heavy and made him want to sneeze. Later, the smell of gardenias always made his stomach flutter oddly. But not the way it was fluttering now.
Then he thought of how his father had surprised them - him and Rachel Carter, who had enormous, brown eyes and a small mouth - there under the clouds of white roses in the back yard rose garden, looking both proud and annoyed, and he remembered who he was now and where he was now and whose arms were wrapped around him. And he pulled back and wiped his runny nose on his dirty sleeve and said, "I'm okay, I'm okay. I can sleep now," and Chris patted him on the shoulder and let him lie down again.
He couldn't sleep, of course, so he lay awake and listened as Chris walked back to his blankets, listened to Lance murmur something sleepy and incoherent, listened to the sighs and rustles of people settling back into sleep. A bird he couldn't name sang mournfully in the distance, and Justin bit his lip to stop feeling sorry for himself. It didn't help, so he thought about his father instead, about his father dying, and hate felt better than self-pity.
***
Part Six: I Have A Thousand Tongues
The sun was sinking towards the treeline, and Cricket was sitting by himself again. He didn't talk much, not to anyone, really. Chris was curious, though, dying with curiosity, and not just a little healthy suspicion.
As a rule, he didn't take to people he couldn't read, and this boy was almost impossible to get a handle on. Not because he was a particularly good actor, because he wasn't, but because he was simply off. It was, Chris thought, as if Cricket himself didn't know what he was going to feel next. And still Chris had taken to him. Even though he had noticed - and didn't think Cricket had noticed that he'd noticed - how the kid shrank back a little every time Chris touched him. He'd gotten better at controlling it every day, but it was still there.
Chris had talked to Lance about him because Lance had brought it up.
"He's got secrets, sir," Lance had said. Chris thought Lance might already hate Cricket. There was a dull anger coming off him every time he had to talk to or in any way acknowledge the kid. Jealous, Chris figured. It wasn't hard to see. Lance was hovering very close to Chris all the time now, even more so than before. Chris didn't think Cricket realised any of it, though, because Chricket ignored Lance with the superior obliviousness of someone used to having vaguely resentful commoners - servants and employees and fiefs - milling about his person like necessary but uninteresting ghosts. Lance had probably noticed that, too.
"We all have them," Chris had told Lance.
"Yeah, of course. But he's-- He wants something from you, sir."
Chris had almost said "same thing you want?" but that would have made Lance embarrassed, and Chris didn't believe in pissing people off more than necessary. Least of all the people he was closest too, and Lance's puppydog loyalty was far more fragile than Joey's steady trust. Chris didn't want to antagonise him by acknowledging the way he knew Lance felt and then turning him down outright. He would probably have to, sooner or later, but he wanted to keep things good for as long as possible. Especially now, with a new puppy in the fold. So he'd patted Lance on the shoulder and said, "He's new, and he's lost. I'm giving him the benefit of a doubt," and Lance had made a face, but changed the subject. That night, Chris hadn't waited for Lance to come to him, but gone himself, hugged him close and listened to him sigh and fall asleep with his head heavy on Chris' shoulder. And then Cricket had whimpered in his sleep and Chris'd had to firmly stop himself from getting up and going to him instead.
Now he stood at the edge of the campsite and watched the boy sit with his head in his hands, slumped over a cooling bowl of stew. There was no one else around; Joey and Lance and the men were securing the cattle half a mile downhill. Chris didn't want Cricket out of his sight too often. He told himself it was because he didn't have a reason to trust the boy yet, but he thought he might have to admit that it was more because Cricket fascinated him.
He scratched his stubble absently and watched as Cricket remembered his food and finished it with all the enthusiasm of a spoiled child forced to eat his sprouts. Chricket didn't eat enough. If he wasn't already half a foot taller than Chris, Chris would have worried that he'd grow up stunted. Now he just worried that Cricket would catch some sickness from the ungentle life on the trail. He had to chuckle at that: Joey sometimes called him a chicken mother, and it was probably a pretty apt description.
He went and sat by the kid, stretched his tired legs and closed his eyes for a second. Cricket was quiet and still beside him. They stayed like this until the sun had sunk glowing behind the trees.
There were hoofbeats on the path, and Chris looked up. Oh, fuck.
Chris could appreciate a man who never showed fear and never backed down, but he generally preferred to not have them too close by. He wasn't sure how he always managed to end up back in Two Rocks. The lousy town seemed big enough to cover at least half the state, and it was still nothing but a one-deputy shithole. But it had Josh Chasez, and there was always less trouble taking this way. There were very few highwaymen in the mountains around Two Rocks.
Chasez was right here now, though, sitting straight and sure on the same skinny nag he'd ridden the last time Chris saw him. He tipped his hat at Chris.
"Good evening, gentlemen," he said. The East was still there in his soft voice. How long had he been in Two Rocks again? Couldn't have been more than two years. It seemed longer, but he was still looking too young for his star.
"Evening, sheriff." He nudged Cricket minutely in the side and gave him a quick glare. The kid swallowed but lowered his eyes quickly and kept still. Of course, it would be too much to ask that Chasez would leave Cricket be, but no need to push for a confrontation.
"I heard you were back in town, Mr. Kirkpatrick."
"I'm not in town, sheriff."
"Within town limits."
Chris smiled and nodded. "Sure enough. Two Rocks is such a peaceful little town."
"We like to keep it that way," Chasez said, and the horse snorted and stepped out of the shadows by the trees and into the clearing. Chris saw Cricket look up and blink when he saw Chasez's face. "You have a new ... companion, I see. Welcome to Two Rocks, son. What's your name?"
Cricket froze, and Chris nudged him again. "Uh. Cricket," Cricket said. His voice was thin, but at least he kept it from cracking. Thank God for small favours.
Chasez cocked his head at them, keeping still in the saddle and looking to Chris like a hawk scoping out a fat gopher in the underbrush. Then he suddenly swung his leg over the horse and landed softly on the trampled grass. He nodded at Cricket.
"Come over here, son."
"I--" Cricket said, but Chris touched his shoulder and pushed him a little. He wondered if he should be making ready to bail. What did Cricket know?
Cricket went, and Chasez shook his hand and said a few words, too low for Chris to hear. Cricket shied back and said, out loud and clear, "No, sir, I'm where I want to be."
Chasez looked poor Cricket in the eye for a few seconds longer than what was strictly speaking endurable - Chris was well familiar with the Chasez stone glare - before nodding again. "As you wish. It was a pleasure to meet you, Cricket."
"Um. Likewise, sheriff. Sir."
And Chasez was up on his horse again in a sure, fluid movement, tipping his hat and turning the animal away. He stopped at the edge of the clearing. "Mr. Kirkpatrick?"
"Yes?" Chris made sure his grin stayed just this side of infuriatingly smug. Chasez didn't seem to notice. But then he never did. No one that young should have that good a poker face.
"Stay out of trouble. We run a clean show here. Do you hear me?"
"Loud and clear, sheriff."
"Have a good stay," and he was gone, engulfed by the darkening forest. Chris sat where he sat. After standing still as a statue for a few minutes, probably listening to the hoofbeats fading away, Cricket came and sat next to him.
"That was fun," Chris said, because he'd been quiet enough for one evening. Cricket didn't answer.
***
Part Seven: And Nine And Ninety-nine Lie
"Can you shoot those things?"
"What?" Justin's hands dropped guiltily to his father's guns; he stroked their smooth handles and had to look away from Chris: look at the herd, the men going about their business, the boy Lance sitting on a log cleaning a bridle, Joey spitting long streams of tobacco juice into the fire, Chris' beautiful horse twitching and snapping at flies.
"You're going to kill someone with them. Can you use them?"
He had to look at Chris then, look at this small, compact man with his strange, dark face and his strange, dark eyes and his strange, light smile. Chris smiled when he said serious things. He laughed when things went wrong; he'd laughed yesterday when one of the men managed to lose five steers in a long, rocky canyon, and they all had to spend the afternoon rounding them up. On foot. Chris laughed and threw pebbles at the mortified offender, and told Cricket with a grin and a roll of his eyes, "All in a days work, kiddo. One cock-up a day keeps the fun in the cowboy way."
Now Justin looked Chris and tried, again, to fit the image of this grinning, amiable man onto the template he had; the stone killer standing over a dying man, expressionless and and cold. It made his head hurt, but he looked into Chris' eyes and smiled; shrugged; said, "I can learn. I want to be ready."
"Good man. Stubborn. I like that." Chris reached for Justin's belt, and Justin checked the impulse to shrink away. "These are nice. Family heirlooms? That's-- me, I don't have any of those."
"They're my-- They're my father's."
"Very poetic. Bet you've got a good revenge fantasy playing in your head, too. Bet you've got it all thought out."
Justin didn't say anything, because he had; because he had had a fantasy. It felt ... blurry now. Out of focus, distorted and wrong, like a painting by a talentless artist.
"Yeah, I had me one of those. A few of them. Twenty years' worth of plans. A good thirst for revenge keeps you warm at night."
"Did you--" He had to stop and swallow a lump that stuck in his throat and threatened to choke his smile, his reassuring expression. "Did you get yours?" He didn't want to know. He didn't; he already knew the answer, didn't he?
"Yeah, I did." Chris' grin was still there, but it looked frozen in place, like he'd just forgotten to pull down the corners of his mouth. His eyes were flat now, the rascal twinkle gone. "I killed the son of a whore."
Justin noticed he'd clenched his hands into fists. He relaxed them slowly and breathed. Said, "What ... did he do to you?"
"Not to me, kiddo." Chris shrugged and spat loudly. "He was the no good piece of scum who fathered me. My mother was sixteen and helpless, and he had his fun and sent her to her death."
"I'm--"
Chris laughed, a short, harsh bark that cut Justin's words right out of his mouth. "Don't be sorry. It's the same old sad tale. Now I've had my fun, too."
He reached out and ruffled Justin's hair. The smile brightened again, and his eyes seemed to warm up, as if the sun had come out of the clouds. Justin bit his lip and let Chris touch him. He tried thinking about his father, and couldn't remember - couldn't really remember what he looked like.
"Joey'll teach you to shoot tomorrow," Chris said then and left Justin to his confusion.
Chris asked him, and Joey usually did what Chris wanted. He took Cricket down to a calm, sun-warm clearing and set up a row of empty cans and bottles on a mossy log. It was one of those rare summer days when the weather was just the way you want it: the sky was a painfully clear blue with a scattering of small, happy clouds like a disparate flock of individualistic sheep in a pasture of shiny, blue grass, and the light breeze that ruffled Joey's hair and cooled the sweat on his back didn't feel intrusive or chilly.
Cricket stood next to him, quiet and glum, with his arms crossed in front of him. He was a tall, well-built boy, but he still looked like he'd borrowed his daddy's outfit. The guns hung too heavy on his hips and the shirt seemed to be made for someone twice as broad. His hair was a hopeless tangle of curls the colour of dirty sand. It was too long and looked like he'd combed it with a broom. Joey figured it might look very nice if it was combed out and washed and on a girl. Then he rolled his eyes. Lance had been bitching about Cricket last night again, and now he had Joey obsessing over the kid's looks, too. On with the show, though, and he picked up his own gun and said, "Okay. You have to--" and then he saw Cricket's tight expression and sighed. "Have you ever shot a gun?"
Cricket frowned and squared his shoulders. Joey could see him preparing to launch a 'what are you talking about, I'm the shooting champion of all the spoiled rich kids this side of the Rockies!' type retort, but then he looked down and shuffled his feet on the grass and muttered, "Um. Yeah - but. I'm ... not much. My father didn't-- Um. I was in school a lot."
"Tenderfoot," Joey said, not ungently. The kid was so unprepared for whatever had happened to him it was just pathetic. Still, it took a special kind of rocks o' steel to set out blind like that, and as much as Joey thought Cricket could just give up and and go back to wherever he came from, he had to admire the sheer bravado there. And it wasn't like Joey hadn't been helpless and miserable, too, before Chris had worked his magic and turned him into someone to be reckoned with.
"I have what it takes," Cricket saaid, that over-privileged cockiness making a return appearance. The only one Cricket allowed himself to maintain any sort of humble demanor with was Chris. Of course. Chris didn't have much patience with cocky airs. He'd give you a look and then laugh and make relentless fun of you until you realised that he never put on any airs.
"Whatever," Joey said. "Chris says I gotta teach you to shoot, I'm gonna teach you to shoot. Pay attention."
"What's-- um. What's with that sheriff?" the kid asked after he'd managed to hit two of the cans (out of five). "What's he coming up here for?"
"What sheriff--?" Joey said, but put two and two together almost immediately. Chris hadn't said anything, but it could really only be one specific sheriff up here. "Oh. Chasez, you mean?"
"Yeah. He was here." Cricket was stroking the handle of his gun nervously.
"He likes to poke his nose into everybody's business. He's too big for his town."
"He was young."
Joey took the kid's gun and slipped it into its holster. Cricket stared at him and then at his hands, as if he wasn't sure what to do with them now. "Sit down. You're driving me crazy. Did he threaten you or something? That guy's crazy as a loon, but he won't usually make much noise. He's more of the sneaky type. He'll be polite and nice. Until he shoots you right through the hand or something."
"He said if I wanted to leave, I could come down into town and ask for him."
Fuck. The sheriff had spotted the weak link, it looked like. That was the way he worked. "Yeah. He probably meant it, too. What did you say?"
"What? I didn't-- Chris took me in. You know. I didn't have anywhere to go, and ... I wouldn't bail on him now." He seemed genuinely upset at the mere suggestion, and Joey felt better.
"Chasez and Chris have their clashes every now and then. Everyone's gotta have an arch enemy, you know."
The kid actually laughed at that, even though it was a nervous laugh. Joey didn't think he'd heard Cricket laugh out loud before.
"Anyway. You keep your nose clean with the good sheriff. He's ... well, let me put it like this. You know how Chris isn't afraid of anything?" The kid stopped laughing like he'd run out of breath and nodded. "Well, there are a few things he worries about. God, mainly, because any man who does what he does gotta worry about God. And sheriff Chasez. You see what I mean?"
Another nod, and Cricket said, "um, yes, I see," as if he felt a nod wasn't real enough.
Joey slapped him on the shoulder. "Yeah. So. Wanna go back to blowing shit up?"
And they did.
***
Interlude: In Between Time
Time passed. Justin learned to shoot. He learned he liked to shoot, liked feeling the large guns roar in his hands and spit fire and destruction. He even thought about it in those terms: spitting fire and destruction. Roaring. He'd read a lot of novels.
He still had nightmares, that hadn't changed. He couldn't remember much of them, but after he started learning to shoot, he seemed to recall the feeling of the guns warm in his hands. Maybe he dreamed of killing.
The day before they got to the buyer in Burke, he went down to look at the herd and saw the brand on the closest longhorn. He'd seen the brand before, obviously, but this one hadn't been perfectly made: it was a little at a slant, and now Justin saw the old brand underneath. Not much of it, but it was one he'd seen before. He'd seen that long-tailed T almost every day of his life, in fact. He shouldn't have been surprised, and he wasn't, really. He felt a little dismayed. And afraid, because that was all he felt. That night, he didn't dream, because he couldn't sleep.
Once the cattle was out of their hands, Chris payed the men and they left. No one asked Justin if he wanted to stay or not. Justin didn't think it occurred to anyone anymore that he might not want to. Lance still didn't seem to like him, but he was too polite to show it very often, and Justin didn't mind.
Joey took him to a brothel in Burke. Justin closed his eyes when the whore touched him, and tried to think of something else.
They headed back East.
***
Part Eight: Breaching Of The Peace
"Evil days comin', sir," Deputy Andrews said when JC came in that morning. He was cleaning his guns. Andrews was fifteen years JC's senior, but he'd learned to be courteous, and he'd learned fast.
"Yeah, I can smell blood on the breeze. Kirkpatrick rode into town yesterday. Better get ready for trouble." He sat down at his desk and started going through the mail. There was another official bulletin from Marigold Falls. Still no progress on the Timberlake case. They were scanning every town, every village, every two-shack camp in the district. Two Rocks was on the very outer edge of the area.
"I saw he'd picked up a new stray puppy," Andrews said, his rough voice its usual flat, laconic drawl, but there was a tightness in it, a sense of anticipation. Andrews liked his gossip, and this was a small town. Kirkpatrick's presence was what constituted fun for the blabbermouths around here. "A real pretty little thing, too. I always wondered what he keeps them around for."
JC didn't need to look up from his papers to know a leer had crept onto Andrew's gnarly face. "He schools them into good little killers and thieves," he said sharply, keeping his eyes on the pile of outstanding warrants. However did this much scum fit into such a small town? It never ceased to amaze him.
"Yessir, I know. But - they're all pretty like that. Young and pretty like girls. A body gets suspicious, you know what I mean, sir?"
"I really don't think there's anything untoward going on," JC said, letting a note of reproach creep into his voice.
"'Part from the thievin' and killin', sir," Andrews said with a snort. JC looked up and caught an apologetic look. "Sorry, sir."
JC nodded curtly and turned back to his work. There it was - a personal letter from the sheriff in Marigold Falls. He'd sent a query with the Pony Express, right after he first saw the boy called Cricket down at Kirkpatrick's camp. And now he knew for sure what he'd suspected then: The oldest Timberlake boy was missing.
*
"We're gonna have some fun tonight, kid," Joey crowed. "I got money burning in my pockets, I got it made."
"Is Chris coming back here tonight?" Justin wasn't sure he wanted anymore partying with Joey. Joey tended to forget that Justin hadn't been drinking hard liquor since he was twelve. And the whores made Justin uncomfortable. He could see their hard eyes and too-old faces under all the paint they had on, and they didn't even look like real women to him. They were like members of some other species, dangerous and contemptuous. He didn't want them to touch him. He didn't want anyone to touch him. Except Chris, and that was ... different.
"Nah, he'll stay up there for the night. Got Lance for company and all," and Justin was sure Joey had mentioned Lance just to get a reaction. Joey was very fond of ragging Justin for the way he couldn't seem to get along with Lance. Joey thought he knew something for sure. He could be intensely annoying sometimes. But he was a good guy. He was the only one of them Justin could like without any guilt or confusion. Joey was just a guy, just someone who did his job and partied afterwards. Chris made Justin doubt his own sanity, and Lance made him just want to do violence, but Joey gave him breathing room and easy camaraderie.
Which was why Justin turned his frown upside down and said, as cheerfully as he could, "Fine. Let's get rolling."
*
It was a quiet day. Ominously quiet. JC didn't like lulls. They always made him think the world was holding its breath before exploding. The longer the lull, the greater the explosion, too. He picked through his papers again, uncharacteristically restless. Finally he gave up and picked up his hat.
"I'll swing by the hotel," he said. Andrews started; he'd probably been asleep. It had been a quiet day.
*
"Your hair is like wool," she whispered and threaded her fingers through his curls. Justin wished she'd stop, but he didn't say anything. She was pretty and younger than the rest of them, and her eyes were kind. Still, her fingers on his head made him think about the way Chris would pet him when he woke up choking and crying from a nightmare, and he didn't want to think about Chris when he had a girl sitting in his lap wearing only her drawers. It twisted his head around and he especially didn't want to think about Chris when his head wasn't clear. He was already thinking too much about him, and it hurt and sometimes it made him wonder if he wasn't about to make some kind of ... mistake.
The thought made him run cold and hot on the inside, and he felt suddenly like the girl was too close, too warm, too overwhelmingly soft-perfume-woman-flower-pretty, and he pushed her back, pushed her off his lap and struggled out of the chair, ignoring her angry, almost hurt cry.
He opened the door and walked right into something that may have been a wall but looked more like a very tall, very broad man. He had angry red hair that was curly like Justin's but thinning at the sides already although he couldn't be much older than Joey.
"What did he do to you, Nell?" the man said, and his voice was deeper than Lance's even, the deep booming roll of breaking waves. "Did he hurt you?" and he wasn't going to wait for Nell to answer, apparently, because he was already lifting Justin up by the front of his shirt, his whiskey-rank breath making Justin's eyes tear up.
Justin wasn't used to being smaller than other men. Only his father had ever managed to tower over him like this, and he didn't much like reliving that, but he was helpless as a kitten in the enormous man's ham-sized paws.
He opened his mouth to yell something, anything, call attention to himself, but the man anticipated it and slammed him backwards into the wall so hard Justin's teeth clicked together like a fox trap around his tongue. He hardly felt it, because the pain in his head was huge and sharp and made black roses swim and fold in front of his eyes. He remembered that there were clothes hooks on the wall. He's probably banged the back of his head into one of them. He imagined one of them stuck in his skull, maybe poking right into his brain. He wanted to vomit.
Somewhere in the distance, and getting more and more distant all the time, he heard Nell scream something shrill and nasal, and then something like a thunderclap, and another scream and then his knees buckled under him and he had time to wonder where he was going before he fell and fell and fell--
*
The storm he'd been waiting for had already broken out in the hotel. JC didn't have to push his way through the milling throng because everyone who saw him backed away and let him pass, but it was still slower going than most nights. He could hear the sound of women crying over the din.
"It's upstairs, sheriff," Connell the barkeep yelled and waved. JC put his hands on his gun, and the crowd took a collective two steps backwards.
He turned around in time to see a few men start sidling towards the door. "Nobody leaves," he said sharply. "Connell, it would be helpful if you could have your boys guard the exits. I need to get this cleared up."
"Yes, sir," Connell said, and JC saw Murtagh and West cover the door.
"Let's see what's going on here." He started up the stairs.
*
His brain hadn't been pierced by the hook after all. He had a thunder-and-lightning headache, but he could even focus his eyes by now. He wanted to tell Joey that, but Joey was looking pretty much like thunder himself right now.
They had to ride along the road for a while, Joey had said when he'd been dragging Justin down the back stairs and out into the street. Justin hadn't been completely clear in the head at the time, so he wasn't sure why. He figured it might be because of the darkness. The moon was out, but it turned the road into a nightmare of sharp, angular shadows and jagged shards of light. The horses were reluctant and hard to control. Joey wasn't looking too good, maybe even worse than Justin felt. "I was just ready to pass out in the warm arms of my favourite whore," he'd muttered when he pushed Justin onto the horse. "I wasn't planning on killing anyone today. And I'm going to hurl all over my horse, too. Goddamnit. Riding with a bellyful of whiskey ain't my idea of fun."
At least Justin didn't feel like he was going to throw up anymore. He'd started thinking he might survive after all.
*
Carter Monahan was dead, shot down unarmed right there in the door of room 14. He was so big that he barred the entire doorway, and JC had to hang onto the doorframe to wriggle through without stepping right on the dead man's chest.
"Joey Fatone," someone said outside in the hall.
"Anyone see it?" JC asked. People had an odd tendency to take the opportunity as it arose and blame any convenient crime on men they didn't like.
"I did." The whore Nell was sitting on the bed, sobbing into a handkerchief. Her face was red and blotchy with tears. JC remembered that she went with Monahan. "It was Joey." She pulled in a breath as if she was about to say something else, but then she looked down at Monahan's body again and burst into new tears.
JC touched the smooth sandalwood handle of his Smith & Wesson. The smell of blood filled his head with its eerie but familiar battle call.
"How long ago?"
"Not ten minutes," one of Connell's boys said. "They're slippery bastards, too - snuck out right past everyone here. Must be used to shooting and running."
"Kirkpatrick's crowd," someone else said, and there was a rising hubbub of angry voices. JC picked his way over the corpse and into the hall again, and they fell quiet.
If he rode now, he'd catch them.
*
"Fuck, I gotta hurl," Joey groaned.
Justin sat on his horse, his jittery nerves going right into the animal, making it skitter and snort and dance in short steps on the hard-packed dirt of the road.
"Are you okay?" he asked unnecessarily, and Joey swore and puked again.
"It's that rat poison Connell calls bourbon," he said when he came up for air. "I'd forgotten what it does to my guts."
Justin heard hoofbeats. "I hear hoofbeats," he said.
Joey stood up and looked frantic. "It's gotta be Chasez. He's like a bloodhound. Fuck. Fuck. We can't outride him now. Not a chance. Damnit, Cricket, you gotta hide."
"What?" Justin heard his voice crack around the word. "What are you gonna do?"
"Just hide, you stupid kid! Run!"
"But--"
"If I get you killed, Chris'll skin me alive anyway, idiot. I'll just take my chances with Chasez."
That didn't make much sense; Justin couldn't really see how Joey could be held responsible for what had happened, but Joey was waving his arms at him and yelling "run, run now for your worthless life!" and he sounded so desperately urgent that Justin finally pulled his horse around and forced her off the road and into the thicket of young trees growing just off the shoulder. She didn't like it at all, didn't want to go, but Joey's panic had caught Justin and he slapped her on the rump and yelled in her ears and they flew ten or fifteen leaps and bounds into the forest. He got her to stop and still and calm, and dismounted; crept back in his tracks, staying low and quiet and trying to hear anything at all over the pounding of his heart right in his mouth.
*
He didn't think they'd turn off the road until they absolutely had to, and he was right; he found Fatone not far outside town, puking up the night's whiskey into the ditch. JC dismounted and called out, loud and clear, hand ready on his gun, not once making the mistake of thinking it would work; Kirkpatrick trained his puppies into fighting dogs. "Fatone! You have one chance--"
Always shoot to kill, his father had told him, and he did, when Joey Fatone came up from his crouch, six-shooter cocked and ready. JC saw strings of thin booze-puke in the dark beard before the gun thundered in his hand and Fatone went down with a grunt and a whimper. JC didn't like killing, but he felt the usual shallow satisfaction over a good, true shot.
A tall, gangly shape bulleted out of the bushes by the road, and it was only years of training and the benefit of a cold, calculating mind that kept JC from shooting in surprise. The boy called Cricket threw himself on his knees in the dust by the still body, his fingers slipping in the blood on Fatone's chest, trying fruitlessly to keep it on the inside, do something, save him. He was crying - harsh, ungentle sobs.
"He's gone, son," JC said, as gently as he could. The boy had two guns; heavy, worn things with sweat-darkened handles. A gunslinger's tools. Those guns had taken lives.
"Joey, Joey, Joey ..." the boy chanted between sobs. The dying man coughed and shook suddenly, and damn if he couldn't still squeeze out a few words. JC's professional pride faded somewhat. He'd missed the heart. Time to get back to the range and get in some target practice. Always shoot to kill. Always kill fast. Always kill with one shot.
"Don't ... waste your ... breath," Fatone was wheezing. "Ain't ... worth it--"
Those were good dying words, and they were his last. Cricket stayed hunched over him for a short while, finally making an effort to still his sobs. Then he rose slowly, fixing wet, wide, naked eyes on JC.
"You killed him," he said. His eyes didn't waver. JC had found that not many people could hold his gaze for very long. This was a good trait in him; a good trait in a too-young man of the law. Kirkpatrick - self-confessed mad dog - could hold his own against JC. That was hardly a surprise; JC had never been able to catch a single emotion - apart from affected contempt and calculated good humour - in the man's ink-black eyes. This boy could, too, and that was a surprise. A puppy with teeth, apparently.
"He needed killing, son," JC said, finally. That was the truth. There were no regrets here, apart from the usual heaviness that came with having to end a life. He felt the same putting down a lame horse.
And the boy's eyes dropped.
"Justin," JC said, and they came up again, showing too much white around the dark of the iris, like on a skittish filly. He was almost snorting with fear. The sorrow was gone.
"Don't-- don't take me back! Don't ... sir," he added with a little twist to his lips. "Please..."
JC looked at him hard, and saw the honest purpose on the too-young, too-soft, too-pretty face. Then he turned away and walked briskly back to his horse.
*
He didn't know what to do - leave or stay, stay or leave; guard Joey's dead body, ride up back to the camp and break the news to Chris - and these days, whenever Justin was at a loss, he asked Chris. And that cinched it. It took him almost twenty minutes to find his horse in the thicket, but at least she hadn't taken off in panic like he'd worried she might have. He took her back to the road and got Joey's horse as well. As an afterthought, he took off his overshirt and covered Joey's face. Then he wiped his face and started towards the camp.
***
Part Nine: Crimson Clash Of War
The fire was dying again, and Lance fed it branches and twigs. He was waiting for Chris; had been since sunset. It seemed he'd spent a lot of time waiting for Chris these last few months. Waiting for Chris to notice him, to talk to him, to remember tha he still existed even though he wasn't tall and thin like a young willow, even though he didn't have soft, kinky hair like a choirboy. Even when Chris let him curl up close and fall asleep listening to his heartbeat, Lance knew that Chris' thoughts wer wandering, and he always left. Lance would wake up in the cold, clear light just before sunrise, and see Chris sitting cross-legged in silent vigil next to the boy Cricket. Lance sometimes felt like a scorned wife, waiting patiently by the home fire while her husband gallivanted around town with some young, pretty whore. It wasn't like that, of course, because Chris had never allowed it, always kept that final distance. Lance could only hope that it was the same with Cricket; he had seen the burning stares the boy sent in Chris' direction when he thought no one was looking, the way the wanton little tramp strutted around like a slinky, sybaritic mountain lion, all seemingly-unconscious grace and bease sexuality. Lance, who sometimes felt like he had two left feet in uncomfortable shoes - even thought he knew he was able and a good horseman and a capable shot - couldn't look at that shameless display of God-given beauty without feeling cold anger bubble up in his throat.
He threw another log on the fire with more force than necessary and watched the sparks cascade over the trampled sod around the fireplace. The moon had disappeared behind a cloud, and the night was thick and black around the small, golden sphere of firelight. In between sap-crackle and the reedy wheezing of fresh wood drying, Lance could hear the hectic flutter of bats flying overhead. Also, he suddenly realised, the hesitant clack-thud-clack-thud of horses picking their way through too-dark woods. He stood, his stomach clenching with the familiar, dull excitement he felt every time, fool that he was. He heard one of the horses snort and whinny, and his stomach made an angry, disappointed flip, because he knew horses, he knew all of their horses, and that high-pitched sound with the funny drop at the end belonged to the old gelding they'd given Cricket to ride.
The horses suddenly materialised out of the deep shadows. Two of them: one rideless, and that was Joey's horse with its strange white head. Joey's horse, but no Joey, just Cricket leaning forward over the thick neck of his horse, forward forward until he simply toppled over and hit the ground in a jumble of long limbs. The horses shied and stomped, dangerously close to him. Lance didn't hurry to stop them.
Cricket was curled up into a ball, his arms wrapped around his head as if he was afraid it would burst. Lance heard muted, wet sobs and whimpers, and finally crouched and reluctantly shook a trembling shoulder.
"What is it?" he asked, not bothering to hide his annoyance. The kid had been hitting the town with Joey, and Joey wasn't here, but his horse was, and something had happened, and somehow, somehow it was Cricket's fault.
"... Joey," Cricket whispered, his voice thick and slurred with crying and probably whiskey as well.
"What?" Lance shook harder, and Cricket only curled up tighter. Lance gritted his teeth and pulled him up, twisting his arms away from his face. "What? Tell me!"
Cricket just whimpered uselessly, his face pale and tear-streaked. Goddamnit, he even looked good when he was a mess, and Lance finally snapped, and slapped him twice right in the face, slap, slap, once on each cheek. Hard, too: his hand left sharply defined marks on the ghostly-white skin.
Cricket cried out and fell back, as if getting slapped in the face was as bad as getting shot in the gut. He squeezed his eyes shut and whimpered and suddenly gagged and retched and rolled over to vomit in the matted grass. Lance saw that the sun-bleached hair on the back of his head was dark and tangled with what could only be clotted blood.
When the retching stopped, he took a deep breath and said, "What happened?" as calmly as he could. Cricket sat up, weaving like a drunk, and spat weakly. The wad was dark. Lance thought it was blood.
Cricket wiped his mouth almost frantically. He was blinking and sniffling and looked like he couldn't decide whether to puke again or just start bawling.
"Joey," he said after swallowing a couple of times. "Joey's dead."
Lance wondered if the world would keep spinning in this downward spiral for as long as it had when his family died. He didn't think he could do it. He said, through numb lips, "how?"
"There was ... I don't-- he killed som-- the sheriff shot him."
Anger was better than being numb, better than sorrow, and Lance lashed out, slapped the kid again - it felt right, it felt right, it was his fault, it had to be: "you, you, you did this!"
And the boy just cried and held his hands helplessly in front of his face. And then gentle hands grabbed Lance's arms and held them, and Chris' voice said, softly, softly behind him, "hey, hey, cool ... be cool ..." and Lance knew that Chris would take care of things and maybe it'd be all right. He kept telling himself that, at least, as Chris held him gently for a while before letting him go again and going to see about Cricket.
***
Part Ten: Watch Me Fall On Evil Days
Dreams. The guns in his hands. His father's dying face. The guns. Chris turning to him and saying "I've had my fun, too." Sheriff Chasez, pale and calm under his black hat. "He needed killing, son."
"He needed killing, son."
His hands on the guns. "He needed killing, son." The roar of thunder in his ears, so loud it hurt, so loud his head seemed to be bursting with the sound, and it just went on and on and on and--
He opened his eyes, and ice-sharp pain sliced through his throbbing head.
He opened them again, slower, squinting into the cold, cold light. It wasn't the moon anymore, it was the palest, finest light of dawn creeping over the dark, looming treetops.
Chris sat next to him, grim and motionless. Justin had seen that impassive expression before. Chris was wearing his killing face.
Nausea rolled and twisted in his stomach. His vision blurred. The dream still lingered, and he wondered which world was more real.
When he opened his eyes again, Chris was looking at him.
"You look like shit," he said, and then his face blurred and softened, and the killing face was gone. He touched Justin gently, touched his dirty face, stroked his dirty hair - so very gently, more gently than a mother would touch her sleeping child - and the hurting place on the back of his head.
"I--" feel like shit, he was going to say, but instead, he choked on tears springing up without warning, and Chris held him close and mumbled soothing things into his hair.
He remembered his thought, the clearest thought he'd ever had: I am going to avenge my father. And he remembered the killing face that hid behind Chris' sad smile.
He pressed closer, pushed his face into the crook of Chris' neck, smelling sweat and tobacco and road dirt, and all of it mixed with the salty ocean scent of his own tears.
"Hey - hey ..." Chris said, and Justin twisted his head and kissed him.
Chris let him: he stayed still and let Justin hold his mouth over his. He didn't back off; instead he tilted his head just a little, and Justin felt the scrape of stubble against his cheek.
Then Chris did back off, smiled a little smile at him and kissed his forehead.
He needed killing, son, Justin thought absently and found one of his father's guns on the ground by his side.
"I'm going to go down to Two Rocks and kill the sheriff," Chris said, as calmly as if he was announcing what was for breakfast. Justin knew, and Chris knew that he knew, that Chris wouldn't be able to kill Chasez. Joey had been a better shot, even drunk. But Chris would go, because he was that kind of man.
"No," Justin said and brought the gun around. It felt warm in his hand, although the ground was chilly and the sun still lurking just under the horizon.
Chris didn't look surprised. Justin hadn't really expected him to.
"Who are you?" he just asked.
Justin drew himself up, because his name mattered. "I'm Justin Timberlake," he said.
Chris still had that smile, that sad smile. "And here I thought I got away with it."
"You killed my father," Justin said, and frowned, because it didn't make him feel anything to say that. His hand trembled a little. They were very close together, and this wasn't exactly how he'd imagined it. You didn't kill people sitting down, did you? Not even people you'd just kissed and would kiss again if they hadn't murdered your father.
"He deserved it," Chris said. "Brother--" and Justin jerked and pulled the trigger.
He hadn't known what regret felt like, he realised immediately. How quickly it could build - he regretted it before the bullet had left the barrel, before it had traveled the short space between them. He saw Chris blink and gasp, and the thunder slapped his eardrums and his head felt like he'd been clubbed with a piece of firewood, and the regret was completely and utterly cold, even though his hand was warm - no, hot - around the gun.
Chris died, and Justin sat where he sat, quietly. He'd imagined this. He'd imagined maybe spitting in the dead man's face for good measure. It didn't really feel necessary. What more can you really do to a man than kill him? He wished Chris were alive so he could ask him what he felt when he leaned forward and spat in Justin's father's dead face.
A commotion drew his attention, and he realised that Lance was there, kneeling by Chris, touching him frantically, touching the wound in the middle of his chest, all the blood, and his hands were covered in it, but Justin's hands were clean, save for a little ordinary dirt.
Lance was crying - again, like he hadn't already spent half the night sobbing into his hands over Joey - and he drew a hand across his eyes and it left a bright crimson streak across his forehead and cheek. He had blood up to his elbows. Justin was still clean.
"You killed him," Lance said, his deep voice soft and slurred with surprise and sorrow and tears. The accusation didn't really have much of an impact. "I loved him, and you killed him."
Justin frowned, the small movement of muscles in his face making his head hurt even more, impossibly more. He thought he might have a hook stuck in his brain after all. "He was--" he started, and it struck him, really struck him what Chris had been. "He was my brother, and I killed him."
Lance shuddered, and Justin saw the gentle, puzzled expression change into disgust and anger and all those emotions Justin had been expecting. He didn't need that from Lance, so he rose carefully, unfolding his legs very slowly, trying to move his head as little as possible. He had to bend down to pick up his gunbelt - it wasn't his father's anymore, just like the guns weren't; he supposed he'd earned them now - and he almost toppled over. Black dots swam and swirled in front of his eyes.
He buckled the belt and holstered the guns. Lance was looking up at him with helpless fury.
"Are you going to kill me?" he said.
"No," Justin said, "I'm going back where I came from now."
***
Epilogue: A Glimmer Of Morning
His feet hurt. The flat, sandy emptiness around him looked so alien that his eyes hurt, too, and he had to squint whenever he lifted them and stared into the distance. There were buzzards overhead, but he couldn't look up to watch them circle and wait, because looking up involved moving his head more than he was prepared to.
His guns hung heavy on his hips, beating a dull counterpoint on his thighs with every step he took. He knew how to use them now, but they brought no comfort.
He had left his horse where the last trees stood clinging to the gently sloping hills. The horse was old and tired, and he would probably live the good life there.
*
JC had arranged for the undertaker to get the corpse of Joey Fatone off the road before the morning stage coach rolled by, and he was done with the morning's paper pushing by ten. Andrews had come in and congratulated him on 'ridding the world of another rodent'. JC had thanked him and wished that he'd be quiet.
He was thinking about the Timberlake boy. He thought he might be regretting letting him go, and regret was a somewhat surprising feeling for JC. He could usually trust his own judgement enough to be spared it.
There were suspicions that Kirkpatrick and his band of stray dogs might have been behind the murder of Gene Timberlake. Justin Timberlake was riding with Kirkpatrick. It stank to high heaven, and JC had looked into the boy's eyes and seen ... something. And let him go.
Damn. He took his hat off the hook by the door and headed out. He didn't tell Andrews where he was going.
*
Chris hadn't been very large, but a strong, able man, nevertheless. Now he was dead. Being strong and able wasn't enough when people meant you harm. Chris had been skilled with the guns, a true gunslinger, but that hadn't been enough, either.
Justin had started thinking - started around noon, when the sun was as close to zenith as it got in these parts - that he might be dying already. He was going to die here, and he didn't even want to cry over himself. He couldn't cry over Chris, who'd died so quickly and quietly that Justin had trouble believing that it was real.
*
Kirkpatrick was dead. He lay serenely on his back in the middle of a clearing. His arms were crossed over his chest, over the thick clots of drying blood. There was no sign of Justin Timberlake, but the last remaining puppy sat on a log by the fire. His face was like the painting of a sorrow. There was a maroon smear running over his pale forehead.
JC pointed at the corpse. The boy - Lance Bass, JC thought, from Mississippi - followed his finger and his mouth twisted. "Cricket," he said. "Oh, sorry. Justin Timberlake."
"Where is he?"
"Dunno. Don't care. Said he was going back where he came from."
"Where did he come from?"
"The desert."
*
There were no faces in the heat shimmers, and Justin was grateful. The shadows of the circling buzzards seemed bigger. They were moving closer.
*
It was ridiculous - like looking for a needle in a sandbox, but JC felt better after he'd found the horse standing contentedly under a small tree, flicking its after flies.
*
He didn't see any faces, and not much else, either. The heat shimmers and his own shadow growing longer in front of him. He'd walked through the day, but he didn't remember any of it. Sometimes, if he blinked, the desert seemed dark and haunted, but he was sure that wasn't real.
He walked.
*
JC saw the buzzards circling. It might just be a dying animal. Or it might be a dying man.
*
He didn't believe it when he heard them. Hoofbeats were alien sounds here. Normal was his own shuffling footsteps, the whistling of the dry wind, the creak of the gunbelt at every step.
Then there was another shadow next to his, and a soft, cultured voice saying, "Do you need a ride, son?"
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