Chapter Text
The heat was unrelenting. As were the flies. You'd tucked your braid into your hat at one point, desperate to feel the breeze on your neck; but there was no movement in the Lemoyne afternoon. Not a breath of relief in the heavy soup you rode through, under the vicious, baking sun. You'd pulled a bandanna from your saddlebag at one point, covered your nose and mouth. But whatever relief you gained from the flies was a poor trade for the extra heat on your face, and you'd given it up almost immediately. Arthur had passed you a sprig of some plant to swish the damned pests away with, and it helped some.
To his credit, your companion did not once mention that the flies were likely attracted to the dried and flaky blood you'd left vaingloriously on your cheek.
Arthur. Your stomach twisted every time you glanced at him, even as your heart sank. The sun had ceased in its climbing hours ago now— it wouldn't be long and you'd be in Rhodes. The two of you would split the take and part ways, probably for good.
He'd weathered the heat better than you, it seemed. Every time you glanced at him he looked more or less the same than he had this morning, less the big blue coat. Back straight, arms hanging languidly from his shoulders, one hand on the reins. Battered black hat protecting him from the worst of the sun. Boadicea seemed to mind the heat much less than the cold, the mare less ornery and difficult than she had been earlier in the journey. Or maybe she, too, had been irked by Kelly's constant yapping.
Since parting ways with that unfortunate young woman, the two of you had talked and laughed about nothing in particular. Horses you'd owned, fools you'd met on the road and off of it. Good places to buy tents (Manzanita Post, he'd claimed, but you'd need one long before you made it all the way out there).
Whenever conversation lulled between you— and it did often enough, the easy banter sliding into similarly comfortable silences— you'd turned the earlier events of the day about in your mind. You'd been apprehensive, of course, about how he'd react to all that business. The violence of it. The killing.
Sure, he'd met you in the midst of a firefight, but that was with your long gun; relatively bloodless. Clean, in a way. And, you'd admitted to yourself, swishing your branch of whatever-it-was after a particularly stubborn fly, he'd saved you then, or he could tell himself he did.
Even as you'd kicked Trigger into action in those first seconds after the woman's scream, it had occurred to you that a big, tough man like him might prefer to see himself the hero; riding in and saving the day. That he might take exception to you being the one to get there first, raining bullets and hellfire and blood.
You'd hoped he that wouldn't be so; the picture of him you'd been piecing together over the past day seemed to suggest he wouldn't see it as you stealing his thunder. But you had more than enough experience with men— even men you'd thought were good sorts— to worry that you were wrong.
Despite your worry, he'd surprised you yet again. If anything, if you had to guess, you'd say he was impressed. Or… something. You couldn't quite sort it out in your head, but you'd catch him stealing glances at you out of the corner of your eye. He'd look, and look away, as if he was somehow transgressing. At first you thought maybe it was the flies, but the pattern repeated itself too often to be that. You'd feel his eyes on you, and look up. Just to see him quickly avert his gaze. You found you didn't mind it, if he was looking.
The lowing of cattle wasn't ordinarily something you disliked. Today, it was unwelcome; a signpost to the end of a journey you hadn't looked for, and having found, were loath to bid farewell. You sighed, taking your hat from your head to fan yourself with it, turning to Arthur as you did. "Ain't long now," you looked over at him, your eyes drawn to the line of his throat, the sheen of his skin from the heat, before your gaze met his.
He twisted his lips and nodded, squinting a little in the sun. "No, ma'am." You pulled your canteen from where it hung from the saddle, drinking the last of your water to mask the way you frowned at his words. Hellcat, he'd named you that first day— was it really only yesterday— with nothing but sincerity. No derision. No mocking judgment. The name fit like a second skin, better than any name you'd worn before. The thought you might not hear it again after today left a sinking feeling in your gut. You can't help but recognize the irony; two days ago you'd have been pleased indeed for a fellow hunter to address you so respectfully as ma'am.
But it was stupid, dwelling on these things that was what they was, and couldn't be changed. You generally thought yourself a sensible woman; you'd had to be, on this path you'd chosen. Something as inconsequential as a name that didn't rankle was nothing to get wistful over. Nor one to make stupid assumptions on of.
You tried to tell yourself the same was true of pleasant company, but the lie of that rang hollow, even in the quiet of your mind. You'd been fine on your own because you'd had to be. Or thought you had; certainly all your experience suggested solitude was to be your lot. Now, you'd always know that other avenues existed. Or seemed to, you chided yourself firmly. One day was not long enough to put aside years building a life where you weren't just surviving on your own, and you can't afford to lose sight of that now.
Cattle farms gave way to caravan shanty towns, and you let Trigger's gait slow further, knowing the hills would give way to the dusty streets of Rhodes before very long at all. A hound bayed not so far off, and for the first time in days, you could hear the distant sounds of human movement.
"About that time," Arthur began, his words stretching with the rest of him as he straightened in the saddle before rolling his shoulders. "We ain't got long to suffer if he gets to yappin' again." You realize he's talking about Eight-fingered Joe as Arthur swings down from Boadicea, gives her a firm pat at the withers, and starts untying Kelly from his saddle. You ease Trigger to a stop, watching his gloved hands work at the knots.
You both sigh when old Joe starts awake, cursing at Arthur ("You dumb brute! You ain't any better'n me!") as he heaves the man onto one broad shoulder.
It's a struggle to stop your mouth from falling open as he does it, so you swallow instead, busy yourself swatting flies away from your face. He made it look effortless, keeping that whole man balanced on one shoulder, his frame only bent a little to one side under the weight. How much easier your life would be if you could sling bodies around like that. Arthur looked for all the world like he could carry the man all the way into town, horses be damned.
"What," he grunted as he hefted Joe onto Trigger's rump, glancing at you from under his hat for half a second before busying himself retying the bounty to the back of your own saddle.
Unsure what to do having been caught gawking, you cough and swing down from Trigger's back on the opposite side to Arthur, tying the washed-up outlaw's other half to your mount. "I—" You clear your throat again, annoyed at yourself more than anything. Ain't no shame in admitting something easily observable as true. "Guess I'm jealous."
Arthur threw a few more half-hitches to tie off the loose end of his line neatly before glancing up at you. "Jealous?" He swiped at his face, dislodging flies, and tested his knots by yanking at them. His brows were drawn in a genuine look of confusion, even if he only stole a look at you for half a moment.
You were grateful for that, his attention being firmly rooted to his knot-work, never looking at you too closely or too long. Your own knot was tied and squared away and you glared at it, like it was responsible for your having to have this conversation, instead of your newfound inability to mind your tongue.
"Life'd be much simpler if I could swing fellers around like that," you mutter, determinedly not looking up, even if there was nothing to hold your gaze at the saddle. You pick mud from the edge of your saddle blanket.
"Huh," was all he said at first. You hear the sounds of him pulling himself back ahorse before you do the same, finally looking over at him to discover an expression that seemed carefully neutral if it was anything. The silence stretched on between you then, as you eased the horses into movement once again. In the end, it was Arthur who nodded and added, "Ain't never had much course to think about that." He turned toward you, teeth bared in a sardonic grin. "Don't suppose I'll live long enough to know what that's like."
You scoff loudly at that, embarrassment swept away in a rush of incredulity. "With the way you shoot? You'll be doin' this an old man. Hitch a wagon up to ol' Boadicea for them bounties when your back gives out."
He snorted a laugh at that, shaking his head as your two horses walked in step. "That'd be the day I die for sure— hitchin' a cart to this wild thing."
Kelly had started up his grousing again, the move from Arthur's mount to yours having roused him fully. You didn't hear him, though; focusing instead on the easy laughter, the jibes and banter. It made you feel lighter and heavier all at once, how easy the words flowed between the two of you. But town was just over the next rise; and the inevitability of your parting twisted something in your chest.
Plenty of towns the size of Rhodes were best described as 'sleepy,' and at first glance you might have given this town the same epithet. But as you and Arthur rode down the quiet main drag, you felt quite different. This town wasn't sleepy. It was hostile. You'd noticed it, distantly, the first time you'd ridden through; the feeling of eyes on you. Of judgment. This was a town steeped in the past; a past that was brittle, scared of change. You'd held your head high and ignored it on your way in to hunt for bounty postings a week ago; alert enough, but in a hurry. You always were when it came to starting hunts.
Now, riding side-by-side with a partner, bounty slung over Trigger's back ready for payday, you were letting yourself pay attention. You suspected that in the end, it wouldn't just be the boys in the Sheriff's office you found didn't like you around. Still. That should make the next part all the sweeter.
Obliging as he was, Arthur had hitched his mustang across the street at the gunsmith. As usual, he busied himself muttering sweet nothings to her as he fished an oatcake from a saddlebag, brushing down her muscled neck and forequarters as soon as she'd accepted the snack. He'd said he had business to attend to with one of his rifles, anyway; but you noticed that now he busied himself counting ammunition, sorting rounds into caliber before secreting them back away into pouches and pockets, stealing glances your way all the while.
Not that you minded an audience, you found. His weren't the only eyes on you as you dismounted to hitch Trig just outside the shabby old sheriff's office. The rheumy eyes of the sheriff himself had found you as you'd rode up, though you were hidden for now from the dusty window. Others, too; you'd felt the prickle of observation from windows and porches all about the solemn old street. Your back is straight as you scruff your hand over Trigger's neck before turning to your bounty; let them look.
Kelly had been silent for some time, perhaps the dread of the dwindling miles between him and the gallows stole the life from his tongue. He had life enough to laugh at you, though, as you made your way to Trigger's rump, his voice wheezing and strung out from his day in the ropes. He sounded half-dead already, you decided, mouth twisted as you met his angry gaze as the man contorted himself to do so. "Some fierce thing you are, girl," he mocked, words sharpened and wielded to wound, "how you plan to get me off this horse?" He managed a laugh that might've stung, if he weren't trussed up and under your power. "Ain't foolin' no-one, bitch."
You didn't answer; nor did you need to. The knots lashing the doomed man to your saddle came loose fast and easy, and after that, it was a simple thing to yank the lead fixed to his wrists, rolling him off the rounded, pied surface of said horse's rump.
Trigger is not a huge horse. Solidly medium, in fact. Even so, it is a long way to fall with no limbs free to break your fall, and Joe Kelly did not prove himself exceptional in that regard, falling to the earth with a cry to match the hard thump that came before it. Across the way, you hear more than see Arthur hiss, a reflexive sound of involuntary sympathy soon rolled into a chuckle. You bend, checking that the remaining bonds haven't slipped, before cocking your head to look down at your quarry, free hand on your hip. "Ain't here to fool no one." You note that the man is still lucid, which was well; always went better, getting the full price when they had a bit of life kicking in their breast to show for it. "I'm just here to get paid."
In truth, neither of you appreciated the four stairs up to the Sheriff's Office, though as you dragged the man up, lead over your shoulder as you heaved him behind you, you thought Kelly probably enjoyed them less. Still, you were breathing heavier than you'd like as you push the office's flimsy door inward, groaning bounty trailing behind you. "Sheriff, Deputy," you nodded to the two men, who'd both stood as you entered. That made you smirk; you got the distinct impression that their standing was more out of shock than any sense of gentlemanly propriety in the presence of a lady. "Got ol' big wig Ambarado here for the bounty."
Giving the rope a final heave, you drop it at your feet, giving Kelly a final cursory glance as you turn your gaze back to the lawmen. You keep one hand steady beside your pistol, much as Joe don't look like he's fit to get up anytime soon.
The expressions on the faces of the two officers were indeed worth the struggle of dragging the old outlaw in here under your own steam, just as you'd known it would be. Sheriff Gray's bushy mustache obscured the exact cant of his lips, but it couldn't hide the way it twitched as he tried time and again to fix his face into an appropriate shape. In the end, he stroked it and his chin between thumb and forefinger, nodding mutely.
His subordinate managed to hide none of his surprise, clean-shaven mouth hanging slightly agape for a full span of seconds before he shut it, nodding at you as he brought his knuckle to his forelock, finally remembering his manners. "That's a— fine bit of work, Miss." He glanced at his boss before bending to free the prone man's ankles, then heaving Kelly to his feet by his bound wrists.
Sheriff Gray was still looking at you strangely, those watery eyes sticking to you in a way you didn't much like. You'd heard the man was developing a trouble with drink that was stretching from the dark into the daylight— perhaps that was it. Perhaps not. He didn't smell of liquor.
Squaring your shoulders, you nod your head at the sounds of Kelly's cell being locked back up. "Hundred-twenty for him breathin'," you begin, your voice far from cordial, but a long ways off from agitated just yet.
The Lawman didn't seem to share that assessment however, raising his hands in a show of placation both dramatic and patronizing to your eye. "Now, now, Miss, don't go gettin' all het up," there's a quaver in his reedy voice that has aught to do with fear, you notice, the set of your mouth in growing danger of turning to a scowl. "he is breathin', that's so."
You shift your weight to your other leg, not removing your hand from where it sat on your gun belt, just as you didn't remove your hard and hardening stare from Sheriff Gray. The moment stretched on between you, and eventually you sigh lightly, giving in. "Ain't no more to it. He's kickin', so it's one-twenty. Ain't no law sayin' I gotta lug the feller in above the ground."
Gray's expression hardened at that, and you curse your sharp tongue silently, to yourself. "Ain't I say, don't get het up?" To your immense relief, however, he makes his way slowly to his desk, rifling in the drawer for cash. He clucks his tongue in open judgment as he does, taking glances at you all the while. Time was when that sort of look would evoke something other than ire in your chest, but that day was long since past. "Such manners, and from a woman no less," you catch him muttering just loud enough to hear, and you chew your cheek in lieu of saying anything.
In the end you leave the office with the bills still clenched in your fist, teeth ground tightly together so as to hold every word which wasn't a respectful and contrite utterance of thanks locked behind them.
As you lead Trigger across the street, Arthur looked up from where he'd been cleaning his rifle— now fitted with a new stock— with a low whistle, shaking his head as he did. "Damn, woman. Remind me not to get trussed up by no female bounty hunter, that is just—" here, twisting his lips, he pointed loosely over toward the sheriff's office— "undignified."
Barking a laugh at that, you thumb his share of the bills out of the fold, passing them to him before making a show of looking him up and down before reaching out to take hold of the horn of your saddle. "Don't fret, Arthur," you grunt as you swing yourself up onto Trigger's back, "you is so big; I'd have to figure somethin' else out to deal with you."
He rebuffed that with a wordless scoff, waving a hand as if to ward off the words after stowing the cash in his satchel with none of the care he'd afforded his bullets. As he mounted Boadicea, and the mustang fell into step beside Trigger seemingly of her own volition, the smile you'd worn faded. This was it, then. No reason not to part, now.
The silence between you had shifted, since depositing the bounty. It had lost something of the easy stillness of earlier, gaining a looming sense of finality that you felt foolish for disliking, or even imagining was there. Silence was silence.
"So, how long you been chasin' bounties?" The cowboy's words came stilted and awkward, quite different from the easy, rolling cadence you'd grown used to. You turn your gaze from the trail, glancing at him for only a moment before turning away again.
Flies had settled on your lips, and you swipe them away with a spluttering huff before speaking. Good Lord, you needed a bath. From the corner of your eye you see Arthur open his mouth, as if to retract the question, so you cut off the formless beginning of his sentence before it can cross his lips. "Five years, or thereabouts. Don't exactly mark the anniversary, you know."
He nods, the dark brim of his hat highlighting the movement in your periphery even as you keep your eyes on the road ahead. "Might see you on the trail again sometime, then." The big man's voice is always rough, but now there's a different quality to it that you can't quite pin down. A tension you'd not noted before. Arthur cleared his throat a moment after, and you decided that it must have been a tickle or suchlike.
You've barely managed to open your mouth to reply, however, when he's speaking again, seeming to feel he's misspoken somehow, quickly adding more to his statement as if in a rush to correct some transgression. "I mean— guess you'll keep hunting bounties."
"Yes," you reply slowly, raising an eyebrow at him as your lips slide into a smirk that hangs askew. Your earlier assumption about his voice seems less certain, all of a sudden.
"Well, o' course," he rumbles, his deep voice more than half a groan as he presses his hat further onto his head, frown pulling sharply at the corners of his mouth. He shifts in his saddle; you'd describe the movement as squirming, if you knew him just a little better. Discomforted. You aren't quite certain what has him so off-kilter, so you let him find the words he needs alone, leaning over Trigger's withers to pat his sturdy neck. "I only meant— I ain't never met…" he trailed off, and you fight to keep a smile from your lips. Was he flustered? "Naw, that ain't true neither, but she— Christ alive," he swore finally, glancing briefly at the heavens as if for deliverance.
The sky remained mute, but you took pity on him. "I'll be hunting bounties, Arthur," you confirm, tone carefully neutral. He brightened almost imperceptibly at that, glancing at you minutely before looking down to readjust his grip on the reins. Rolling your shoulders and stretching an ache from your lower back, you frown slightly, keeping your eyes on your riding companion a little longer for once. "Not 'round here, though." You swallowed, an unfamiliar twisting sensation worrying your gut.
Arthur looked up at you just as a fly landed on your nose. You swipe it away with an exaggerated wave of your hand, forced to smirk at the universe's helpful punctuation to the point you'd been about to make. "Came out this way… ain't sure why. Chasin' bigger bounties, I guess. But that damn city—" you scowl, remembering the noise and smell and airs of the landscape as you got near enough to Saint Denis to decide that you were going to turn yourself right around— "this soupy, goddamn, relentless heat…" You catch Arthur nodding at that, smirk on his lips, waving a gnat out of his face this time.
"Anyways, ain't what I thought it'd be out here. So I think I'll head back where I come from, make my way west. Less bounties, maybe, but better folk." You offer him a twisted little smirk that doesn't quite manage to be a grin. "Better folk for odd ducks like me, anyway."
Arthur turned back towards you with a scoff, tearing his gaze from where he'd apparently been looking out for something in the direction of the train station. "You ain't no duck, Hellcat." There's a real smile on your face following the use of that name, and he notices as he forces himself to keep talking. "I'm from out that way." He'd taken a deep breath, as if about to say more, but ultimately fell silent. You notice his fingers are not still where he holds the reigns, moving the supple leather between thumb and forefinger almost restlessly.
Neither of you spoke for some time after that, the only sounds the muffled thuds of the horses' hooves in the dusty red trail, Rhodes itself falling behind you both rather quickly. Strange, how quickly exchanging Kelly for a bunch of dollars had been, when so much unfolded in the process of getting him there. Eventually, the trail split, and the two of you let the horses roll into a stop.
"Well," you begin, having looked off west along the road that continued past the rail line, and you knew would lead you along the shore of Flat Iron Lake, all the way out to Blackwater and the wide open country after that which marked the beginning of the West, to which you quietly longed to return. "I'm off this way." The end of the sentence sat jarringly between you, and you chewed your cheek, the weight of unspoken words uncomfortable on your tongue. The tightness in your chest you didn't care for one bit; you were a grown woman, for Chrissakes, not the giddy girl you'd been once. You ought to say it, or not, and let that be that. But, you couldn't deny that you were cautious with good reason, and inviting yourself to spend more time with this man you in reality didn't know at all seemed a little like inviting a reminder of why you were cautious in the first.
You did it anyway. "You said you're from out west? You… headin' back?" Your stupid heart kicked up a merry little jig in your chest, and you felt foolish even as the words and the not-quite-invitation left your lips.
Arthur had been looking that way, brows drawn and mouth pulled to one side in a squint you assumed was mostly on account of the relentless brightness of the sun, even this late in the afternoon as it dipped west toward the horizon. He glanced at you in that brief way he'd adopted this afternoon, then sighed and looked briefly east, up the lesser road that would take you more or less back the way you came.
He scratched at his beard, looking truly regretful. "Not jus' yet," he drawled, and you fought to keep the way your heart sank from your face. "Got some business I gotta check in on, save me from comin' all the way out here again."
That was that then. The anxious not in your belly morphed into something softer, heavier, and you smiled up at him determinedly, thumbing the brim of your hat in salute before sticking your hand out to him. "Thanks for the company, Arthur." You pause, fighting with yourself over saying too much or not enough. "I hope our paths cross again."
He stared at your offered hand for a span of seconds, before taking it in his to shake, nodding at your words. You do not think about how warm and large his calloused palm feels over yours, and as you look into his eyes you certainly don't try to commit the unique hue of them to memory. Blue-green flecked with gold, like scattered points of light on calm water. He returned the small salute after retrieving his hand from yours. "Good huntin' to you, Hellcat."