Word Count: 2,489
Archive: DarkMagick.net, Apollymi’s Grimoire, and Archive of Our Own. Anyone else wanting it, please ask first. I’ll probably say yes, but ask first…[endsection]
It was late in the afternoon when he and Billy rejoined the rest of the world, meeting Chisolm and the others just outside town to discuss their options and chances. Goodnight noticed that once again Joshua was riding beside Vasquez, and he wondered absently to himself if his baby brother was a mite smitten.
He wasn’t dumb enough to just ask him that, but he could think it all he wanted.
“It’s a box of death,” he offered when Chisolm asked for opinions. “Even better for us if we can teach some of these men to hit the broad side of a barn at twenty paces.”
Off to the opposite side of Vasquez, he could hear Joshua snort. It was highly likely that his brother held a similar opinion as his own.
“We could do with a few surprises,” Billy offered. Goodnight wondered if he was thinking the same as him: that the miners could prove a useful addition to their ranks, provided they first dealt with Bogue’s men within the camp.
“Any thoughts on that?” Chisolm asked. “We need more than a few surprises.”
“I once knew a man,” Joshua began, “who fell out of a five story building.” And Goodnight nearly choked on a laugh. Yeah, or so he’d said. Corporal Reilly was a card, fond of telling winders, and that building was never the same height twice. “Every window he passed, people could hear him call out, so far, so good. He’s dead now though.” Then he abruptly shifted to, “Hey, Chisolm, have I made good on my horse yet?”
Now that was a story Goodnight wanted to hear, if only so he knew how many times to shoot the damned Yank. The man’s reply of ‘so far, so good’ did little to improve his mood, and he was more than willing to take the sniper point when they arrived on the hills overlooking the mine.
If every Blackstone he gunned down was a certain warrant officer to his eyes, that was his own business. Although Joshua seemed a bit stunned that he took them down so easily; apparently only the rumors that he had retired were the ones to make the rounds. That was good news for him and Billy; no one would expect Goodnight Robicheaux, war hero and retired bounty hunter, to happily shoot a man in the head for attempting to collect on his lover’s bounty.
Once all the Blackstones were dead, he stood and moved to return the Winchester to the saddle holster. He paused when Joshua turned to him, seeming to want to say something to him, only to shake his head and move to hop back on Wild Jack.
Wonder what’s going through his head right about now, Goodnight mused, climbing onto Adelaide and patting the mare’s neck before falling into what was becoming his customary spot in line behind his brother. Chisolm led their group across the narrow river into the mining camp, and Goodnight noted that all the men were wary of the newcomers. It wasn’t surprising in the least that more than one eyeballed the rifles in Chisolm’s, Joshua’s, and his own saddle holsters; at least a few men amongst the group seemed to recognize the Mississippi for what it was and gave him a slight respectful nod when he passed them.
After all, being a sharpshooter in the War wasn’t in any way glamorous. Goodnight was certain he was only one of a handful that had made it through to the bitter end on either side.
Chisolm spoke to the miners once they’d all come out from the mine itself or wherever else they’d been working when the shooting started, telling them that they were all free to go or free to join in their fight. From the way he spoke, it was clear that he was more than just hoping that they would throw in with the seven of them and Rose Creek. Joshua pulled out his flask, something that Goodnight had noticed him doing a hell of a lot of since they’d crossed paths once again, but this time instead of drinking, he tossed it to one of the younger miners standing nearby.
A peace offering, he supposed.
It took no time at all for them to find what they were looking for: the stockpile of dynamite was sitting in a shed not too close to the water but not too close to anything that might ignite it either.
His Billy, God love him, was the master of the understatement. “This should help,” he noted, tone completely even and deadpan.
Joshua’s eyes lit up, and Goodnight knew that meant mischief. Surely eight years could not change the delight his baby brother had in causing a ruckus as a means of distraction.
“I’ve always wanted to blow something up,” his brother said with a wicked sort of glee; he just managed to keep from laughing at how pleased the idea made the younger.
Well now, they had their distraction. Now they just had to get everyone back to town and set about the work what needed done. After all, they had six days now, and every goddamn minute counted.
As far as Joshua was concerned, today was shaping up to be a pain in the ass. There had been the piss-poor attempt at a rifle line with Goodnight. Hell, before that, he had tried to get the bastards set up before his brother could arrive, only to discover that most of them didn’t know their lefts from their rights. Some of them had even thought hoes and straight razors were appropriate substitutes for rifles.
Rifle training had been a wash. From what he had heard over lunch, knife training had been much the same, with people flat-out walking away from it. At least with the rifle line, he had spotted a few men who might be able to be improved in less than a week and single them out for additional training. Little Teddy Q sprang to mind, mouthy little shit that he was, as did the schoolteacher, Josiah. There were a few others, ones that he would know their faces from the lineup but had no idea as to their names.
His brother and Rocks had been nowhere to be seen during the meal. From what he had managed to overhear from Horne talking to Chisolm, the two had been upstairs in their room, and Joshua wasn’t touching that with a ten foot pole. Nope, instead he had just sat in his chair between Vasquez, who was eating everything like it was going to be taken away from him, and Red Harvest, who was barely touching his food, and tried not to brood.
After all, the brooding wasn’t doing him any damn good, and really, it just made him more irritable, more likely to want to just shoot someone in the face and call it a day, and more likely to be put off his own food. He had had to live a bit lean after… well, after spending a huge portion of his savings buying out a bounty… And he never wanted to have another day of having to wonder where his next meal was coming from.
Obviously, Vasquez had had too many days like that as it was. No one ate like this man did who hadn’t gone hungry at some point in his life, maybe even more than once. He ate everything he could get his hands on—and soaked up every interaction with each person like it was just as life-giving.
Either way, he had ended up sliding a biscuit or two from his own plate onto Vasquez’s without a word. If anyone else had noticed, nothing was said, and he was happy with it that way. Even Vasquez had been strangely silent on the matter, though Joshua was less certain how he felt about that.
But all of that had been some hours ago. Since then, they had made some preliminary plans. They had even staged a takeover of Bogue’s mining camp and made off with most of the miners and all of the dynamite… and he could freely admit to being incredibly excited about that.
He hadn’t been exaggerating, after all: he had always wanted to blow something up.
That in mind, Chisolm had given him the task of plotting out where the explosives would end up going in order to get the most use out of them. In turn, he had recruited Vasquez to go over the map of the valley that Rose Creek sat in that Miss Emma and little Teddy Q had given Chisolm and Chisolm had in turn given him. He knew Chisolm and Old Jack Horne were planning some ditches along the main road into Rose Creek, so they would need explosives for that area. Those spots hadn’t been decided yet, though, so the pair of them were looking at other locations.
“What do you think?” he prompted. “Maybe the shed?”
Vasquez nodded, making a mark with a fountain pen. Joshua wasn’t sure where he’d turned that up, and he wasn’t asking, not right now. “Maybe… here too?” He tapped the end of the pen against the map next to the windmill, between it and the corral.
Joshua pulled the map over to look closer. “Looks good.” It wouldn’t be hard to funnel at least part of Bogue’s army through that path and to the shed. No, it wouldn’t be difficult at all, and it would probably even be in line with some of what Chisolm had in mind. “We can plan for more of this once we know where the trenches are going to be. No sense doing any of this twice if we don’t have to, yeah?”
He glanced up to meet Vasquez’s eyes, so much closer than he thought he had seen them before. For a long moment, all he could think about was something that had happened earlier in the day, back at the mining camp.
That damn noose had been dangling, moving in the faint breeze coming up from the east. Vasquez had shuddered, staring up at the damn thing as they’d rode past, and he’d slowed Jack to draw even with the Mexican. Some part of him had wanted to reach across both their horses and hold the man tight, but then had not been the time. He didn’t know when the time would be, but it hadn’t been right then.
“Never liked those things,” he had instead offered in a quiet voice.
There had been a hundred thousand things Vasquez could have said, not in the least of which being a reminder that Joshua was in the wrong damn profession if he wanted to avoid being around nooses. Thankfully, he avoided the easier ones and instead mildly commented, “I don’t believe they are things you will have to worry about too much, güero.”
The laugh that had slipped out of him was broken and harsh… but still quiet enough that the others shouldn’t hear it. “On the contrary.”
Vasquez had scoffed, giving him that skeptical raised eyebrow yet again. “And why would that be? They don’t hang many bounty hunters, you know.”
Even now, hours later, he still didn’t know what had possessed him to say what he had been thinking. “Oh, it happens. Difference between Chisholm and me is he has the law on his side. I know a former bounty hunter out of Texas who has a bounty like yours on his head now. Ain’t what I meant, though.”
“What did you mean?” Vasquez had asked, voice both quiet and deep… and very distracting, which he was not getting into, thank you.
There hadn’t exactly been a lot of time. At the front of the group, Chisolm had been pulling Horse up to a stop, Goodnight and Rocks just behind him. They wouldn’t be able to talk for much longer, not with any degree of privacy. He had nodded towards Goodnight and spoke quickly. “My brother ain’t the only one in our family with certain… preferences, if you follow me, the kind that tend to get the ‘good folk’ of towns all riled up and set for a Sunday lynching. Hell, I’ve seen men hanged for the mere suggestion of… some of the things I just said. Heard of a pair of fellas getting burned alive over towards Texas for getting caught in the act. So, yeah, Vas, I get not liking the sight of a noose.”
But that was then, and this was now. Nothing had been said about the conversation while they had been at the mining camp, probably mostly because the rest of the group and a whole lot of strangers were right there, and nothing had been said about it since they had been back in Rose Creek. It was coming, though; he could feel it, crackling in the back of his head and never really quite turning him loose.
He had done everything he could. He’d made it as plain as he dared that he was open to… Well, that he was open. He was… fairly certain he had made it obvious he was interested in Vasquez… and he could only say ‘fairly’, because while he had fucked his fair share of men, he couldn’t say he had ever had something like these… feelings before.
He couldn’t say he liked them much.
With a sigh, he folded up the map. There really wasn’t that much else they could do until he knew more about Chisolm’s plan with the trenches, and it was his understanding that the entire group was going to walk the town and area in an hour or so to get some ideas on where to place their shooters—provided they could get any of these men into fighting shape—and any of those other surprises Rocks had been talking about.
Now, he just needed to get this part over with. Either he’d totally screwed up trying to say he was interested, which he wouldn’t doubt, knowing himself, or Vasquez didn’t exactly return the sentiment. Either way, that left him with something—something else—to deal with.
“Look, Vasquez,” he began, eyes locked on the table top and the folded map, talking as quickly as he could to get this whole thing over with but still quietly in case he had somehow missed someone close enough to hear him, “what I said earlier, in the camp… I’m sorry. I won’t bring it up again, but I would appreciate it if you don’t go mentioning it to anyone either. I wasn’t kidding about seeing folks lynched for that sort of thing…”
There was a muttered curse next to him, then Vasquez was pressed up against his side. “Do not apologize,” he interrupted quietly, and when had he moved to speak right into his ear, “for being you. You are a man who carries so much responsibility. I cannot even imagine that. I would not tell your secrets; I would have to tell my own first.”
Okay, what? Joshua turned his head to try and meet the other man’s eyes, only to find himself somewhat distracted.
Apparently kissing was a thing he and Vasquez were going to be doing now.
[section=Footer Notes]04 March 2017Gods, I had been waiting to write this chapter almost from the beginning. I knew approximately when Joshua and Vasquez would hook up almost from when I started the story, but getting them to this point was more of a trial than I had anticipated.
While I’m posting Chapter Ten, Katsuko and I are finishing up writing Chapters Sixteen and Seventeen… which contains something else I’ve been wanting to do since the start of this story.
For the record, this is still day 2 in Rose Creek. A lot of the montage stuff might get reordered a bit to fit the narrative better. Just an FYI.
~Adora[endsection]