Word Count: 3,492
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]
Billy Rocks was not a man one could accuse of being oblivious, and the tension between the Robicheaux brothers was damn near a physical presence.
From the moment that Goody had recognized Joshua the previous day, any semblance of normalcy and sanity had fled his lover. The man’s face had gone ghostly white, then he’d been out of his chair and grabbing the younger man almost before Billy had time to process the situation. Then they’d proceeded to argue — loudly — in French before throwing punches.
That lovely moment left Goody with a split lip and Joshua with both a split lip and a blackened eye.
Then Goody had been extremely uncommunicative, only making sounds of agreement or disagreement to let Billy know the man was even halfway paying attention the entire time they were packing to leave for Junction City. He had even asked if his lover wanted him to punch out Eddy and received an mm-hmm in response. And Goody liked Eddy.
So, in an attempt to show the younger brother some silent support, Billy had placed himself between Joshua and Teddy with Goody on the far side from his brother. That had been a disaster. The longer they’d ridden, the more Joshua had clung to his bottle of whiskey and hunched up like a scalded cat. They covered a hell of a lot of ground before Billy finally decided fuck it and called for them to stop just after sundown. Teddy had passed out almost immediately, Joshua had taken forever to fall asleep, and Goodnight was still physically but yet not mentally present.
By the time morning arrived, Billy was one hundred percent done with both of the Robicheaux brothers and simply took his usual spot next to Goody with Teddy to his right and Joshua on the outside. He was honestly wondering what kind of man Sam Chisolm was to inspire Goody to go along with this crazy-ass plan to save a town from Bart Bogue, and when he laid eyes on the man for the first time…
Well, he wasn’t impressed.
Chisolm greeted Goody kindly enough and had a polite nod for Billy, but then he’d spoken to Joshua in a totally different voice. From what he could gather from where he was tending to his and Goody’s horses, Chisolm had convinced the Mexican man to join their merry band of morons by saying that he was going to ignore the bounty. To Billy, that sounded like a silent but I can’t guarantee the other bounty hunter and/or the retired bounty hunter won’t want the money, and his assessment of Sam Chisolm’s character further nose dived.
He bit back a vicious grin, though, when Joshua loudly proclaimed that he’d match Chisolm’s deal but had to roll his eyes when the man switched over to what had to have been his mother’s name to make his introductions for Vasquez.
Idiots, the pair of them, he thought meanly before moving over to allow Goody to join him at the fire. He was hungry after all the riding, and he knew they’d be headed off again soon. Plus, he figured his lover might need to be closer to him for the moment; when Joshua had used the name Faraday rather than Robicheaux, the older man’s expression had abruptly closed off. Chances were pretty high that Goody was lost in his own head and self-recriminations again, and Billy honestly wasn’t in the mood for that at the moment.
Once all this was over, if they survived, Billy was going to lock the pair of them in a goddamn room without their guns and just let them fight it out. It was likely the only way they’d move beyond their original fight over him, and maybe it would let them both finally make peace with the fact that just because they were different didn’t mean they couldn’t still love one another.
Until then, however, Billy was going to do whatever it took to keep these two idiots alive long enough to get to that point.
Mother of God…
Whatever Vasquez had been expecting when Chisolm informed him that his associate would be returning soon enough with two other men, he hadn’t expected anything like what he had gotten. Instead of three men returning, it had been four, so clearly this Joshua had managed to find one more man for this bit of insanity than Chisolm had anticipated. That had been a good thing, part of him had thought; it meant a better chance of him surviving this and maybe even slipping away quickly and quietly when everything was done. After all, just because Chisolm had promised not to hunt his bounty any longer did not mean that Chisolm intended to keep that promise. Some lawmen thought that promises made to outlaws did not count the same, after all.
All the same, he had to be cautious, keeping his horse between himself and the newcomers, right hand hovering just over his gun. He shot just as well with either hand and generally favored left-handed, but there would be no easy shooting left handed around a horse, not when this one was so new to him that he hadn’t quite established how it reacted to a flurry of bullets, if matters came to that. He imagined Chisolm’s horse to be well used to gunfire, but then there was also the woman’s ride to consider.
A quick look at the four men immediately showed four people who could not be more opposite if they tried. It was hard to deny that the Oriental drew the eye first, sitting on that horse with approximately all the knives in the West attached to his waist, dressed up in a fancy suit of pin-striped clothes. The older man riding immediately next to him was just as finely dressed, if not more so, with the grey frock coat and suit. The other two weren’t nearly so finely dressed, and he was willing to bet the youngest one was wearing the only coat he owned. That one was little more than a baby, and he had to wonder all over again about a town that sent a woman and a boy out on their own to acquire hired guns.
With those three, he couldn’t be blamed for not paying too much attention to the fourth man. He tended to slide towards the background of notice, but now that he was looking, it was hard to stop. The man was definitely trying to keep too many people from paying too much attention to him: brown trousers, brown vest, brown gambler’s style hat, white shirt that was nearly dusty and sweaty enough to be brown as well. His face was scruffy enough to have not seen a razor in weeks, and he had a pinched look around the eyes. It was hard to make a guess as to his age: certainly younger than the fancy pair but older than the boy in the long trail coat, maybe younger than Vasquez himself but also maybe the same age. It would be a hard thing to pin down without directly inquiring.
What was actually the thing that stood out the most about him was that he was wearing at least three guns and a knife. There was also a rifle stuck in a holster on his saddle. What in the world did one man need with that many guns… and the knife at his side as well? There was well armed, and then there was this man. How well he could use any of them when he was actively draining a travel bottle of some kind of liquor was another question altogether.
And the older white man was riding a bit ahead of the rest of the group, loudly greeting Chisolm by name, all huge smiles and a glinting gold tooth as he dismounted his horse. That wasn’t of any concern. He had met people like that before: more flash than substance. It was Chisolm’s response to the greeting that had him on edge and rethinking that quick assessment: “Goodnight Robicheaux!”
Because Vasquez wasn’t an idiot. He had heard of the Robicheaux brothers, bounty hunters the pair of them, though the elder did seem to have quit the game several years ago. If Chisolm had dragged him out of retirement for this, then that meant something. What that might be, he did not know.
Then because Goodnight Robicheaux was moving over too near him in order to talk to Mrs. Emma, followed soon enough by the boy, he circled his horse to try to hear a little more of what the other man was saying to Chisolm, as the Oriental took the tack off the two older men’s horses and settled down by the fire. The remaining man had all but fallen from his horse and was now actively leaning against it to stay upright. It said some good things about the man that the horse was shifting every so often to help with this endeavor. This was a man, then, that this horse had picked just as much as he had no doubt chosen the horse. That spoke well of him.
They seemed to be arguing about Goodnight Robicheaux and the Oriental that had come with him, about how Chisolm hadn’t been expecting the second one to come with. The other man didn’t seem entirely too pleased with anyone’s presence but especially not the Oriental’s, and Vasquez wasn’t too sure what to read into that. Sullen hangover? Something happened on the way here? Didn’t like Orientals? Something older and uglier? There was no way to tell, another mystery.
And then the man was asking how Chisolm did and got a gesture towards Vasquez in return. The unnamed man turned towards him, clearly studying him closely and carefully, muttering something under his breath that Vasquez couldn’t quite make out, before his eyes went wide. “You brought the bounty along with?” Great, just great, someone else who recognized his face from that terrible likeness. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Chisolm, what the hell were you thinking?”
“That we might need something a little… outside the law on this, taking down a man like Bogue.” Made sense. He certainly hadn’t thought Chisolm brought him along for conversation.
“What the hell did you promise him? That he’d have two bounty hunters off his back for helping?”
Well, shit. Two bounty hunters could mean Chisolm and Goodnight Robicheaux or, more likely, Chisolm and the man who was staring at Chisolm in nothing less than undisguised shock, like he was wondering what had broken in the man’s brain. Frankly, Vasquez was wondering the same thing. A man with a price on his head and two bounty hunters… This would not end well.
“No, not at all, Mister Robicheaux… Joshua, if I may…”
Mother of God…
That settled it: he was going to die in this. Because while those stories about the Robicheaux brothers did frequently talk about how Goodnight had quit doing that job, they had lot more to say about the younger brother, Joshua Robicheaux, who had stayed on it and with a vengeance too: about what a mean bastard he was; about how few of his bounties were ever turned in alive; how he preferred to go after dangerous, high-paying bounties… or supposedly sometimes bounties that had teamed up together; about what kind of pain he liked to inflict on people who hurt women or children; about how the quickest way to end up dead around him was to have your hand on your gun…
Shit…
Well, if he put his hands behind his back, the two bounty hunters in front of him might think he was reaching for another piece. He wasn’t exactly going to stick his hands in the air in surrender and he wasn’t going to drop his gun belt, but he could cross his arms over his chest so that they would be nowhere near his weapons. Because he was going to do everything in his power to not get shot.
Chisolm was still speaking, though, as if he hadn’t noticed the effect his words had had, though admittedly Vasquez doubted that to be the case. “I only promised I would forget all about his bounty, seeing as I’m the one that managed to find him in the first place. I certainly would never want to speak out of turn on your behalf, after all.”
Fantastic. That sounded like he was suddenly right in the middle of some kind of feud between these two particular bounty hunters, like they were trying to one-up each other at his expense. This would not end well, at least not for him.
Or maybe that wasn’t true. There were a lot of complicated things going on here, not in the least of which being the multitude of expressions hidden on the other man’s face but flying through his eyes almost too fast to place as he stared at Chisolm’s back, as the other man walked over to the other newest additions to their group. If one wasn’t watching the man’s eyes, you would miss everything happening he was thinking because his face showed nothing. It might as well have been made of stone for all it revealed.
At least until he clearly made his decision about the matter. “I’ll call that bet, Chisolm,” he called over, grinning like a coyote when Chisolm whipped back around to face them, face clearly lit with unhidden confusion and shock. But when he spoke again, the words were quieter, clearly meant to be kept between the two of them. “We survive this shit, and I won’t go after that bounty either, my hand to God.” He balanced his liquor bottle under his arm and stuck out a hand in what was clearly meant to be a friendly gesture. “Joshua Faraday. Pleased to meet you.”
It was little more than a reflex to answer the gesture, letting Faraday—if that was his name now, who was Vasquez to judge on something like that—shake his hand a couple of times hard. Maybe the new name was meant to be reassuring or to tweak at Chisolm or something else entirely. Either way, it was a kindness that didn’t have to be given but had been nonetheless.
But then, he had heard of Joshua Faraday before as well. Until now, he had always assumed the two reputations to belong to two separate men who happened to share a first name, but clearly he had been mistaken. Still, Joshua Faraday… a gambler with the Devil’s own luck, both good and bad; a man who hardly ever cheated at cards but almost always managed to walk away at the end of every day with more money in his pockets than he had had upon arrival; a drunkard who could imbibe half a saloon’s quantity of liquor in a night and still manage to ride out at the end of it all; a man who always seemed to be running from something.
Now he had to wonder if what Joshua Faraday was running from was in fact Joshua Robicheaux. A blind idiot could tell there was bad blood there, what with how Goodnight Robicheaux was hardly paying any mind to him, instead focussing on the beans being passed around as a quick trail lunch. Joshua—best to go with that, to avoid any potential confusion—seemed to be skipping on the meal, though whether it was because of the company or something else was something yet to be seen.
No, he had his own suspicions about that too, he noted, watching Joshua make some long, frequent pulls from that bottle and watched the older two men he had arrived with out of the corner of his eye; apparently, Joshua preferred a liquid lunch to actual food. That would be something to keep an eye on during all of this, as if they didn’t have enough to worry about as it was.
It was worth noting that for how much the man drank and didn’t eat—a bad combination, no matter how you looked at it—it seemed to have little effect on his reflexes. Leaning against the large tree they had set up the temporary camp in the shade off, Joshua’s eyes darted over to watch each person as they moved even slightly… at least until they locked tight, if in a side-eyeing sort of way, on Goodnight Robicheaux as he stood and made some excuses about a call of nature. It might have even been true, but it looked like Joshua didn’t believe it, not given how he watched Goodnight like a hawk as he stepped mostly out of sight.
There was a lot more going on here than what he had originally been told. It was going to be in his best interest to try to figure it all out, before it all blew up in his face.
In the meanwhile, every story about every version of Joshua said that his word was a bond: if he gave it, he would stick by it until the end or until someone double-crossed him. He had Joshua’s word that he wasn’t about to turn on him for the five-hundred dollar bounty on his head, and he felt pretty confident that it was going to be binding. It wasn’t like he was going to double-cross Joshua; it wasn’t the kind of man he was.
He could probably trust in that bond a lot more than he could trust an angry widow, a boy, a man carrying more knives than seemed strictly healthy, a so-called retired bounty hunter, and yet another bounty hunter, the one gathering this little motley crew. It would be best, at least for now, he thought, to stay close to the person who seemed least likely to put a bullet to him.
This was not going to end well.
Goodnight tried to keep his focus on eating whatever the hell it was that was being passed around for lunch, probably beans or porridge or something, he couldn’t really taste it to be honest. His mind was still wrapping itself around his brother’s words to the outlaw Gabriel Vasquez only a few moments before:
Joshua Faraday.
It had been many long years since his little brother had used his mama’s name, having adopted the Robicheaux name when Maman adopted him in all the important ways. There had been one or two times, during their years as a bounty hunting team, that they’d both used assumed names to try and get closer to some of their more dangerous bounties, but never had he known Joshua to use the name he’d arrived in St. Martinville with.
And now?
Now it had just tripped lightly off of his tongue as if he introduced himself to everyone that way.
And maybe he did. The rumors about Joshua Robicheaux said he was a mean bastard, turning in a great deal more men dead than alive, going after only the most dangerous and high-paying targets, but still he’d had a small measure of hope.
Rumor also said Joshua Robicheaux was especially vicious with men who’d harmed women or children.
Goodnight had taken that to mean that maybe, just maybe, his brother hadn’t grown up to be the son of a whore who’d sired them both after all.
Still, it hurt like hell, hearing his baby brother, his T-Jo, all but denouncing his family name. It may have been just to put Vasquez at ease, but Goodnight doubted that.
Looked like he was right about reconciliation; Joshua didn’t want it, and no matter how much Goodnight might wish for it, then he would just learn to live without it.
He shook himself out of his troubled thoughts and pushed himself to his feet. “If y’all would excuse me,” he said, smooth Louisiana charm coming through as all but Billy and Joshua glanced his way, “we are shortly to be setting off on a very long journey, and nature calls.”
It was only a half-truth, yes, but a good enough reason to slip away for some privacy. Even Billy’s silent companionship was stifling at the moment, and he really just wanted to take a few minutes to write in his journal.
Goodnight slipped towards the other end of the copse they were still settled in at, and when he rounded the last tree, he sat abruptly. He leaned back against the trunk and squeezed his eyes shut, refusing to let them water any. It would only be a weakness he didn’t need at the moment, letting the man he’d called brother for most of his life see him mourn for any of what they no longer had, but it was difficult.
Finally positive that the moment had passed, Goodnight opened his eyes and slipped his journal out of his breast pocket. The fountain pen he generally used for writing was tucked safely inside, marking his previous place, and he opened the journal to a new page. Taking a quick glance back to the campfire — no one had followed him, although Billy was looking his way and Joshua was as well but with that dark expression on his face still — he removed the pen’s cap and began to write.
Mon cher frère T-Jo…
[section=Footer Notes]28 January 2017Okay, and this is the other half of the previous chapter. It’s also one that’s cowritten: sections one and three here are by Katsuko, and section two is me.
Also, I want to take every last one of these boys and smack them with a newspaper until they get along. Or at the very least, pull their heads out of their asses and talk.
But what would be the fun in that?
~Adora[endsection]