Blood and Iron Ch. 01

A faint, grumbling growl briefly sounded from somewhere deep in his throat, and he rose again fully to his feet from his stance against the wall. His voice rasping harsh and flat. "Don't hardly matter now, does it?"

"Why not?" Quiet. Probing.

"Twelve damn years past, that's why." Sharply. A curl of irritation at his lip. "Don't make no difference. Maybe I turned yellow again. Maybe I just fouled up. But Anavio ain't gettin' any closer while we stand her jawin'."

He started for the horses then, his stride stiff and rapid. But Alice didn't move. "You really in such a hurry to die?"

That stopped him. A few moments pause before he answered. "Ain't eager for it, no." Facing away, his gaze turned just upward to the sky. "But you said it's got to be done, and I ain't inclined to argue, neither." His jaw clamped briefly shut. "Anyhow, I figure I'm fitted for a bullet or a noose 'fore too long regardless. Damn sure I'd rather it be from you that from some stranger, over a game of cards."

Quiet. Stillness, looking at his back, at the shabby outfit imperfectly fitted to his body and fairly coated with dust. The faded brown kerchief tied around his neck, protection from the sun. The hide belt cinched around his waist...suddenly, Alice realized something that had been nagging at her from the moment she'd discovered who he was, and an incisive inquiry edged into her voice. "How come you ain't carryin'?"

She could see his shoulders slump down a fraction of an inch, hear the weary exhalation loosed from his lungs. A tired deflection to his tone. "Just fulla questions, ain't ya."

"You never went out without your piece," Alice persisted. "Hell, you only took it off to sleep, practically. How come you ain't got it now?"

He turned around then, facing her again directly. His features flat and heavy, drawling sour, slow. "Sold it. Years ago. Wouldn't do me much good, anyhow."

"Hell it wouldn't," she snorted sharply. "You already forgot I was the one't stopped that blowhard from puttin' a bullet in you? I know your eye ain't so bad you couldn't draw on him yourself, if you'd been carryin' iron."

"My eye?" James repeated quietly, distantly. "Well, maybe it ain't. All the same, though, it wouldn't have helped me much."

It was so simple a gesture that at first she hardly realized it had meaning. James' right arm lifting up, palm facing skyward like that of a beggar for charity. Only as it extended did she see how it shook, how his empty hand trembled as though under a heavy load, and all his brief moments of clumsiness, of awkwardness that she had seen and disregarded took on suddenly a new import. Soft pink lips parted faintly in surprised chagrin, working for words. Finally stammering out the seed of a question, "What..."

"My heist." The bite of bitterness on his tongue, his arm returning to his side with evident relief. "My glory. My bid for the damned hist'ry books, that's what. If'n you ever wondered how big a fool a man can be..." His head shook sharply, a curl of disgust at his lip; it was the passing of a few moments before he spoke again, the low, reluctant tones of forced confession.

"I figured I was bein' careful, see?" His brown eyes tired on her, lightly lidded. "Wasn't going to hit a bank right off. Thought I'd take a stage or three first, make sure all my instincts was still good. Stages were easy pickins, back when I ran with Miller. Often didn't have much on'm, but you could hit'm when and where you liked, only had to worry about two guards, two guns..." Drifting into a brief silence, punctuated with a quick shake of his head. "Anyhow, I reckoned one'a them would be a good place to start. I worked out when the Pine City stage was comin' down a crummy little trail, set up an ambush for'm. First part went smooth as butter. Had'm stopped, guns tossed down...made sure they got a look at my face. That bit's important, if you're tryin' to make a name for yourself." A sliver of a smile on his lips, wry and weak. "I was ridin' pretty high when they passed down the strongbox - barely noticed in time the shotgun that got pulled out after."

Her eyes widened, absorbed. Caught in the telling - it was an echo of long-ago feeling. Laying in her rough straw bed as he sat at its edge, carried off in stories of his heroics, of triumph and sometimes brutal justice. The words on her tongue had been spoken many times before. "What did you do?"

"I shot first." His tone was grim and flat, without the energy or the drama that had infused the tales he spun for her before bed. "Trouble was, between the strongbox on my arm and my surprise, I shot the wrong fella. And then the other one - one who actually had the gun - he shot me." He inhaled slow, as though gathering his energy to continue. "Caught me square in the shoulder. Felt like a bear sunk his teeth into me...strongbox fell, I fell, tumbled down to the ground. 'at's probably what saved me; if I'd stayed up, second shot woulda come for my heart, or maybe my head. Instead I had a few seconds 'fore the man peered out over the edge of the stage. Long enough for me to pick up the gun in my other hand, point it up where I figured he'd be."

"Don't mean to make it sound like I was cool and confident down there. Reckon the both of us was damn near panic, and me, I had the sense half knocked outta me, between the gunshot and smackin' my head on the dirt. But he's the one made the mistake of stickin' out his head before his gun. And when I saw it, I fired." No satisfaction in this success, his eyes dull and heavy. "By then, I was already bleedin' mighty fierce. Don't even rightly recall gettin' away. Just remember promisin' a sawbones half of what was in the box if he'd fish all the bits of lead out and sew me back up...I'd hardly set myself myself down in a flophouse to heal up after when the fever started. Spent the next two weeks half outta my head with infection and whiskey, drinkin' down the pain. When I was clear enough to figure, I figured I was gonna die there, just that damn smashed-open lockbox and a dozen empty bottles for comp'ny."

"You didn't, though." A self-conscious flush broke on Alice's cheeks as soon as the words left her mouth. Of course he didn't. If this was even true, if...

"No, I didn't." James answered gravely, as if it were in fact an open question. "The fever broke. I was alive. But my arm..." His head shook ponderous and slow. "It didn't heal up right. I didn't have no strength, no control. Couldn't do nothin' with it at all, at first, fingers just barely twitchin' when I tried to grab. Suddenly I'm a cripple. One bad arm, and another that don't work entire."

A hint of shame and savagery lurked in his words, frustration and anger turned inwards, deep and dolorous. The sound of it sparking in her heart a feeling like pity, a tender softness of concern. But it was the flame still of fury in her that grabbed hold of her tongue, lashing out with accusation. "You expectin' me to feel sorry for you?" Her tone sharp, though her lips struggled somewhat to curve into the shape of scorn. "You just got done tellin' me how you shot dead two men who was only tryin' to do an honest job. Ask me, you deserve worse'n just a crippled arm."

"Ain't sayin' I don't," James answered quietly. "Just tellin' what happened." A beat passed, quiet. "I stayed in that town round about another month, hoping I was gonna get better. And I did, a little. Got so I could at least hold a bottle again, if I was careful, could eat, dress. But that was all. Damn sure couldn't draw my piece quick enough to matter, or aim it worth a damn once I did, or even pull the trigger half the time...I was done, far as shootin' goes. Out of money, too. Spent near everything I had left from the stage. And what I set out for...well, sure as hell wasn't gonna be able to hit a bank like that." His lips tightened briefly to a bleak, humorless smile. "Anyway. That's how come I ain't carryin'. Satisfied?"

Alice shook her head slowly, her mouth shaping a word not quite pronounced - 'No.' A ripple of pain flashing through her expression, quarreling with herself as the question pushed forth...the little girl, insistently pleading, demanding again the answer already given.

"Why?" It came out high, harsh with feeling, and she had to swallow the ache in her throat as his eyebrow arched uncertainly. "If you was done if your plans, if it wasn't gonna work...why didn't you come home?"

"Hell, Alice, ain't you listened?" His brow wrinkled, squinting wearily back at her. Brown pools staring out from the darkness of his eyes. "I was a cripple, near enough. Couldn't do a man's work no more. If I'd gone back..." He shook his head, distantly. "I'd have been livin' off you and your ma. Makin' things harder. Eatin' food that should'a gone in your belly. I know I done a dreadful lot of things in my life...but I wasn't about to sink that far." A moment's quiet, gazing above her into the lightly clouded sky. "Anyhow, ah. Old Billy Jack always had an eye for her. Your ma. I figured if I weren't around, he'd make his move. Step in. Help take care of the two of you."

"That your excuse?" The words crept up husky from deep inside her, burning slow and painful. "Thought somebody else was gonna make things better, since you run off?"

His eyes dropped weakly back down to hers, steady and slightly sad as the quiet lengthened. Finally, he answered. "Ain't no excuse for what I done, Alice. But that's what I was thinkin', when I done it."

"You shouldn't've," she persisted, a demanding, desperate edge rising in her tone. "You should'a come home. You..." Sliding then into silence, as frustrated feeling swirled at her breast, raw and desolate. Nothing - he'd stayed away for nothing, she'd lost him for nothing. There'd been hard times, sure enough, but not so bad that they couldn't still have gotten through. She was certain of it. If he'd been there...the notion pulsed tight at the top of her throat. All those years of wondering, all the afternoons sitting up on that big red rock waiting for when he'd finally appear. All the nights when the tears wouldn't stop, when she lay curled up beneath her quilt, crying deep into the night until she finally fell asleep on a sodden pillow. The rage that had taken her sometimes, in the years when her body began to change, the blind whiteness of fury that pounded at her heart, helpless, mindness, until she had to shoot or hunt or just destroy, to quench the burning anger inside her with violent action. All of it...it didn't have to be. If he had only come home again.

But it was too late for that. A decade too late. No matter what she said now, no matter what he did, it wouldn't help that little girl. Her suffering, her sorrow were burnt into the past. Fixed. Inescapable, despite the desperate urgency of feeling clutching at her soul. There could be no resolution, no happy ending, no fulfillment of the half-formed wish her tongue struggled to shape. Only justice. Retribution, a final recompense for the injury he'd caused. The return of a semblance of sense to a world mad and cruel since he disappeared. Nothing else could be done.

"We got to get back on the trail." Gruffness forced into her tone, scratching at her throat, words low and little felt as her gaze dodged away. He wore a solemn look, nodded with faintly quixotic relief, tugging down his hat to better shield his eyes. The first to walk away, back towards the horses, leaving her to stand in silence with her heart heavy in her chest. Nameless longing reaching out from deep inside as she watched him stride calmly towards his promised execution. If there were another way, if she could forgive him. Have him again, the father she once knew, the pa she remembered...if, if, if. If only.