Blood and Iron Ch. 01

"Never what?" Her eyes narrowed, glancing over.

He shook his head. "Don't matter now, I reckon. Obviously, he didn't." Another nip finished off the glass, set down to rest uneven on a knot of wood protruding from the countertop.

It was a few more moments, tense and seething, before Alice spoke again. "I don't get it." Frustration upsetting her own attempt at cool, a straining of anger and of bafflement. "Why are you here?"

James raised one uncertain, bristly eyebrow. "Ain't like I put down roots, little...ah, Alice. I'm just passin' through. Driftin'. Didn't figure I'd be here more'n a week."

She shook her head, quick and emphatic. "That ain't what I mean. I know you been driftin', what I heard from the folk sometimes who remembered you. Gettin' by on gambling. Cheatin', I reckon." Her lips curled briefly with distaste, and he made no attempt to deny it. "But it don't make no sense. If you was bored of the ranch, why in blazes ain't you gone back to what you did before? You were a damned hero. Special Deputy Marshal. You took out Bloody Miller and his gang, you worked secret for Buchanan. How can you..." She trailed off, hesitated at the look of growing incredulity in his expression. "What?"

"Your ma never told you?" His brow furrowed in disbelief.

Her voice sharpened with the steely, uncomfortable edge of suspicion. "Told me what?"

"Alice..." He gamely swallowed. "Those was just stories. I made'm up. Ain't never met no President, or been any kind of marshal, or done nothin' near half what I told you about. Hell," he sighed, "Only one close to true is Miller. But I didn't stop him, I ran with'm."

"What?" The question was a breath, her mouth hanging half-agape. Shocked, shattered, scrambling for purchase as the past she thought she knew cracked beneath her feet.

"'ts right." A faint smile crossed his lips, grim and humorless. "I was one of the gang. Done my share, shot'n killed plenty men who didn't deserve it so's we could take a few dollars from a bank or stage. Was the Marshals brought'm down, that part's true," he nodded slight and solemn as she looked on, flustered with dismay. "But it damn sure wasn't me. Me, right then, I was busy paintin' myself yellow."

He glanced again in her direction, half-expectant, but she did not try for a response. Just stared back, stricken, breathing slow through lips just parted, the tips of teeth still pearly with youth barely visible in the dim light of the saloon. A few more moments, his fingers twisting idly at his glass on the bar before he spoke again. "Suppose you ought to hear the story right, seein' what trouble you took to find me." Dark humor in his voice, flaring like a distant match on a moonless night. "We knew they was comin', see? Two Marshals, plus a posse of thirty men rounded up from the town over. No chance we could stand against that, not in a straight-up gunfight. I went to Miller to talk escape, say we should split up, disappear into the wild for a couple days, weeks, however long it'd take for the heat to die down. But Miller..."

He snorted, quiet, disparagement masking a reluctant regard. "He was an educated man. All kinds of big ideas. He talks about makin' his mark, goin' down in glory, bein' a Man Untamed. Me, I was more interested in bein' a Man Alive. So while the crew was puttin' together some barricades, getting ready for Valhalla...I snuck off. Turned tail and ran, the way I said the rest of'm oughtta. Ran for quite a while, as a matter of fact, 'specially once I heard how the rest of the gang was wiped out but for the two they saved to hang. Tryin' to head far enough away that there wouldn't be no one around who'd even heard of Bloody Miller. Eventually, I met a nice Irish lass who helped me find a place to stay, to work, to settle down. Got married. Had a kid. Tried to go straight." The weary look of before, heavy again in his expression. "Reckon you know the rest."

"You're a liar." Her voice trembled with accusation, with the ache of outrage. "You...my whole damn life you was lyin' to me about who you are."

"Ain't quite the way I saw it, at the time," he answered, slow and quiet. A contemplative pause. "But I suppose that's right, more or less."

"You're a liar," she repeated ferociously, the final word straining from the top of her throat, seething with the red of helpless fury. "A liar, and a cheat, and a thief, and a murderer. You're...can't be hardly nobody in the whole damn world worse than you."

Slow to answer, staring at the wooden wall behind the counter. But his voice kept the same tone and rhythm of cool equanimity. "Certainly a whole mess of folk better."

Alice's hands balled into fists on the lip of the bar, short-bitten nails scratching at the uneven wood. The breath hissing quick and shallow through her nose as she struggled to compose herself, to think, to push down the tide of tight, conflicting feeling that whirled mad inside her. This wasn't what was supposed to happen. For all the ways the reunion could have gone, she'd never imagined this, that finding him would be itself a loss, that it would take away the man she thought she'd known. That it all would be a lie, every dream and memory, and every drop of warmth inside her cast out into the darkness...

"Well," a growl came deep in her throat. An answer. The only one she could think. "Reckon I'm here for justice, then. For me, for Ma, and for all the folk you hurt before and ain't never paid the price." Her gaze narrowed to a glare, fixed sharp and solid in his direction. Voice dropping to a mutter, avoiding the ears of the others in the room. "I'll give you a choice. I can shoot you right outside this here saloon...or we can take a trip first, visit Ma's grave. You pay your last respects, and I put you down quick." Her eyes blazed, daring him to protest.

Little hesitation. He waited just long enough to lift his glass once more to his lips, draining out the last few dregs of whiskey within before calmly nodding. "All right."

A suspicious frown tugged at her expression, narrowed her eyes. "What do you mean, 'all right?'"

"I'll go with you." He shrugged carelessly, brown eyes heavy and unreadable.

"Uh-huh." She intoned skeptically. Staring at his face, trying to read what was going on in his mind. Feeling a shiver of old, familiar emotion at the back of of her heart, fitting features to the image that was carved into her memory. "And you ain't got nothin' to say about me sittin' here in judgement?"

He just glanced aside, dismissive. "You're the one with the gun, I reckon that makes you in charge." A pause. "'sides, if you hadn't come along, I'd a'had a bullet in me anyhow."

"Right..." She pronounced it slowly, eyes still narrow with suspicion. "Well. If I'm in charge, I say we head out right now. Get some supplies and leave, 'fore you can slink away on me." Her eyes glittered with accusation, sharp and taunting. "Again."

No reaction. He just sat, stolid and unmoving, the answer cool on his lips. "Fine."

It was enough to depart. It should have been enough. But for a few moments more, Alice kept staring at his face, glaring, searching. Her jaw tight, emotion itching frustrated at her breast, trying to batter down with her gaze the damnable coolness of dispassion that blockaded his expression, to see what lay beyond. If anything did. Certainly he had not always worn so deliberate an apathy. Memory stirred in her mind, a picture from long ago - her father, returning from a trip into town. Sitting so tall on their old paint horse, his features strong and healthy, hair not yet touched by grey. How he smiled, wide and unrestrained, as he saw her waiting for him. The warm feeling of delight and adoration that had filled her, rushing down to his side to be lifted up, sat down before him on the horse for the short distance that remained to their house. How his hand rested solid on her shoulder, careful and lovingly protective, ensuring that she kept safely upright and balanced. Now, though...all was a flat and distant coldness. The only emotion she could detect in his expression, a faint tension of regret. Perhaps only for the fact that she had found him.

"Come along, then," she finally ordered, gruffly as she could muster. A quarter left on the counter for their drinks as they headed back out to the dry and dusty avenue. A fly buzzing past, slow and lazy around the stagnant trough. "You got a horse?"

"Wouldn't be much of a no-good drifter if I didn't." His lips briefly thinned, gesturing vaguely over to a squat grey mare idly flicking her tail about. "Ain't too fast or too strong, but she gets me from place to place."

"Then saddle up." Alice moved to her own stallion, pulling herself lithely up to the leather seat in a single, smooth motion. James took a bit longer, a trace of awkward stiffness in his motion as he lifted himself up - a body uncooperative, despite long experience - but soon he, too, was perched atop his horse, glancing over at Alice with eyes tired and questioning.

"You just stick ahead of me so I can keep an eye on you." Her steed snorted briefly, as though for emphasis. "Gotta get some supplies, drop off them guns with the sheriff. After that, we're headed out directly. Lotta ground to cover 'fore nightfall."

---

Events proceeded much as Alice had described, the pair departing west on horseback in an awkward, uncomfortable silence. Bitterness and bile twisting still in her heart as she trotted along behind, staring with tightened jaw and barbed gaze. Her tongue aching with a question already answered.

Why? So many nights she'd wondered it, even once childhood tears had finally dried, once the fires of adolescence found kindling in her loss. Why did he leave? Not knowing, she had thought, was the worst of all. Facing that agonized uncertainty that puddled, festered inside her like blood from a wound. Wondering, as she often did in the first few years, if it was perhaps her fault, if she'd not been good enough.

But now at last she knew...and the answer gave no satisfaction. Empty. Senseless. Meaningless. "A man's gotta." The words rang taunting in her mind through all her hours of travel, rasping like sandpaper on her soul, and all she could do was glare at his back, thinking how she hated him. This man supposed to be her father, the man she thought she'd loved, once. In the dream of childhood, a time forever past.

Between the lateness of their departure and the barely passable trot of James' horse, dusk was gathering long before they drew near the next town. "All right," Alice gruffly drew a halt before the darkness loomed too deeply. "We set up camp here." The smoothness of experience inhabiting her manner as she slid easily off her horse, fetching a thin-handled axe from the saddlebags beside to chop at some of the spindly bushes and narrow trees that grew off the path - all but ignoring James, who merely stood aside, watching her at work. Scarcely much time at all before a mild little fire crackled cheerfully there in the sand, pushing back at the growing gloom of night.

"Handy, ain'tcha." He observed quietly as she set down before the campfire with a fair-sized canvas chow sack. Standing still at the edge, in the twilight region between firelight and darkness, his features only barely illuminated by the flickering flame.

"Had to be," she grunted back. Industriously pouring some dried beans into a cast-iron skillet, mixing in a little water from her canteen. "You gone, ma dead...weren't nobody else gonna be it for me."

"Suppose not," he granted sagely. Quiet curiosity glimmering in his eye as he stepped closer. "Six years, you said. Woulda made you fifteen, if I ain't mistaken." And a little jolt in her heart, a flicker of warmth that tugged her gaze briefly up again to his features - surprised that he remembered even this much, in light of how dismissive he had been. She had to glare it back down inside her as he continued. "How you been gettin' by?"

A few moments passed with just the sound of the fire while she thought how she wanted to respond. If she wanted to. It was almost offensive, him asking now about her life, wanting to know how she survived after his careless abandonment... "Don't reckon that's none of your concern." She didn't much try to keep the bite from her tone. Didn't even meet his gaze, petty vengeance giving some small measure of satisfaction.

"Maybe it ain't." Agreement, low and quiet in his throat. He stood now near the fire, beside her as she set up the skillet, and the awareness of him there was another flash of familiar feeling down her spine. How he'd stood there time to time, silent and towering over her, watching as she played silly children's games in the dirt, exercises of imagination with the wooden toys he whittled for her in his free hours. The comfort she'd felt under his protection, under his gaze... "Can't say I got much claim to ask. Sure I ain't no father at all, far as you're concerned." A moment passed, Alice staring down into the fire. "All the same, I'd like to know. If you don't mind too much tellin'."

She didn't, really. Troubled more by the stirring of ambiguous feeling at her heart, old emotions, old memories thawed and set to flow again in his presence, in these barest rudiments of warmth. As though it mattered, as though he were truly even the same person she'd cried for, prayed for. As though that man even existed...she couldn't let herself be touched by this paltry expression of interest in her life. It was too little, and too damned late. She shrugged, expression forced full with deliberate apathy. "I been drivin' cattle." She couldn't help a glance upward at that, into his eyes, unreadable now in darkness. "Good work, I figure. Ain't easy, but it pays well, and the off seasons left me time to track you down."

"Well, I'll be." A note of genuine surprise sounded in his voice, of almost admiration. "You're a cowboy. Or a cowgirl, I s'ppose." He chuckled at the idea, brief but earnest. "That how come you dress like a man?"

Anger flashed abruptly in her features, her lip curling wroth. "I don't dress like a man." She spat the words out, thick with venom. "I dress to do the damn job. You gonna be like every other fool, jaw on how I oughta put on a dress, how much prettier I'd look if I grew out my hair, put it up? How quick I could find me a man, not fuss about pretendin' to be one?"

"Wasn't plannin' to," he quipped back, dry and laconic. Settling down now beside the fire, folding his legs beneath him. "Eyes ain't as sharp as they used to be, but you look plenty fine enough as is. I just ain't never heard of no cattle company that'd sign on a woman to work a drive."

Alice was slow to respond, gradually breathing out her instinctive irritation as she added a few chunks of salted beef to the now-boiling water. "Wasn't a simple thing, gettin' the job," she finally granted. "Damn near had to rope and tie a steer right there in the manager's office 'fore he agreed to leave it up to the trail boss. Him," a trace curve of self-satisfaction crept into her expression, "I had to challenge to a contest of sharpshootin' to make him recommend me."

"Really, now." James' eyebrow rose. "Suppose that fits your show back at the saloon...fancy yourself a crack shot, do ya?"

"Ain't got to fancy nothin'," she returned swiftly. The makeshift stew bubbling cheerfully in the skillet, putting out a smell quite delicious after long hours in the saddle; Alice picked out a few dense sourdough biscuits from her pack of food. "I can do what I can do. Most of the time, it's good enough." And wrapping her hand in the leather of her coat, she lifted the food from the fire, commencing almost immediately to scoop up hungry mouthfuls with a battered wooden spoon.

James could feel his own stomach grumble, aroused by the simple, appetizing scent, but didn't bother to speak of it. Just sat there by the fire, watching from the corner of his eye as she wolfed down her meal, showing clearly the table manners of the range. He'd gone hungry more than once before; wouldn't be much harm in doing so again. There was a quiet fascination, besides, in looking at her, in appraising this girl, this woman, this child that he'd not seen in so long. That he'd tried to forget. The slender curve of her neck softly pulsing as she swallowed, her clothes and skin dirty, dusty from long travels. Not a difficult thing to see the anger in her, the force of it like hot steel just beneath the skin, poorly hidden by her attempts at nochalance and cool. Not hard to understand it, either. After what he'd done...

So it was a surprise when she grunted quietly and turned, holding out the cooling skillet for him to take, still about half-full. "Here." He reacted only belatedly, grabbing for the handle a trifle unsteadily with his left hand. "Don't want you starvin' to death on the way to your own execution."

"Right," he agreed dryly, caught a bit off-guard. "Much obliged."

She just shrugged, took her turn at staring into the fire while he ate. Darkness fallen now across the desert, their little blaze the only light around for miles - though the skies still shimmered with their broad canopy of stars. The crackling of flame overlaid atop the low and lonely sounds of night, insects and desert mice stirring for a few hours of foraging outside the heat of the desert sun. It was some minutes later that James spoke again, muttering around half a mouthful of beef. "Some'n I don't get." Her dirty green eyes darting upward, dimly visible in firelight. "Why bother trackin' me down?"

She blinked. "What?" The word flatly spoken, blankly, as though his question had no meaning.

"Sounds like you dont all right for yourself," he explained. "Got good work, got the ranch, know how to look after yourself...hell, I been gone more'n half your life. How come you didn't just forget about me, like you ought? Why waste time traipsin' around all over nowhere lookin' for somebody it ain't gonna do you no good to find?"

"That ain't..." Her answer came out quiet, diffident. An ache of frustration, flickering in her eye. "I couldn't forget. You were my pa. I didn't have no idea where you were, what happened to you. Came up with so damn many explanations, figurin' you musta had something real important to do, somethin' so secret you couldn't even tell us about it. That when you was done, you'd be back." Her voice growing tight, almost trembling - a tinge of red to her gaze before she turned away, stared again into the fire. "Three years I waited for you to come home. Spendin' seems like all my spare time out on that big red rock where I always used to meet you. Prayin' every Sunday just for one thing, that you'd finish up whatever kind of secret mission you was on so I could see you again. Three years before I finally accepted it wasn't gonna happen, that you wasn't comin' back." Her mouth a thin line, muted and low.

"Guess ma lied to me, too, 'cause she never let on you wasn't what I thought you were. Just said I shouldn't hang around waitin', that you prob'ly died out there." She breathed out slow through her nose. "But I never believed it. Didn't think nobody could kill you. Said I'd find you, or leastwise what happened to you...god, that was ten damn years past. Don't feel like it." Her head shook in quiet reflection. "Had a mission of my own, then, see? Practiced my ridin', my shootin', all the things you used to say would save your life, while ma kept sayin' I gotta wait at least 'til I was older 'fore I could think about rushin' out after you. Then she fell sick, died, and...well, I figured I was old enough."

James sat in stoic silence, as sourness bit once more at her voice. "When I first set out, I had this notion like I was gonna find you in the dungeon of some old Spanish fort somewhere, held prisoner by...god knows who. And you ain't got to tell me how fool an idea that is - I know well enough. But I didn't never believe you would'a left for no reason like that. I thought you..." Her jaw closing tight, wordless and aching, not finishing the sentence. Staring down into the fire, her skin seeming to softly glow in the rich yellow light. When she spoke again, it was with a little quaver quickly swept away. "Anyhow, weren't no way I was gonna forget. This was...I made it my whole damn life, trackin' you down. Sold the ranch. Only worked the drives so I could afford to keep lookin'. Didn't make no sense when I talked to people who said they'd maybe seen you just wandering, passin' through, but I thought there had to be some kinda answer for it, something that'd explain it all when I finally found you." Her teeth clenched briefly shut. "Guess I'm the fool, ever trusting anything you said."