The Brave

After what she had just seen, to hell with them. And for that matter, to hell with secrets; Charlie was about to be dragged into a world of shit, and she realized she cared about him too much to not give him a warning.

When nobody was around to hear her, she took another drag, blew out a big puff of smoke, and said, "Somethin' you need to know," drawing her friend's attention. "The man Wind's waitin' on...it's Garrick." She offered Charlie his smoke back.

He took it. "Of course it is," he said, taking a drag.

"I don't know why I'm tellin' you," she said. "If you try to stop her, I'll get between you two because I couldn't live with—"

"I'm not stoppin' her," said Charlie.

For a moment, Sally was relieved, until suddenly she wasn't. She remembered that a thousand dollar bounty is never exclusive, and it would inevitably attract Wind's match. And now that she had no reason to chase her away, the challengers would keep coming while Wind kept waiting, and it would only be more likely that Sally was going to witness the death of someone else she...

...no. Really?

"Maybe I don't deserve this." Sally stepped out of her own head to see Charlie rubbing his steel Deputy star between his fingers. "Maybe I should be less accepting of a woman so set on killin' my boss. But maybe I don't care, because I know what that bastard thinks of people like my mother. What he did to them up in the Dakotas. How he laughs about it. To my face." Charlie flicked his cigarette butt to the dirt and grounded it out under his foot. "If she was part of the band of Lakota I'm thinking of," said Charlie, "then what she has planned for Garrick is ten times worse than what she did to the Englishman. And he'll deserve every bit of it." On that horrifying note, Charlie walked off, stepping gracefully past the puddle of vomit he'd left earlier. He had nothing more to say, needed nothing more than to be anywhere else.

"What happened to her tribe?" Sally called after him.

Charlie turned around, walking backwards. "It's not my story to tell," he called back. "Even if it was, I'm not sure I could."

* * * * *

When Sally walked back in, she caught Wind suddenly looking back down to the floor she was scrubbing. Sally remembered; from where she was, Wind would have easily heard the last part of her conversation with Charlie. So The Brave knew that Sally was wondering what happened to her tribe...her family. And because she wasn't stupid, she probably figured out that her supposed friend told Charlie who she was waiting for.

Sally didn't fear death by Wind's hand, aware as she was of the possibility. What she feared more was her disappointment, her feeling betrayed. She didn't quite know what to tell the native to make things right.

She started by kneeling down in front of her to take the soapy rag out of her hand. When Sally made contact, though, Wind pulled away, continuing to scrub out the Englishman's blood.

Sally looked down for a moment, gathering her courage until it could overcome her guilt and her sorrow. And then she said "I'm sorry."

"For what?" Wind was focused on her task, but genuinely didn't seem to understand.

"For tellin' Charlie that your business is with Sheriff Garrick."

"Doesn't matter," said Wind, still scrubbing. "It never did."

Sally nodded, relieved that she wasn't angry at her, but felt glued to the floor all the same, and slowly realized that she had more she wanted to apologize for. "Well, I'm also sorry about your family," she said. "I don't need to know what happened, but I can't imagine all the hurt you must be feelin'."

Wind kept scrubbing, though she momentarily slowed down.

"And I'm sorry you feel like you hafta clean up a mess you were forced to make," Sally continued. "To be honest, I'd rather you not scrub it out yourself. Why don't you go back to your room for a bit an' lemme—"

"I need to stay here." Wind scrubbed harder.

Sally raised her arms in a gentle surrender. She gave Wind a few moments to settle down, then pushed back. "You know, that man you killed, he's only number one. That bounty he talked about is a thousand damn dollars, Wind! More are gonna come lookin' for you, and as damn well as you can handle yourself, sooner or later, somebody's gonna come that'll be too much."

"So?"

So? SO? "God, don't you care 'bout livin' long 'nough to see this through?" Sally refused to hide her distress and her ever-creeping anger, hoping it might get through to her new friend.

"It's my debt," said Wind. "If they make me pay it before I can collect on Garrick's, so be it."

"Well if you pardon me, I think that there's some horseshit." Sally rose to her feet. "Near as I can tell Garrick deserves what you aim to give 'im," she continued, "but I don't much care if he lives or dies or how badly he goes. You, I care about. Stupid as it is havin' known you only a couple days. And I'd rather believe you're alive out there somewhere than to see you get bled out and dragged away by whatever goddamned animal's capable of killin' you!"

"You're right." The floor was as clean as it was going to get but Wind kept scrubbing on. "That is stupid."

Sally shook. She knew if she stayed she would kick her and shove her and kiss her and shove her again in some vain attempt to make her see a sort of reason she couldn't quite grasp herself, so she stormed back to her apartment behind the bar and slammed the door.

She cried for fifteen minutes, spent another ten pulling herself back together. When she came back out to reopen the bar, Wind was back in her usual seat, Stetson pulled over her eyes as she admired the surface of the bar.

The barkeep kept ladling water. The Brave kept drinking it. No words were exchanged for the rest of the day.

V. - Stedfast As Thou Art

Come on. Come on.

The sky was brightening faster than usual, faster than what should have been possible, but her horse was outrunning it. He was tired and he was wheezing and if he could talk he would scream and beg for a bullet, but he was holding on by a thread that seemingly refused to snap despite all the threats it was going to.

Her back began to sizzle in the purple light, slow-roasting her nerves and jolting her legs into her horse's side.

Come on. Faster.

He blasted across the earth at a frantic gallop, but the sky would not darken. Sweat ran down her face, her neck, the acrid scent of her burning flesh wafting up into her nose.

Faster. Faster. Please, God, just a little faster.

She could read his mind. He wanted nothing more than to save her, but his time was finally up. With a horrible strangled whinny, the horse reared back and collapsed on his side, crushing her leg.

It was okay. Shelter couldn't be far. She could run for it, she could hide, she could live for just a little longer, that was all she needed, just a little longer. If she could just pull her leg out from under him, she could do it with a little more strength, she could do it, just pull, pull, the sun was almost over the horizon and it was getting hotter, pull, pull, the sky brightened from purple to pink and the skin of her hand began to smoke, pull dammit, you can beat this you just have to want it you have to want it you have to want it, her hand was on fire and so was her face and Sally lurched forward clutching her hand to her chest, screaming like the cold, slimy tendrils of death were reaching out for her throat.

She had realized where she was midway through her cry for help, but she could not stop herself from finishing, nor could she stop herself from hyperventilating, all of her strategies were failing her, her world was coming undone and would never be normal again, there was hard pounding at her door.

"SALLY, YOU OKAY IN THERE?" Wind was shouting, frantic.

Sally opened her mouth; no words came out.

The knob of her apartment door shook violently. "SALLY," wailed Wind, "IF YOU DON'T ANSWER ME I'M KICKING THIS DOOR DOWN!"

"I—I'm fine," she managed to croak out, the edge finally coming off. "Night terror. I get 'em sometimes." She left out the fact that she'd never gotten them this bad before.

After a curious moment, Wind asked, "You're sure?"

Sally nodded. "Um, yeah. Yeah, I'm all right. Go back to bed."

Another curious moment. And then Wind asked, "Can I come in?"

"...Gimme a minute." The state she was in, she worried that her legs wouldn't have supported a feather; she needed to psyche herself up before she could stand. When she finally could, she lit the lantern on her nightstand, shuffled over to the door in her thin shift, and creaked it open.

Wind was a mess. Her hair was all over the place, her shirt misbuttoned, the fly of her pants undone. She clearly threw these clothes on to get to Sally as quick as she could...which was actually kind of sweet.

"Come to sing me a lullaby, Ma?" Sally asked.

"I, uh, just wanted to be sure you were okay," said Wind. With a fragile hand, she brushed some hair away from her face. "Wanted to know if you...wanted to talk, maybe?"

"What's there to talk about?" asked Sally. "I had a bad dream. It happens."

"I don't know," said Wind. "I guess...maybe I'm pretty stupid myself, you know?"

Sally looked Wind over, considering her words.

Wind took a deep breath. "Look," she explained, "when you got skin and a figure like mine, the moment you give anyone an inch they put you in a brothel or worse. Spent the better part of a decade riding through the frontier living by that one rule. Three days with you people...hell."

Unable to find an excuse to say "no," she opened the door and showed Wind inside.

The native looked around, taking in the small apartment. "Cozy place," she said.

Sally nodded. "Forgive me," she said, "it ain't exactly built for entertainin'." The bed, a single sleeper, was pushed up to the wall opposite the door, past the small wood-burning stove and the dresser across from it, next to a window that would shine the rising sun directly in the eyes of whoever slept in it. Next to the nightstand was a wooden rocking chair; Wind found it surprisingly comfortable. Sally fell back into her bed.

"What happened?" asked Wind. "In your dream?"

"I'm on a horse, tryin' to race the sun 'cause it'll burn me if it comes up," she said. "I have that dream a lot. This time my horse dropped dead and pinned my leg to the ground. I couldn't get away."

"That sounds terrifying."

And completely obvious, thought Sally.

"I used to have horrible nightmares when I was growing up," said Wind. "My father—he was my tribe's medicine man—he kept trying to help me interpret them; he thought maybe they were visions of some sort. But I could never remember the images; just the feelings."

"Do you think they might have been?" asked Sally. "Visions, I mean."

Wind shook her head. "I don't know, maybe. They stopped long before...what happened. I guess you never know, but I think it was just coincidence. Actually, ever since that day, I stopped believing in the spirits of our ancestors and all that crap."

"Really?"

"I think...I think many of us search for meaning because we don't know how to handle meaninglessness, or the idea that our time here is limited and when it's done, it's done. You don't...watch the rest of the play in the wings and call out stage directions."

"See, that's funny to me, 'cause I believe in the good Lord. Always have."

"Mmm, I noticed." Wind rocked in her chair a few times, causing the floorboards to creak rhythmically below. "Tell me about it."

Sally cocked her head. "What's to tell?" she asked. "What I believe ain't necessarily what you need to believe."

"Well, what does your faith teach you?"

Sally took a few moments to think about it. "It teaches me that there's an order to the world," she says. "It works slow sometimes, and it works in ways we can't ever know, but in the end, the righteous overcome."

"And how do you define righteousness?"

"I don't know," she admitted. "Work hard, treat people fair, be honest."

Wind modded. After a few moments, she said, "You don't have to tell me anything I don't need to know. But do you feel like you've lived up to that? In life?"

Sally said nothing. She breathed deeply, silently, through her nose.

That was all the answer Wind needed. She rose from the rocking chair and climbed into bed, snuggling up next to her. "Is this okay?"

Sally nodded, tired but enthusiastic, and Wind gently pulled her in tighter. The native was a little shorter than Sally, reedy compared to her voluptuous body, but her arms were strong, and she was plenty warm.

"One night, I had a nightmare while I was out in the woods with my closest friend," she explained. "So she rolled over and held me just like this."

"Sounds like a true friend," said Sally.

Wind didn't answer immediately. When she did, she simply said, "She was amazing."

"I wish I knew that part of you," said Sally, drifting a little closer to sleep's numbing embrace. "Who you were before you were 'The Brave.'"

"No you don't," said Wind. "You don't want to hear about me learning medicine or studying poetry like some high and mighty socialite."

"You kiddin'? I love poetry."

"Really?"

"Well, I never read any poetry, but my husband read some, and I'll try anythin' once."

Wind smiled, and caught herself squeezing her troubled friend's hand. Sally had managed to cut her to the quick in a way nobody else could—not even Ellis and Jane Ford, who were so kind enough to take her in on their way West, even with what little they had to offer. Ever since the day Garrick and his men burned her world to the ground, connections, even among the local tribes she'd befriended in her journeys, had been hard to make. She struggled to understand what was so different about this spirited blonde spitfire; sure, she was kind, but she knew a lot of seemingly kind people, white or otherwise.

Then Wind remembered what Sally had said to her that first night. She glanced down at the rope that adorned her wrist.

She knew what poem she wanted to recite for her: The one Ellis brought over from Ireland, the last sonnet John Keats had written. The one she obsessed over after her guardian first read it to her.

Wind moved her mouth closer to Sally's ear, lightly brushing her hair out of the way, and whispered it, as if the words were made of glass.

"Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art—
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors—
No—yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever—or else swoon to death."

Sally understood few of the words, yet all of the bountiful passion in Wind's quiet delivery. "Beautiful," she muttered, before drifting off to sleep in the native's arms. She dreamed not of the cruel sun, but of a day when Wind would teach her all those pretty words she did not know.

Wind moved her lips down to the blonde's cheek for a brief moment, but pulled herself back up before she could make contact and fell back to sleep. It wasn't out of fear of what would come of it, not like before; it was more for the same reason she wouldn't run her fingers across a fine painting on display.

* * * * *

"Call me crazy," said Big Jake, while Sally was pouring his first afternoon bourbon, "but somethin' tells me our Brave done turned you into one o' them cocoa-ca-cas."

"Koskalaka," corrected Wind, deadpan but friendly, her usual in hand, looking much better in her usual clothes.

"What exactly gives you that idea, Jake?" Sally already knew the answer. There was no drudgery in running this saloon; she took unusual pride in every task, no matter how menial or ugly. That day, however, she was operating at a level that made her past self seem as droll and dusty as old Hoffstead. She was pretty sure every time she opened her mouth, rainbows came flying out.

"Oh, you know, I see the spring in your step, hear the pep in your voice," confirmed Jake. "Plus there's you two makin' eyes at each other all mornin' like me an' my Julia did when we were teenagers, God rest 'er soul."

"He's got a point," said Wind, making eyes at Sally.

"That he does," said Sally, making eyes at Wind.

"How do that work, anyway?" asked Jake. "I mean with a man, you got the thing and the other holes, but you women don't have a thing."

Wind looked in Jake's direction, smirking. "You don't get along with many women, do you, Jake?"

"Of course I don't," Jake said. "S'why I've been houndin' this poor girl to show me her tits for the last coupla years." Both Sally and Wind laughed at the comment. "In fact, goddamn, I just realized; now that yer switchin' teams, there goes any chance I had at a pity screw on my deathbed."

"Aw, Jake," Sally leaned in and pinched his rosy cheek, "you were never gettin' a pity screw. I'll definitely pull out my tits, though; all this drinkin'll make you blind by then anyway."

"Don't be so sure," said Jake, "I bet those babies could perform miracles. Right, Wind?"

"I wouldn't know," said Wind. "I haven't seen them yet."

"Really?"

"Yeah, Jake," said Sally, "ain't nothin' happened last night 'cept for an understandin'." And in the back of her mind, Sally knew there was a chance that was all that would ever happen. There was already one big bounty out on Wind and there was going to be another if she survived; she wouldn't be staying after Garrick was taken care of, and she wasn't sure she wanted her to. It was going to hurt like hell, but she was used to this kind of hurt; it was all she knew for so long. Instead, Sally decided to enjoy this reprieve while it lasted and worry about any new pains later.

"Besides that," said Wind, "even if something did happen, it's not like we could just talk about it with all these people here." This was also true. The bar area was still just the three of them, but many of the regulars had come back sooner than expected to fill the tables. They were too willfully caught up in cards and dice and booze to notice any talk of so-called sexual perversion at the bar, but their presence encouraged Sally, Jake, and Wind to keep their voices level.

Sally had a theory about this, of course. She figured that after word got out about the bounty Will Steedle's father posted, and what Wind did to the first fool who tried to collect on it, people realized that while they might not be strong enough to take on The Brave, somebody would eventually come along, and it was sure to be a hell of a show. The thought of it actually made her a little sick; she hadn't been a part of this community for that long, but as someone who cheerfully catered to or brushed off the whims of these drunken, violent bastards, this was the first time she actively despised a subset of her adopted home.

Of course, she wouldn't let that show. Besides, maybe they just tired of sobriety.

"And by the way," added Wind, "mythologically speaking, Sally's tits wouldn't cure blindness, they'd cause blindness."

"Really?" asked Jake.

"What's this now?" asked Sally, pulled from her angry reverie.

"The tale of Lady Godiva," Wind explained. "She rode on horseback through the English town of Coventry, naked, to protest her husband's taxation of its people. She issued a proclamation before she set out: Nobody outside during the ride, all doors and windows shut and locked. Just one person dared to look at her, and it's said that she was so beautiful he was immediately struck blind."