Still no real work done on essays...
Apr. 10th, 2009 10:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
matt_doyleSo, here's more prose. I've mentioned, in passing, that I have a Western-in-progress; the people from my old journal might or might not remember it. I thought about talking about the plot and the themes and whatnot, but, well, it's a Western. In any case, here's the first chapter, weighing in at about 3k words.
Enterrado
Chapter One
Red woke up on horseback. He was slumped forward, the saddlehorn digging uncomfortably into his stomach, and his hands had been lashed around the horse's neck.
He was blind, for a moment, and when his vision returned, it shimmered and swam like a mirage. There was a house up ahead, a respectable-looking little ranch house with a stable out back, and the horse was being lead towards it. He followed the line of the reins where they crossed his vision and found that his captor was a boy, well-dressed in black and grey that hadn't picked up too much dust- he hadn't been leading the horse for long, then.
He felt something wrapped around his forehead, rubbing and chafing as his head slipped on the horse's neck. It hurt, like sandpaper, and a part of it stuck to his forehead- with his own blood as the glue, most like.
His throat was too dry to speak, and he watched and waited while the boy- no older'n seventeen at the outside- brought the horse to a stop beside the well and fished out a dipperful of water. The rope creaked when he drew the bucket up, and the cool of the air escaping the opened well cover made the air escape his lungs in longing for it.
When the dipper was held up to him, he drank, feeling the dust wash out of his mouth and off his chin as the water ran over his lips. He swallowed as much as he could.
When he could speak again, he did. "You ain't one of the Mormons?"
The boy looked startled, tipped back a nearly shapeless felt hat nowhere near as fine as the rest of his clothes. "No sir. Mormons took your horse?"
He nodded, as much as he could, as the boy set down the dipper and began to work on untying the ropes that had kept his arms around the horse's neck. There was another surprise as the boy moved into his field of view- the boy had gunbelts wrapped around his waist, and a pair of revolvers hanging from him, glinting of silver or nickel. From the way his coat bulged out to one side, Red guessed, there was another one in a shoulder rig. Why a boy like that had more iron on him than Red did himself, he didn't care to speculate. "Took me on the road to Enterrado. Be a kindness if you could tell me where I am now, in relation to there."
"Not too far," the boy said, brow furrowing as Red, hands freed, started a shaky dismount, clinging to the horse's side as he did so- a fine horse, too, a steady red gelding much better than the one he'd had taken out from under him. "But you're not going into Enterrado, Mister, leastways not right away."
“I don’t mind waiting a night here to mend up some, if you’re amenable to having me stay,” Red said slowly. “But it strikes me you mean something else.” He reached one hand up to test his forehead, and found a bandage- or a bandanna, more likely- wound around it, tied on and stuck fast by a fair amount of blood caked around his right temple.
“Not tonight, and not tomorrow either,” the boy clarified. “There’s trouble in Enterrado right now, and you’re better off staying out of it.
“What kind of trouble?”
“Murder,” the boy said, his voice darkening, and as he said it his hands strayed near to his belt. Red did not miss the gesture.
Beside him, the gelding whickered nervously.
“You planning on committing some?” he asked evenly. “Or you avenging it?”
The boy bit his lips, and his eyes fixed on Red with more intensity than he would have credited him with. “My father came home in a coffin three days back, mister,” the boy told him, and his voice shook just a little. “I sure would appreciate you not making light of it.”
Before Red could think of a reply to answer the death and rage buried in that sentence, the boy turned and lead his horse into the stables. While Red waited for him to return, he took another dipper-full of water from the bucket and drank. His eyes wandered as he sipped from it, taking in stock of the house.
The boy came back in a little under five minutes. The tear-trails on his cheeks were barely visible, but his face had reddened.
“Reckon I owe you my life,” Red said after a moment of awkward quiet. “You want me out of Enterrado, I can stay out for now. Got business, but that’ll wait. On the other hand, killin’ a man’s family never quite sat right with me. You tell me who killed your pa and why, might be I can lend a hand.”
Inside the house it was quiet and dark, with all the shades drawn. Dust skirled across the floor as they walked, but Red didn’t figure that to mean anything- place like this, out in the desert, even a day without sweeping might coat the floor in dust.
“Whose place?” he asked, looking around at the bare walls, the rough furniture, the Bible on the mantelpiece.
“Friend of my father’s,” the boy said. “Guess it belongs to his sons now.”
He didn’t elaborate, but he didn’t need to. Red nodded. “And where might they be?”
He was answered with a shrug. “Thought they’d be here,” the boy said after a moment.
“Looks like Enterrado’s a bad place to be a friend of your pa’s right now,” Red said. “If you don’t trust me, that’s your own lookout, and no blame to you to doubt a stranger’s word. But my offer still stands. You saved my life, and I don’t even know your name. I’d like a chance to even the ledger some.”
“Jack,” the by said, and held out his hand. “Jack Perry.”
“Red Callahan,” Red said, testing his grip. Jack’s hands were smooth, uncallused, fine-fingered- but his handshake was firm. “Are you going to tell me a story, Jack?”
"My father is- was- a gunsmith," Jack said, once he'd seated himself in a high-backed wooden chair, while Red idled against the wall beside the fireplace. "Isaac Perry. When they found the first placer of copper near Enterrado, he came out along with a group of investors working for Sam Colt. He made friends with the local sheriff, Jericho Kline, and when Colt tried to swindle the town, my father quit. He set up for himself back in Colorado, but he and the old sheriff stayed in touch."
Red glanced around the place again. He didn't see anything new, but Jack had paused and it seemed polite. He'd noticed the empty bracket above the door where somebody was used to keeping a shotgun a couple minutes ago, but his eyes lingered on it a moment now. "This the Kline place, then?" he asked, and Jack nodded.
"He built it after he got voted out- the town boomed after the Desert Land Act and he was mostly sick of folk, just wanted to raise his boys in peace," Jack said, like a recitation in school. Something his pa had said frequently, no doubt.
"My father was the best gunsmith in Colorado," the boy continued after a moment, chin raised, daring Red to contradict him. "Handmade everything, every part, did all the designs himself. Better than any sorry Colt revolvers ever made. One of his guns- one of his best ones- got stolen last year, and he never could track it down, 'til a month ago. Kline sent him word that one of the mine guards had killed a man over a game of cards with a big silver revolver. He'd gotten a look at it when he dropped by the sheriff's, and he knew what my father's guns looked like. The sheriff now is the mine's man, and as long as the foreman vouched for the shooter he wouldn't hold him nor prosecute him, no matter what he did. The judge was the same. Wasn't a point in accusing him of theft on top of it if they wouldn't try him for murder, so he just sent word, and my father, he came out to get it."
The story stopped cold. "Didn't go so well," Red supplied, his voice still a dry rasp.
"Bart and Thad Kline sent me a telegram, told me about it even before my father got- got sent back home," Jack said, his eyes squeezed up a little, sounding miserable. "Bastard shot my father with his own gun, and the goddamned deputy shot Jericho in the back before he could draw. Half the town saw it and nobody did anything. Official story is they were drunk and started a ruckus." Even as his face turned red, he couldn't keep the sneer out of his voice. He took a deep, shuddering breath, and stared Red straight in the eye. "I'm gonna kill that murdering, thieving son of a bitch," he said clearly. "And anybody that stands in my way."
"Son of a bitch got a name?" Red asked, like he was inquiring about the weather. The boy wouldn't thank him for the offer of a handkerchief, he didn't think.
"Rod Stark," Jack said, clenching his fists. "Roderick Stark."
Red blinked a long slow blink.
"Well," he said after a moment. "You told me your story. If you got no objections and would be willing to loan me some iron, I reckon I'll help."
Jack stared at him, almost glowering. Trying to decide if he could trust him. Red stared back.
"You can tell me no and I'll listen," Red said, keeping his voice quiet. "You want me to stay out of your business and out of Enterrado, I can bide here until you're dead or satisfied. But if you're hunting a guard in a mining town, where the law always sides with the mine, well- I got no doubt a gunsmith's boy can shoot, but you ain't got hands enough for three guns, and you can only face one way at a time. Another hand and an eye to watch your back's something any man going into a fight might wish for. Maybe your Kline boys are still around somewhere and I'd just get in the way. But if you try this alone-" he smiled, lips peeling back from his gums. Red wasn't a handsome man, but he never looked ugly until he smiled. "Your pa'd be real disappointed to see you so soon," he finished, and leaned back against the wall.
Jack's look was resentful, now, but he was nodding. He reached one hand into his coat, slowly, and pulled out one of the revolvers. He held it out, slowly, but let his hand drift back when Red came away from the wall.
Red didn't reach for it. He stood a pace in front of the boy, hands tucked in his belt, and waited.
Jack offered him the pistol again, butt-first. "Didn't anybody ever shoot you for the way you talk?"
Red's grin got wider. "Mostly they missed," he said, and took the gun. It was well-balanced, a smooth, polished silver steel with a crosshatched wooden grip, and it was larger than he'd expected. The cylinder was smooth and round, and domed fittings bracketed it on either side, hiding the bullets within. There was a notched slide behind the cylinder on one side- Red flicked it with his thumb, testingly, and the cylinder rolled smoothly sideways.
"A five-shooter?" he asked, raising his eyebrows at Jack.
The boy shrugged, his eyes still studying Red. "I'm not loaning you my best," he said without apology. "It's still a better gun than most men ever hold. Single-action, .45. It's got a swing-out cylinder but a locked crane, so you never have to worry about it jamming if you reload too fast. There's almost a seal around the cylinder, which keeps all the power in the barrel- it'll shoot farther, straighter, and harder than any pistol you ever held. Bullets fly faster, too- we tested it against every revolver in Golden, more or less."
Red shook his head, still looking at the gun, hefting it in his hands. "They ain't made a gun that's slow enough for any man to dodge bullets," he said after a moment. "Other than that, though, you talk a real good sales pitch. Reckon I could get more than just the five bullets?"
"Later," Jack said, turning away and ambling slowly toward the back door, not quite looking back, not quite resting one hand on the butt of his next gun. "I'm going nowhere until I see if the Klines come back here tonight, and you won't need to shoot anybody between now and then. I'm going to empty out the saddlebags and get some dinner in the meantime. Hungry?"
Red smiled at his back. The boy was paranoid. Meant he might not wind up dead. "I could eat," he said indifferently, and followed him.
The meal was silent. Jack didn’t seem quite comfortable with that, though it might have just been Red’s presence that made him itch, or the discomfort of waiting in another man’s home to see if all its occupants were dead. It didn’t bother Red. He’d sat worse vigils, and he’d spent enough of his life riding between one town and the next that silence was no bother to him.
When his plate was empty, he stood again, and made a circuit of the house. Four rooms, spare but thoughtfully constructed, filled the first floor- all with open doorways that made them seem somehow bigger. What passed for the sitting room had a ladder against one wall. He didn’t bother climbing it. There would be bedrooms there, and that might be welcome when the time came to sleep, but in the meantime it was enough to pause at the foot of the ladder and listen until he was sure there was no-one moving or breathing above.
There was one window in each room, paper not glass, and so he had to open the back door to glance around again. The sky had turned colors in bright stripes, like it was the Painted Desert, reds and golds giving way to a deep, rich indigo blue, striated with thin purple clouds off on the horizon. It was pretty, but he only paid it mind a moment before looking about the yard. Stable on the left, outhouse on the right, both set sensibly far from the well. He wagered to himself that the well was the center of the property, or near enough- certainly the most valuable thing out here. It was a poor stake, one that wouldn’t offer much to live off of. That told him plainly what Jericho Kline had done for a living, after he stopped being sheriff.
He leaned back into the dining room, where Jack remained, staring fixedly at the wall. He had killing on his mind. Red knew the look.
“There a woodshop in the stables, or did he have one in town?” he asked without preamble, and Jack started, then stared at him.
“I didn’t tell you he was a carpenter,” Jack said, eyes turning wild and suspicious.
Red looked at him a moment, steadily, before he spoke. “You didn’t have to,” he said. “Every chair and table in this house was made by the same hand. The walls have every board smooth and even, and even the outhouse looks solid. The only thing a place like this has going for it is solitude. Self-sufficiency. But out this far in the Arizona Territory, on a patch of land like this, there ain’t many who can get by without buying foodstuffs from in town. And a prospector would be looking to hit it rich. But the man who lived here had a clear, steady mind. He’d want a steady living to support his sons. So if he makes his own furniture, built his own house, and did it well, knowing his trade’s an easy trick.”
“Woodshop’s behind the stable,” Jack answered. “Not a part of it. All the noise might scare the horses, so he set it further out. Why?”
Red shrugged. “Lay of the land,” he said. “I like to know the measure of a place before a gunfight.” He paused. “I heard horses coming,” he said, as an afterthought.
“Bart Kline!” a voice bawled from the front of the house. “Thaddeus Kline! You boys come out in the next minute with your hands empty and we’ll hang you, nice and clean. You make us come in after you and we’ll blow your guts out and leave you to bleed, like you did to Judge Wells.”
Red whistled, and looked down at Jack, who’d gone white and still as porcelain. “Bullets,” he said, dryly, and held out his empty hand.
Jack looked up at him, a question already shaping his lips, and Red decided not to have patience for it.
“They don’t sound in a mood to listen to explanations, Perry,” he said, his voice sharp. “That we ain’t the Klines won’t fuss them much, especially if they find out who you are or why you’re here. And any posse come up out of a mining town like this is like to be more than half guards and the like. You want your vengeance, you start here. But if you intend to do it without giving me so much as a reload, shoot me in the stomach now and save them the trouble. Move, boy!”
Jack jumped to his feet and produced, from the inner pocket of his coat, four clusters of bullets. It was the only way Red could think to describe them- held together by a sort of pinwheel, the bullets made a star-shape, as though they already sat in the cylinder. “What are these meant to be?” he asked, but even as the boy spoke, the answer took shape in his head.
“Injectors are what my father called them,” Jack said. “They load faster. Open the cylinder, push it in, twist, and close again.”
“Damn,” Red said. “Maybe your old man was a genius after all. Right. When they come in the front, stay on this side- use the door as a shield. Stay lower than the windows. We can bottleneck them if there aren’t too many- if not here, then we fall back to the ladder. If they come in the front and back at the same time, either get there fast or kick over the table. As long as they’re idiots, we’ll live.”
“What do you mean?” Jack asked. He moved as he spoke, stepping deeper into the kitchen, and with a smooth cross-draw he held a nickel-plated revolver in either hand.
“I mean that only an idiot would come in after us,” Red said. “Any man with brains would smoke us out, instead.”
“You had your chance to have things quick, boys!” the voice bellowed from outside, and Red had time to smile narrowly.
“Idiots,” he said, with some satisfaction, before, with a dragon’s roar and a burst of flame, shotgun fire blew in both doorways.
Enterrado
Chapter One
Red woke up on horseback. He was slumped forward, the saddlehorn digging uncomfortably into his stomach, and his hands had been lashed around the horse's neck.
He was blind, for a moment, and when his vision returned, it shimmered and swam like a mirage. There was a house up ahead, a respectable-looking little ranch house with a stable out back, and the horse was being lead towards it. He followed the line of the reins where they crossed his vision and found that his captor was a boy, well-dressed in black and grey that hadn't picked up too much dust- he hadn't been leading the horse for long, then.
He felt something wrapped around his forehead, rubbing and chafing as his head slipped on the horse's neck. It hurt, like sandpaper, and a part of it stuck to his forehead- with his own blood as the glue, most like.
His throat was too dry to speak, and he watched and waited while the boy- no older'n seventeen at the outside- brought the horse to a stop beside the well and fished out a dipperful of water. The rope creaked when he drew the bucket up, and the cool of the air escaping the opened well cover made the air escape his lungs in longing for it.
When the dipper was held up to him, he drank, feeling the dust wash out of his mouth and off his chin as the water ran over his lips. He swallowed as much as he could.
When he could speak again, he did. "You ain't one of the Mormons?"
The boy looked startled, tipped back a nearly shapeless felt hat nowhere near as fine as the rest of his clothes. "No sir. Mormons took your horse?"
He nodded, as much as he could, as the boy set down the dipper and began to work on untying the ropes that had kept his arms around the horse's neck. There was another surprise as the boy moved into his field of view- the boy had gunbelts wrapped around his waist, and a pair of revolvers hanging from him, glinting of silver or nickel. From the way his coat bulged out to one side, Red guessed, there was another one in a shoulder rig. Why a boy like that had more iron on him than Red did himself, he didn't care to speculate. "Took me on the road to Enterrado. Be a kindness if you could tell me where I am now, in relation to there."
"Not too far," the boy said, brow furrowing as Red, hands freed, started a shaky dismount, clinging to the horse's side as he did so- a fine horse, too, a steady red gelding much better than the one he'd had taken out from under him. "But you're not going into Enterrado, Mister, leastways not right away."
“I don’t mind waiting a night here to mend up some, if you’re amenable to having me stay,” Red said slowly. “But it strikes me you mean something else.” He reached one hand up to test his forehead, and found a bandage- or a bandanna, more likely- wound around it, tied on and stuck fast by a fair amount of blood caked around his right temple.
“Not tonight, and not tomorrow either,” the boy clarified. “There’s trouble in Enterrado right now, and you’re better off staying out of it.
“What kind of trouble?”
“Murder,” the boy said, his voice darkening, and as he said it his hands strayed near to his belt. Red did not miss the gesture.
Beside him, the gelding whickered nervously.
“You planning on committing some?” he asked evenly. “Or you avenging it?”
The boy bit his lips, and his eyes fixed on Red with more intensity than he would have credited him with. “My father came home in a coffin three days back, mister,” the boy told him, and his voice shook just a little. “I sure would appreciate you not making light of it.”
Before Red could think of a reply to answer the death and rage buried in that sentence, the boy turned and lead his horse into the stables. While Red waited for him to return, he took another dipper-full of water from the bucket and drank. His eyes wandered as he sipped from it, taking in stock of the house.
The boy came back in a little under five minutes. The tear-trails on his cheeks were barely visible, but his face had reddened.
“Reckon I owe you my life,” Red said after a moment of awkward quiet. “You want me out of Enterrado, I can stay out for now. Got business, but that’ll wait. On the other hand, killin’ a man’s family never quite sat right with me. You tell me who killed your pa and why, might be I can lend a hand.”
Inside the house it was quiet and dark, with all the shades drawn. Dust skirled across the floor as they walked, but Red didn’t figure that to mean anything- place like this, out in the desert, even a day without sweeping might coat the floor in dust.
“Whose place?” he asked, looking around at the bare walls, the rough furniture, the Bible on the mantelpiece.
“Friend of my father’s,” the boy said. “Guess it belongs to his sons now.”
He didn’t elaborate, but he didn’t need to. Red nodded. “And where might they be?”
He was answered with a shrug. “Thought they’d be here,” the boy said after a moment.
“Looks like Enterrado’s a bad place to be a friend of your pa’s right now,” Red said. “If you don’t trust me, that’s your own lookout, and no blame to you to doubt a stranger’s word. But my offer still stands. You saved my life, and I don’t even know your name. I’d like a chance to even the ledger some.”
“Jack,” the by said, and held out his hand. “Jack Perry.”
“Red Callahan,” Red said, testing his grip. Jack’s hands were smooth, uncallused, fine-fingered- but his handshake was firm. “Are you going to tell me a story, Jack?”
"My father is- was- a gunsmith," Jack said, once he'd seated himself in a high-backed wooden chair, while Red idled against the wall beside the fireplace. "Isaac Perry. When they found the first placer of copper near Enterrado, he came out along with a group of investors working for Sam Colt. He made friends with the local sheriff, Jericho Kline, and when Colt tried to swindle the town, my father quit. He set up for himself back in Colorado, but he and the old sheriff stayed in touch."
Red glanced around the place again. He didn't see anything new, but Jack had paused and it seemed polite. He'd noticed the empty bracket above the door where somebody was used to keeping a shotgun a couple minutes ago, but his eyes lingered on it a moment now. "This the Kline place, then?" he asked, and Jack nodded.
"He built it after he got voted out- the town boomed after the Desert Land Act and he was mostly sick of folk, just wanted to raise his boys in peace," Jack said, like a recitation in school. Something his pa had said frequently, no doubt.
"My father was the best gunsmith in Colorado," the boy continued after a moment, chin raised, daring Red to contradict him. "Handmade everything, every part, did all the designs himself. Better than any sorry Colt revolvers ever made. One of his guns- one of his best ones- got stolen last year, and he never could track it down, 'til a month ago. Kline sent him word that one of the mine guards had killed a man over a game of cards with a big silver revolver. He'd gotten a look at it when he dropped by the sheriff's, and he knew what my father's guns looked like. The sheriff now is the mine's man, and as long as the foreman vouched for the shooter he wouldn't hold him nor prosecute him, no matter what he did. The judge was the same. Wasn't a point in accusing him of theft on top of it if they wouldn't try him for murder, so he just sent word, and my father, he came out to get it."
The story stopped cold. "Didn't go so well," Red supplied, his voice still a dry rasp.
"Bart and Thad Kline sent me a telegram, told me about it even before my father got- got sent back home," Jack said, his eyes squeezed up a little, sounding miserable. "Bastard shot my father with his own gun, and the goddamned deputy shot Jericho in the back before he could draw. Half the town saw it and nobody did anything. Official story is they were drunk and started a ruckus." Even as his face turned red, he couldn't keep the sneer out of his voice. He took a deep, shuddering breath, and stared Red straight in the eye. "I'm gonna kill that murdering, thieving son of a bitch," he said clearly. "And anybody that stands in my way."
"Son of a bitch got a name?" Red asked, like he was inquiring about the weather. The boy wouldn't thank him for the offer of a handkerchief, he didn't think.
"Rod Stark," Jack said, clenching his fists. "Roderick Stark."
Red blinked a long slow blink.
"Well," he said after a moment. "You told me your story. If you got no objections and would be willing to loan me some iron, I reckon I'll help."
Jack stared at him, almost glowering. Trying to decide if he could trust him. Red stared back.
"You can tell me no and I'll listen," Red said, keeping his voice quiet. "You want me to stay out of your business and out of Enterrado, I can bide here until you're dead or satisfied. But if you're hunting a guard in a mining town, where the law always sides with the mine, well- I got no doubt a gunsmith's boy can shoot, but you ain't got hands enough for three guns, and you can only face one way at a time. Another hand and an eye to watch your back's something any man going into a fight might wish for. Maybe your Kline boys are still around somewhere and I'd just get in the way. But if you try this alone-" he smiled, lips peeling back from his gums. Red wasn't a handsome man, but he never looked ugly until he smiled. "Your pa'd be real disappointed to see you so soon," he finished, and leaned back against the wall.
Jack's look was resentful, now, but he was nodding. He reached one hand into his coat, slowly, and pulled out one of the revolvers. He held it out, slowly, but let his hand drift back when Red came away from the wall.
Red didn't reach for it. He stood a pace in front of the boy, hands tucked in his belt, and waited.
Jack offered him the pistol again, butt-first. "Didn't anybody ever shoot you for the way you talk?"
Red's grin got wider. "Mostly they missed," he said, and took the gun. It was well-balanced, a smooth, polished silver steel with a crosshatched wooden grip, and it was larger than he'd expected. The cylinder was smooth and round, and domed fittings bracketed it on either side, hiding the bullets within. There was a notched slide behind the cylinder on one side- Red flicked it with his thumb, testingly, and the cylinder rolled smoothly sideways.
"A five-shooter?" he asked, raising his eyebrows at Jack.
The boy shrugged, his eyes still studying Red. "I'm not loaning you my best," he said without apology. "It's still a better gun than most men ever hold. Single-action, .45. It's got a swing-out cylinder but a locked crane, so you never have to worry about it jamming if you reload too fast. There's almost a seal around the cylinder, which keeps all the power in the barrel- it'll shoot farther, straighter, and harder than any pistol you ever held. Bullets fly faster, too- we tested it against every revolver in Golden, more or less."
Red shook his head, still looking at the gun, hefting it in his hands. "They ain't made a gun that's slow enough for any man to dodge bullets," he said after a moment. "Other than that, though, you talk a real good sales pitch. Reckon I could get more than just the five bullets?"
"Later," Jack said, turning away and ambling slowly toward the back door, not quite looking back, not quite resting one hand on the butt of his next gun. "I'm going nowhere until I see if the Klines come back here tonight, and you won't need to shoot anybody between now and then. I'm going to empty out the saddlebags and get some dinner in the meantime. Hungry?"
Red smiled at his back. The boy was paranoid. Meant he might not wind up dead. "I could eat," he said indifferently, and followed him.
The meal was silent. Jack didn’t seem quite comfortable with that, though it might have just been Red’s presence that made him itch, or the discomfort of waiting in another man’s home to see if all its occupants were dead. It didn’t bother Red. He’d sat worse vigils, and he’d spent enough of his life riding between one town and the next that silence was no bother to him.
When his plate was empty, he stood again, and made a circuit of the house. Four rooms, spare but thoughtfully constructed, filled the first floor- all with open doorways that made them seem somehow bigger. What passed for the sitting room had a ladder against one wall. He didn’t bother climbing it. There would be bedrooms there, and that might be welcome when the time came to sleep, but in the meantime it was enough to pause at the foot of the ladder and listen until he was sure there was no-one moving or breathing above.
There was one window in each room, paper not glass, and so he had to open the back door to glance around again. The sky had turned colors in bright stripes, like it was the Painted Desert, reds and golds giving way to a deep, rich indigo blue, striated with thin purple clouds off on the horizon. It was pretty, but he only paid it mind a moment before looking about the yard. Stable on the left, outhouse on the right, both set sensibly far from the well. He wagered to himself that the well was the center of the property, or near enough- certainly the most valuable thing out here. It was a poor stake, one that wouldn’t offer much to live off of. That told him plainly what Jericho Kline had done for a living, after he stopped being sheriff.
He leaned back into the dining room, where Jack remained, staring fixedly at the wall. He had killing on his mind. Red knew the look.
“There a woodshop in the stables, or did he have one in town?” he asked without preamble, and Jack started, then stared at him.
“I didn’t tell you he was a carpenter,” Jack said, eyes turning wild and suspicious.
Red looked at him a moment, steadily, before he spoke. “You didn’t have to,” he said. “Every chair and table in this house was made by the same hand. The walls have every board smooth and even, and even the outhouse looks solid. The only thing a place like this has going for it is solitude. Self-sufficiency. But out this far in the Arizona Territory, on a patch of land like this, there ain’t many who can get by without buying foodstuffs from in town. And a prospector would be looking to hit it rich. But the man who lived here had a clear, steady mind. He’d want a steady living to support his sons. So if he makes his own furniture, built his own house, and did it well, knowing his trade’s an easy trick.”
“Woodshop’s behind the stable,” Jack answered. “Not a part of it. All the noise might scare the horses, so he set it further out. Why?”
Red shrugged. “Lay of the land,” he said. “I like to know the measure of a place before a gunfight.” He paused. “I heard horses coming,” he said, as an afterthought.
“Bart Kline!” a voice bawled from the front of the house. “Thaddeus Kline! You boys come out in the next minute with your hands empty and we’ll hang you, nice and clean. You make us come in after you and we’ll blow your guts out and leave you to bleed, like you did to Judge Wells.”
Red whistled, and looked down at Jack, who’d gone white and still as porcelain. “Bullets,” he said, dryly, and held out his empty hand.
Jack looked up at him, a question already shaping his lips, and Red decided not to have patience for it.
“They don’t sound in a mood to listen to explanations, Perry,” he said, his voice sharp. “That we ain’t the Klines won’t fuss them much, especially if they find out who you are or why you’re here. And any posse come up out of a mining town like this is like to be more than half guards and the like. You want your vengeance, you start here. But if you intend to do it without giving me so much as a reload, shoot me in the stomach now and save them the trouble. Move, boy!”
Jack jumped to his feet and produced, from the inner pocket of his coat, four clusters of bullets. It was the only way Red could think to describe them- held together by a sort of pinwheel, the bullets made a star-shape, as though they already sat in the cylinder. “What are these meant to be?” he asked, but even as the boy spoke, the answer took shape in his head.
“Injectors are what my father called them,” Jack said. “They load faster. Open the cylinder, push it in, twist, and close again.”
“Damn,” Red said. “Maybe your old man was a genius after all. Right. When they come in the front, stay on this side- use the door as a shield. Stay lower than the windows. We can bottleneck them if there aren’t too many- if not here, then we fall back to the ladder. If they come in the front and back at the same time, either get there fast or kick over the table. As long as they’re idiots, we’ll live.”
“What do you mean?” Jack asked. He moved as he spoke, stepping deeper into the kitchen, and with a smooth cross-draw he held a nickel-plated revolver in either hand.
“I mean that only an idiot would come in after us,” Red said. “Any man with brains would smoke us out, instead.”
“You had your chance to have things quick, boys!” the voice bellowed from outside, and Red had time to smile narrowly.
“Idiots,” he said, with some satisfaction, before, with a dragon’s roar and a burst of flame, shotgun fire blew in both doorways.
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no subject
Date: 2009-04-11 08:42 pm (UTC)The rope creaked
whenas he drew the bucket up, and the cool of the air escaping the opened well cover made the air escape his lungs in longing for it. There's some pronoun confusion here. Either the "he" or "his" should be changed to a noun.When the dipper was held up to him... What dipper? Was there one hanging on the well? There's also no note of when the kid realized that Red was awake - I could see Jake getting a drink for himself, but at this point we don't know that he's turned around and seen Red's eyes are open.
When he could speak again, he did. ... The Nile was a river with some water in it. This would be fine if you changed the last word into a descriptive phrase.
The boy looked startled, tipped back a nearly shapeless felt hat nowhere near as fine as the rest of his clothes. Missing either a verb or a conjunction here...
There was another surprise as the boy moved into his field of view... Meaning that the boy hadn't been in view before? o.O How did Jake feed Red water, then? Wouldn't Red have seen the guns on him earlier?
and
as he said ithis hands strayed neartohis belt.“You planning on committing some?” he asked evenly. Who he? The "he" in the previous two sentences meant the boy.
His eyes wandered as he sipped from it, taking in stock of the house. ...Ok. And what does that mean for him and for us as readers? It sounds like you're going to give us a description of the house, but there isn't one. Is he looking at size? Defensibility? Looking for other people?
...killin’ a man’s family never quite sat right with me. You tell me who killed your pa and why, might be I can lend a hand.” Ok, I understand the sentiment, and I understand that he feels obligated to help the boy after the kid saved his life, but he's a loner. He's just going to offer up his life for a man who was killed for who-knows what reason? That seems a little foolish and sentimental for an experienced ranger. Isn't he even going to ask why the man was killed before diving in?
Next bit in the next post...
no subject
Date: 2009-04-11 10:57 pm (UTC)“If you don’t trust me, that’s your own lookout, and no blame to you to doubt a stranger’s word. But my offer still stands. I don't know that the first sentence is really necessary, and it's a little awkwardly phrased. Removing it and the first word of the second sentence would fit just as well with the rest of the paragraph. It would also give less of an impression of wordiness on Red's part, if you removed it.
“Jack,” the by said, and held out his hand. Boy, not by.
“Are you going to tell me a story, Jack?” *hesitates* This feels like a cop-out. Like you needed some way to get to the backstory, and you didn't have a transition. Honestly, I think you could go straight from the introduction of Jack's name directly into the short time break and then the story. That would make it flow a little easier for me, anyway, and then it wouldn't feel like you were making an excuse for exposition.
a group of investors working for Sam Colt Who is Sam Colt? He's apparently rich, and has a business, but all we know is that he has investors and that they tried to get extra money out of the town. Where is he? Is he his own person or part of something larger? Are his people still in town? (some of these may be answered later on, but these are the things I thought of upon reading that sentence.)
The story stopped cold. This might be better if it was the boy, or Jack, instead of the story, which stopped. It would put more emphasis on Jack's reactions to it, rather than the story itself. Plus I just like the feel of a person doing the action here instead of the 'inanimate' object. d:
deputy shot Jericho in the back Would Jack refer to him as Jericho? His father might have referred to him that way, but wouldn't he be Mr. Kline to a well-brought up boy, such as Jack seems to be?
Red blinked a long slow blink. ... Nile. Water. You need a new verb here or something.
"You told me your story. If you got no objections... First sentence here is unnecessary. We know and they know that Jack just told a story. You can start with the next sentence just as well, if not better.
Red wasn't a handsome man, but he never looked ugly until he smiled. XD Love that sentence.
into his coat, slowly, and pulled out one of the revolvers Is there more than one revolver in his coat? Otherwise, the audience has gotten the impression that he's 3 guns - two on his belt, one in his coat. He wouldn't have to reach into his coat for the two on his belt, ergo there's only one revolver he could be going for. You could replace the "one of the revolvers" with "the revolver" just as easily.
Red's grin got wider Couldn't you just say "widened"? Shorten the sentence, as seems to be in keeping with the writing strategy, and elevate the language in one swoop!
testingly :P Ugh. I hate that adverb. I'd rather you cut off the "ly". It would smooth the sentence considerably to my mind.
no subject
Date: 2009-04-12 12:03 am (UTC)...held together by a sort of pinwheel... Paper? metal?
Nice, sharp, snappy ending to the chapter. Leaves you with faith in at least one of our heroes, as well as the mild apprehension that they might not make it to the ladder in time - might wind up captured.