Realistic or Modern 1875: Railroads and Runaways

[CorinTraven]

His response was predictably humorless, always so serious and rigid in his thinking, not having the same reckless abandon as his young companion. She sucked on her cheeks, rolling her eyes up to the swirling sky still visible through gaps in the interwoven trees as if to demonstrate the attitude he critiqued her for. It wasn’t her fault that he’d forgotten how to have fun, that he’d been caught in so many thunderstorms that they’d lost any sense of excitement for him, that he could only think of the consequences and not the experience. She didn’t prod him further, undercut by his annoyance and taking his signal to be quiet, not play when there was no room for games.

Josephine took the cigarette he offered with thanks, pulling on it gently as he put a match to its end and began the cherried ember. She cleared her throat, more prone to a bout of beginner’s cough in response to the harsh smoke, but swallowed any novice urge and stood very much the same as he, looking out into the rain, and then up to him as he danced around the subject which she dreaded to discuss: where they were going.

The girl’s shoulders curled in as if to shrink beside him, one hand coming to cradle the other’s elbow which kept the cigarette drifting through the air. She breathed out a sigh, nearly a groan, shifting from foot to foot, unable to find a comfortable stance. “Yeah?” She answered, a bit of frustration in her tone, tensing beside him, placing her eyes on the ground as she often did when she hoped to avoid him. “Okay. And what do you think I should do- What do you want to do?” Her voice came through gritted teeth, scuffing the ground and staring at the toes of her boots. “I don’t have any good options. I’m a dead girl walking, you’d say, right? So, you want me to go back to New York, and then you can collect on returning my animated corpse . That’s fair, someone ought to benefit from all of this, and he’s promised you a lot. He’s good at that, promising. I can’t blame you for wanting to get paid... Okay. Fine. That’s what you want, what I should just…accept, just do it because there’s no way out for me. Right?” She wouldn’t look at him as she spoke, voice falling flat and a dryness tightening her throat. She didn’t want to go back, she never would, but in her mental preparation for this conversation, she’d already decided his motivations- though she hadn’t quite figured out any argument to divert them. Josephine didn’t want to fight with him about it, she couldn’t bring herself to face it, and so she hoped to beat him to the punch, taking a long pull off of the cigarette and letting the smoke sink flippantly from her parted lips.

“Fine. Whatever, it doesn’t matter. It’s all the same to me. Josephine Sawyer is dead, only thing undecided is what date to mark the stone. We’ll do what you want. I don’t care.” She said with strained finality, one arm wrapped around her midsection and clawing her side. It suddenly became very apparent how cramped the cut was for them both, Josephine craving space with rising turmoil but there was no where to go but the rain. It was not surprising the girl who’d runaway from home was ever-the-escapist. She turned and fled the couple strides deeper into the inclusion, to the other end of his tarp, and stared hard into the dark, uninteresting dead end with an intense concentration. It wasn’t safe to feel the distress, and fear, and dread that rose at the mention of returning home, not with him here and the vulnerability and exposure that meant for her. Staring out, she pushed that away, swallowed it hard and forced it from retching back up when it bucked and fought its way toward the forefront of her consciousness. No not here, not now, not ever.

 

[Bomb84]

Lars wasn’t sure how to feel about her response. By all outward appearances, Josephine had just thrown the argument and forfeited any further resistance to being taken to the nearest train station and bundled off back east to her yearning, or perhaps simply slighted, fiancée. Regardless of James van de Broek’s motivations, he was certainly well heeled and had spread a lot of that scratch around the right places to get practically the entire organized bounty hunter profession hot on this little woman’s trail. Now here she was, agreeing to go with Lars and let him collect the winnings of a lifetime.

Something else crawled out of a hole deep within him and slithered restlessly between the jubilant pillars of his impending victory, something that marred his calculations of the most efficient path between them and his score. An uneasiness crept over him, a cold twisting sensation unrelated to the chill in the rainswept air. This was not the first time he’d seen the life simply slow out of Josephin, usually practically crackling with energy and enthusiasm. Anytime he’d confronted her with a return t her rightful place next to James, in New York with her people, Josephine simply seemed to fold up like a dry plant husk in the summer heat.

Face an impassive granite slab, Lars continued to smoke, eyes distant as he ruminated. He could feel Josephine’s resentful presence behind him, and didn’t bother trying to fool himself. No woman would take the measures she had-- make the journey, embrace the risks and practically seek out immolation on the frontier—just to fulfil some romantic fantasy of pioneer living. Something bad had happened to Josephine, something that she would die scrabbling at the hard ground of the Kansas prairie to leave behind, dragging herself on bloodied stumps. Now he’d be the instrument of this desperate creature’s return to it’s enclosure and whatever torments she fled.

If it wasn’t him, though, wouldn’t it just be someone else? Any one of the army of agents hunting her would drag her kicking and screaming back to her fiancée—likely more battered than they’d found her—and most wouldn’t balk at leaving bodies scattered in their wake. Lars could see her home, fend off the more ravenous wolves, and likely save a lot of lives. Once she was home, surely Josephine could appeal to some other authority to protect her from whatever she was running from. There’d be nobody to help her on the frontier, and anyone she settled with would end up like that boy back at the wagon.

“You know,” Lars found himself saying, loudly enough to be heard over the storm though he didn’t look at her. “it’d be easier to feel sorry for you if you had some kind of plan. It would be one thing if I was taking you from some plum life you’d settled on out here and dragging you back to certain death. The way I see it, the opposites true. You’re likely to die out here, where you got a nice promising life waiting for you back home.”

He couldn’t believe he was continuing. It was so much better to not know for sure, to leave things unsaid. The persistent thought of his brother’s daughter, only eleven or so now, fleeing to the wasteland to escape some nameless threat from a suitor compelled Lars on despite his misgivings.

“Why the hell shouldn’t you go back, anyway?”

 

[CorinTraven]

The slight woman spun sharply in response to his words with a defensive and reckless twinge to her eyes, practically baring her teeth at him with the amount of feral rage that filled her. “Are you fucking deaf?” She asked emphatically. “Is something wrong with your head? I never asked you to feel sorry for me, I never asked you for a God damn thing. You found me- no hunted me- then you let me go- then you found me again. I don’t know what the hell is wrong with you- What sort ideals about being a good man you brood over despite how ‘hard’ and ‘dangerous’ you must be to be a big bad bounty hunter, but why don’t you hurry up and get over it? I don’t need your pity, I don’t know what you want from me. Don’t worry about my life and I won’t worry about yours. It’s none of your God damn business. You’re right, it’s perfect, it’s wonderful. I got on an empty train out of New York and wound up out here because I was bored. I just can’t wait to go back, I’m so excited, oh thank you, thank you for helping me go back home.” She pitched her voice falsely high and sarcastic, having grown bold and loud, more confronting than she’d been since their first meeting.

“Feel better yet? Sure enough that you’re a good man so you don’t begrudge becoming a rich man?” He’d prickled her, she was all edges and points, still sopping wet from escaping the rain, but she began shaking out her jacket and slipping one scrawny arm through the sleeve and then the next. She couldn’t stand to be near him anymore, and so what if she’d get drenched all over again, it was preferable to having him pry for answers she was unwilling to give. Josephine went to march right past him, eyes pointed straight ahead and hands bundled into tight swinging fists at her sides. She didn’t understand why he antagonized her, he ought to be pleased with her- she was giving him what he wanted. But it wasn’t enough, he couldn’t let sleeping dogs lie and in his pressing, turned her back into a beastly animal, biting and snarling at him.

 

[Bomb84]

Sharing a cover with this spitting angry thing Lars had roused was like being in a sack with a scared cat. Fighting with her, trying to calm her down, would just get a man scratched to pieces for his trouble. He scowled for a moment before his familiar professionally disinterested mask dropped cross his features and Josephine’s rage met a grey wall of stone. Anger was a weapon Lars held back, just like the revolver he wouldn’t draw unless he meant to end a confrontation. She hadn’t been with him long enough, then, to know the wall was as much for her protection against his own.

“Don’t know what you been through that brought you out here. Don’t much care, to be honest.” Lars inhaled the last drag and eyed her though the smoke, eyes like chips of flint. “I already told you, girl,” his voice was flat, though not without a hint of vague warning, “I aint keeping you. I tell you how I see things, and you choose to ride with me...or you don’t.” He tossed his spent cigarette into the rain and turned away from her, silent for a while as the rain beat down on their shelter.

“I’m going to spend the night here, move to higher ground if it keeps raining like this. In the morning I’m riding for the train stop back at Dodge and sending a telegram back east that I couldn’t find you anywhere on the trail.” Lars didn’t say he’d look for more agreeable work after that. Like seeking out gunfights with multiple dangerous individuals at once. Or digging ditches.

 

[CorinTraven]

His impassive stare in response to her enlivened temper served to frustrate the reactive girl further, wishing he would just get angry and fight with her rather than have her own blood boiling and no way to release the rising pressure. Nothing affected him, he was eternally stern with only hints of coloring by mood- whereas she was a slave to her own impossible, never stagnant, feelings. Josephine didn’t know if she was more angry with him for refusing to argue with her, or more jealous of him for being so unphased and resolute in his being. She lingered at the threshold of their shelter when he began to speak, her expression going through phases: first more tight-lipped scowling, then annoyance, before relaxing toward uncertainty and confusion.

Both of her hands came to brush through the hair at the crown of her head in a self-soothing manner, before dragging them down her face and forcing herself to take a deep breath. She was quick to rile, but found it difficult to descend, heart beating twice-too-fast for her circumstances and instincts compelling her to flee. Again, she found herself feeling frustrated, that it wasn’t fair he brought it up and then was above fighting with her about it, that she’d prefer if he’d just yell and then at least she could understand his motivations.

“…If you don’t care, then don’t ask.” She muttered with that sharp tone she’d been using, but after a few seconds she released a heavy sigh and began with more softness in her voice. “Sorry…I shouldn’t have gotten nasty with you…I- Well- I just don’t want to- no I can’t- talk about it.” She swallowed and thought that would be the end of it but then she felt herself intrinsically compelled to continue, urged to share what she felt she must never let be known by anyone. “I left because of something that, well, something that-…well, to talk about it, for anyone to find out, is just as bad, worse maybe- definitely worse- than the thing having happened on its own. So-..so when you asked why I shouldn’t-...go back-…it upset me- but that’s not your fault- I shouldn’t have leapt down your throat, I’m sorry.” She fumbled and stammered an apologizing and cryptic explanation, pausing and interrupting her scrambled thoughts so often it’d be a wonder he’d gleam anything but her immense anxiety from it. She looked at him briefly and then down at the ground, feeling awkward and exposed, she started to shuffle for her supplies, picking up her rifle by its strap.

Idiot…He knows…He’s going to figure it out…Shut up shut up shut up….Her internal bully scolded her as she turned back toward the exit, “I’ll go look for some coverage further up the mountain, then. I don’t mind the rain- and it doesn’t seem like it’s going to let up. Just something like this, yeah? Anything else specific?” It was a good excuse as any to disguise her ever-increasing need to escape.

 

[Bomb84]

The girl’s scattering, stammering approach at apology and explanation wasn’t going anywhere fast. Lars felt a swell of sympathy and would have quieted her if he didn’t think it would have sounded even more harsh than he’d already been. Best to let her get some distance and move around, before their little shelter exploded like a cracked pressure cooker.

“Somewhere open, not the top of the hill. We can string a line and keep our gear off the ground and another one to run the tent over and give us a lean-to.” Lars watched Josephine’s canvas-draped form recede into the rain and mused over what her reaction to his question might mean.

Ever since he’d made implicit the threat of sexual violence to try to keep her in line as a captive and she’d gone dead cold in front of him, Lars had harbored his suspicions about the nature of her flight West. He’d hated doing it, would be ashamed to speak of it ever again, and couldn’t forestall his own regret at taking that measure but he’d made the threat regardless of his intent to carry it out. It hadn’t had the desired effect and neither had any of his subsequent attempts to curb Josephine’s defiance. Now, with the truth of Josephine’s situation plain to her when the first pack of bounty hunters had brought death into her adventurous jaunt down the Trail, Josephine still was not folding up and admitting the inevitable. Even the mention of returning to her life back East provoked her into explosive anger tinged with desperation. Her bitterness at the prospect of return and her unwillingness to discuss her reasons for fleeing it added pages to the volumes of Lars’ growing certainty that she had been badly abused, likely by her fiancée James, and was likely to take any opportunity to avoid coming back into the man’s power.

Lars inched backwards further into the shelter, more spacious without the little angry woman in it, and considered his rain-drenched boot tips as if they held some sort of oracle. He didn’t like the turn this job had taken. He’d expected having to fight with a willful woman, expected having to shoot some of his competition to get her back home and claim the prize. Now, though, the plain truth of Josephine’s situation with James and the uncertainty she’d introduced lay heavy on him, like wet sackcloth weighing down the barrel of a rifle he needed to aim true to hit a mark a long way off. He wasn’t taking a spoiled child back to her gilded cage, or a nervous woman back to a less than ideal arranged marriage. Perhaps whatever hard and ugly life the frontier offered would truly be better by far than what Josephine’s fiancée had in mind for her. And it wasn’t as if she was some criminal that he’d be collecting the bounty for, handing her over to the marshals for justice overdue.

Lars had never raised a hand to a woman that hadn’t been trying to hurt him in a bad way, and he’d certainly never taken one against her will. He’d beat men near to death, on the road and in saloon brothels, for abusing them. Josephine seemed like a bright, energetic little thing who seemed to be excited about a life in front of her that Lars now loomed over like some kind of scowling gargoyle, denying her freedom and safety and dragging her back to her underworld. And Lars had wanted nothing more than to do just that, force her more or less onto a meathook and hang her up for James van der Broek’s pleasure.

‘Aw, hell,” Lars groaned, sudden alarm jolted through him with the awareness that he was thinking about his mission in the past tense. No matter how he postured, no matter which stubborn grunts he issued, he knew he’d never have the heart to finish this task. He couldn’t help thinking of little Ginny, his eleven year old niece, and what he’d do to the man that abused her.

So what now? Tip his hat to Josephine, congratulate her on her freedom and wish her well in her new life, and ride off to other things?

Leave her alone out here, with worse than the likes of Snake Eyes Baron…the Finn, the Last Confederates, Joe Graycloud tracking her down? As long as her bounty was posted, clouds of men would be seeking her at every hitching post and watering hole between here and the Pacific. Those men wouldn’t balk at doing whatever they had to, and worse, to get Josephine and her bounty. Lars hadn’t been lying to her about her chances out here, though he wished he had. He wasn’t sure she could even survive getting to the next town from here, much less the weeks and months after that.

She’d brought this on herself. She could have turned to her family, or the law, or killed James with a letter opener or something. Cut his dick off. Instead, Josephine had chosen to pit herself against a hostile frontier filled with bad men.

It wasn’t Lars’ fight. He didn’t owe Josephine a God damned thing.

“Aw, hell.” Lars dejectedly rolled another cigarette.

 

[CorinTraven]

The afternoon had not yet passed, but the world was colorless and dim, reflecting the turbulent, interweaving grey cloudscape that bloomed across the whole breadth of sky. Every so often, a spiderweb of lightning would crackle, illuminating the world in its brilliance, making everything flash fluorescent white. At nearly the same instant, thunder rumbled through the valley and reverberated through the hollow of Josephine’s chest. Everything was turning to mud, rain forming temporary streams in the low places, and running ever downward while Josephine worked her way up. She set her full concentration on choosing her path, on keeping herself oriented despite the easy way one bundle of trees could look much the same as another. She might not be able to survive out here entirely on her own, but she was ever stalwart to proving herself useful, refusing to be entirely a burden, though she often felt herself insurmountably so.

In the time spent alone, having fled the shelter in favor of the storm, Josephine tried with all her strength of will not to think about events recently transpired, feeling ripped by shame at the memories on her periphery and she felt to look at them head on might petrify her completely. But she could not escape it, no matter how much she might like to, drawn back to her reaction- unable to decide if she was more ashamed of her explosive anger, or idiotic babbling and fawning. All the while she could not help but envy his cool indifference, dwell on how especially immature and erratic she must have seemed to him, how he must have looked down on her behavior with disdain, relief that she was gone.

He doesn’t care. No one will. No one wants to hear about it, nobody wants to know about it.

She scooted over the remnants of a felled tree, the top of its roots broad and spreading up into the air with chunks of earth suspended between them, a testament to something powerful- likely a previous storm, that had tore it from the earth like a branch out of wet clay.

Why couldn’t you just shut up? He told you it doesn’t matter, to not bother him with it, nobody else wants to be bothered, nobody else will care, why must you linger on it, why’d you have to do this and come out here, ruin everything. You moron. You should have known, you never were going to accomplish anything out here but getting innocent people caught up in your trouble.

She stepped through ankle-deep water, choosing smooth river-stones purposefully to maintain balanced, arms held out wide and navigating the narrow runoff without incident.

Why couldn’t you just shut up and go home and not worry about it because nobody else would be worried. Why couldn’t you have just said yes? What did you expect to happen when you stayed behind, with James, what did you think he wanted? Why didn’t you know then, why do you have to be so stupid and end up in situations that nobody will pity when they turn out the way anyone else would have expected?.... It’s your fault, just do the decent thing now and shut up about it, don’t seek out pity you don’t deserve for something that’s your fault.

She emerged through the grouping of trees to a clearing, the ground slightly slanted and of a smooth slate that mirrored the swath of the grey sky visible above- and was pounded with rain without canopy. She thought it might be what he described, she hoped it could be, observing the spacing of the trees and figuring that a line could be strung, that a tent could be pitched, and their gear strung out at he’d advised. It seemed reasonable, not a stretch of her imagination, and she might have felt achievement, if other, more tormenting thoughts hadn’t been waiting in the wings of her psyche.

Now he knows it. He knows you're pathetic and disgusting, all because you couldn’t shut your big mouth. Now he knows…

Josephine wiped her face, her eyes, knowing she was crying but still deluding herself with the rain. She didn’t deserve to cry, she couldn’t feel sorry for herself, she felt only contempt for herself. Even alone, she rubbed her eyes roughly and stiffened her lower lip to stifle any sobbing that might have hoped to originate from her. It was difficult to swallow, but she knew crying was useless, she refused to be useless, and so she set herself about surveying the area. She set herself to observing the surroundings critically- the way she imagined Lars would- though she was only guessing at what made a site good as opposed to bad.

A little less than an hour would pass before the girl came back drenched to the bone. Her jacket was soaked through, denim trousers dark with saturation, hair plastered flat against the side of her face and down the back of her head, dripping like a paintbrush fresh from the pot. The barrel of her rifle stuck up over her shoulder, strung across her back and dark steel contrasting against the pallid waif who carried it. She was lucky it wasn’t the season to catch a chill; she’d have been a prime candidate from the way she tensed through and resisted fits of shuddering, holding herself by the elbows in an effort to regain some warmth. “I think I found somewhere up higher, it’s about fifteen minutes away on foot… But why do you want to go higher? What’s going to happen if we stay down here?”

She didn’t remark on their conversation prior, eager to move passed it, pretend it had never happened, though since she returned, her body language was stiff and her eyes remained elusive and directed mostly toward the ground.

 

[Bomb84]

“We’re close to the bottom of a steep embankment, in a cut that’s channeling water from uphill.” Lars kicked at the loose mud in front of their shelter for emphasis. “I don’t know about you, but I’d rather not bed down in a new creek bed. Then there’s the fact that this is loose, dry soil and one of the heavier summer rains I’ve seen in a while. It won’t take much for the whole hillside to cut loose. If there’s a mudslide, it’ll fill this site and we’ll be lucky if we can slog out of it with any of our gear intact.” He looked grimly out at the grey afternoon deluge that showed little sign of relenting. “Whole damn year of rainfall in an hour. Should have been a farmer.”

Without much further comment, Lars rose and draped his canvas poncho over his shoulders. He was thankful they’d left most of their gear on the horses under improvised rain covers and that the trees had helped keep the worst of the rain off their mounts and belongings. Gathering everything else up was a soggy affair, and when they finally took down the tarp shelter Lars was starting to reconsider his plan. The rain wasn’t pouring as hard as previously, but peals of thunder still rolled across the prairie in the distance and there was little sign of anything other than more rain in the future.

“Let’s get on up the hill to your spot!” He had to shout to Josephine over the rain, “Before we end up going for a swim instead!”

It was a miserable slog on foot leading the horses up the slippery hillside to Josephine’s chosen refuge. Lars had to haul his mounts nose about more than once as it shied away from poor footing, and there was a bad moment where he thought the beast would topple down a particularly slick patch, but they finally made the tall pines a little below the hill crest.

He tossed two ropes over a strong bough and hauled their horses saddles and packed gear directly off their backs and secured them suspended a few feet off the ground with tarpaulins covering them. Then it was time for a proper tent, rope strung between two trees and canvas secured in a sort of teepee from it with hastily hammered pegs. Another canvas laid on the ground gave them a mostly dry surface to rest on. Lars tied of the horses with long leads near the trees where they could forage and seek cover from the weather, then ducked under the lifted flap in front of the tent opening and shrugged out of his wet . Thankfully his poncho had kept his wool shirt and trousers mostly dry. He had spares in his bedroll that he could change into in a bit. Lars eyed Josephine’s miserably soaked figure skeptically.

“You’re going to bring half a rainstorm in here with you girl, and I’ll end up catching whatever pneumonia your about to get. You got dry clothes?”

 

[CorinTraven]

She nodded along, listening attentively to his reasoning- her question inspired not by doubt, but desire to understand for herself. Intuitive as she was, there was only so much she could infer on her own, and she realized within her first few days on the trail that the knowledge she lacked was tenfold- and then some- the knowledge she possessed to have a chance at survival out here in the vast frontier. It was obvious from his decisive manner and comfortability, Lars had forgotten more about surviving in the wilderness than Josephine yet knew, and she was an eager pupil to whatever he might share with her. For the most part, he’d humored her inquiries, though Josephine sensed there were times he was exhausted by it, and she did make an effort not to pester him when he grew strained and curt. It wasn’t always successful, she could tell from the way he’d exhale heavily at things she said or did, though he rarely said anything harsh or demeaning- at worst, chiding her but never seeming mean in his spirit. Josephine had begun to appreciate that- and it likely contributed to the increasing frequency and range of questions she asked him.

They broke down camp, Josephine helping where she knew how and with a few campsites erected and disassembled, she’d improved significantly at keeping out of his way when she was unsure of what to do on her own though desperate to help. She was keen, always willing to set herself to a task though she wasn’t well-suited for all of them- especially when size and strength were prerequisites. Her earlier laughter, giddiness at the storm was forgotten after venturing out into it for the third time and fighting to keep upright despite slick mud. She stumbled more than once, catching herself on her hands, but luckily the rain cleared most of the earth she couldn’t shake free. They couldn’t get the tent pitched fast enough, Josephine trading off rope with Lars and holding the tarp down taut while he drove the stakes into the ground.

At the entrance of the tent, Josephine paused and knelt to loosen the lacing of her boots, slipping her feet out and setting them aside as to not track mud on the canvas. Her stockings were already wet- hopefully because she’d stepped in water that’d overcome their tops and not because her boots’ construction was so permeable. She’d rescued one of her bags before he’d hauled the saddles up into the air and situated herself at the far end of the tent, cross legged with the bag sat in her lap. Her hands combed through her hair, separating it into sections that she would twist, to wring the water out. When he entered, she continued to muss with her hair, pert eyes upturning to him and scoffing at his concern.

“Well, we can’t have you catch a pneumonia, from what I understand that can be quite serious with age, old man.” She responded cheekily, letting her tone drip with the sweet candy coating of well-humored sarcasm. She was lucky she didn’t interrupt her superior tone with a shiver, on account of how cold and poorly she’d grown, and she was still grinning toothily when a small tremor passed a few seconds after she’d finished her joke. She dug through her pack, retrieving a mismatch of clothing- most of it having stayed dry, and pulled from it the necessities, a cotton shirtwaist with vertical strips of a faded blue, light summer hosiery with a braided detail adorning its knit, and her other pair of trousers, a taupe colored wool with a row of three copper colored buttons down the front and with a drop designed for a man- or more accurately, an early adolescent boy. At the bottom of her pack, she pulled out a woven shawl, the material light and thin but rich in its deep violet color and from the craft in its design, likely one of the few things she’d had with her when she’d left New York. A pair of combinations were buried amongst the assorted outerwear, uncomfortable with the idea of flaunting her intimates though, at the same time, feeling silly that she hid them.

That led her to the next uncomfortable idea- having thus far been able to find privacy whenever she needed, but it wasn’t like she could ask him to go back out into the rain so she could undress. Even if she did- what about when he inevitably wanted dry clothes and she was equally opposed to witnessing him. She was caught in a paradox, stomach curdling with dread as she’d be relegated to fickle trust, face burning with embarrassment before she’d even begun to speak, regretting that her previous words having been so smart assed.

“…Uhm-… So, Could you maybe..turn around-…please? …So I can change my clothes, please?...And then when you’re ready-…if you’re going to change, I’ll turn around too, okay?” She proposed in a meek and hopeful tone, sounding especially so given the sass she’d laid upon her last statement. She was suddenly very interested in twisting the delicate scarf between her hands, examining the subtle diamond twill woven into it and disguising her blush with a downturned face.

 

[Bomb84]

This moment had been coming for some time, but somehow it still took Lars by surprise. He’d ridden with Josephine for days now, and oddly enough spent more time with her than any other single person in months. Yet he’d unconsciously abandoned the realty of her femininity from his considerations, except inasmuch as it affected her ability to pick up saddles and handle firearms. Even when he’d manhandled her, exposing skin and the birthmark on her hip as he allowed the implication of worse violations, she’d been more like a piece of cargo with a hidden label. A job, a mission. Not a real person. Certainly not a woman.

A young, pretty woman at that. Her garments, usually oversized and mannish enough to make it easy to ignore what they concealed hung on her now like wet sealskin, revealing a slim figure and curves that were decidedly atypical for his accustomed riding companions…

Lars realized he had looked directly at her, swallowed hard and made sure to meet her eyes with his own, hoping his lapse went unnoticed. Surely women didn’t take note of every stray glance every man sent there way. They couldn’t. Could they?

‘Oh, um, yeah. Of course.” Lars made a point of turning around, scooting as far away from her as the overhanging flap would allow. He loudly and elaborately kicked off his boots and wrung out the wet stockings, setting both to the side out of the rain and studying his ghost-white calloused feet as if the examination required some immense attention. It’d been a long time since he’d had much in the way of blisters to tend to, but you never knew. After a bit, he took out his tobacco pouch, rolled a smoke, and tried not to think about what was going on behind him as he lit it.

More disconcerting to him than the—entirely natural, if a little awkward—reaction he had to thinking about Josephine as a nubile young woman was the more protective impulse he realized as he fought down his own reflexive attention. He was near twice her age, and she was altogether closer to his niece in years than himself. Something about her belligerence layered with the streaks of vulnerability she tried to hide had triggered something in Lars he really didn’t care for, sentiments he’d avoided long enough hat he thought successfully buried.

The cherry flared on his smoke, causing a flaring glint to light up his contemplative stare out into the dreary wet afternoon.

He was not responsible for this girl.

He was not responsible for this girl.

 

[CorinTraven]

Her eyes had lifted from her lap in the final moments of his attention’s deviation. When he looked pointedly at her eyes, he’d find she was already watching him, and it would be difficult to know if the apprehension expressed in her doe-eyed visage was in anticipation of his answer, or because she’d caught his eyes wandering down her body. Palpable relief eased through her expression, and she released a breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding after Lars amiably agreed to look away and demonstrated a consideration in his manner Josephine found profoundly touching. It caught her off guard, the blooms of appreciation and tenderness that filled a place in her chest that had been voided by dread, inspired by so simple an act as to turn and cede space.

This, however, did not quell the fear that excited through her body as she would set about undressing, eyes wide and alert, watching the back of his head, and setting a strategy as to limit the time spent in the nude and exposed. She’d have to strip completely first to exchange her drawers, but from there she would be able to return layer after comforting layer in quick succession. She reassured herself of this while fumbling with the clasp of her belt, hands clumsy as a product of their reluctance, but she pulled it free, setting it neatly to the side, and taking a deep breath.

She didn’t know why she was so afraid, why she felt that this was a trick, that he would wait until she was bare naked and turn to look at her, like he needed to trick her if that was what he wanted. Like a few bolts of fabric were what restrained him from acting upon carnal desire, but once removed, he’d become unmoored and feral. Even as she wanted to trust him, because of what James had done, paranoia made her prepare to be deceived. She had known James for nearly half a year and in the flash of a moment, the façade of who he’d portrayed himself as melted away to the grotesque underpinnings of his wicked character. Lars, she had known for only days, and she could not help but doubt his intentions even in the aftermath of being impressed by him. She was too petrified to start until she considered that she’d spent the last three days entirely alone with Lars and beyond his earliest threats, he’d shown no proclivity toward entitling himself to her; something James had pursued doggedly the instant she was no longer safeguarded by the chaperoning public. It would be that stark difference that finally gave Josephine the mettle to take the plunge, having wasted nearly five minutes agonizing over it, and he remained wholly patient and concentrated in staring out into the rainstorm, ruminating over his cigarette and not once making a movement that would risk catching her in his periphery

Once she’d convinced herself to begin stripping, the process went decidedly fast, she’d have spent twice over the time it took her to change worrying over the ten seconds of unavoidable nudeness. She buttoned the front of her combination, pulled her shirtwaist over her shoulders, and stepped into her pants. Her belt was replaced, securing it at the narrow of her waist and feeling a great deal of safety returned by the two-fingers thick band of leather.

“Okay-…Sorry that I took so long- I– uhm, I’m decent now.” Her voice piped up from behind him, a little high on account of her awkwardness. No longer was she sopping wet, fabric gripping her and near translucent in some places, but because her skin was still damp during her rush to cover herself, there remained places where her slender form was impressing itself despite the drape of formless, masculine clothing. She sat in the same spot she’d been, folding her wet clothing neatly and placing it with her boots, to be dried once the deluge ended. Rain tapped against the slant of the tent, not so loud as it had been during the worst of the downpour, the thunder and lightning carrying on in the distance. Josephine pulled the light shawl she’d been fussing with around her shoulders, hands picking at the fringe compulsively, pulling out a loose thread before bringing her attention back to him, contemplating for a second, before asking: “…How do you do this with a real bounty, huh? I don’t get it. Like-..imagining I was a man with a warrant for my arrest…How do you deal with all this?” She gestured around herself generally, “with a dangerous criminal who doesn’t want to go with you? Like, sure, you were able to just haul me off but I don’t expect there are many bounties rewarded for young ladies run off from home for you to pick on. Or maybe there is- I don’t know, maybe there are specialties like, some bounty hunters do bank robbers and some do murderers. Is that it, huh?... What would that mean, you specialize in runaway women-and-children? Jilted engagements?” She’d apparently returned to asking nonsense questions in rapid succession, flashing her teeth at him in a teasing smile, and though she began with genuine curiosity, she diverged and amused herself with her supposing enough to even giggle girlishly. She hoped to distract from the uncomfortable tension that remained, often using humor to move past heavier topics she wished not to dwell in.

“Honestly- I didn’t really think Bounty Hunter was a job people did outside of dime novels. Is it what you've always done- is it what your father did?”

 

[Bomb84]

It seemed like it took forever for Josephine to change, but Lars had barely finished his cigarette before she gave him the all clear signal.

“Most bounties are a lot simpler,” he responded to her curious chatter. “Some waste of skin commits a crime, the marshals don’t have the boots on the ground to track him down, or else they figure the mark is too dangerous for them to go gun to gun without maybe ending up dead. So they put out the bounty posters, a hundred dollars here, five hundred there, and other unscrupulous sorts come out of the woodwork and do the law’s job on commission. Dead or alive.” He grinned at her question about his father. “Hell no, bounty huntin’ ain’t anybdoy’s idea of a family business. My pa was a farmer, and a grocer. Never pulled the trigger on anything more than a varmint. Had I kids, I sure as hell would steer them as far away from this line of work as I could get them.” He rested a hadn briefly on his gun belt beside him.

“Sometimes a man gets a feel for the gun, or it gets a feel for him. Makes it hard to put down. “ A flat note entered his drawl, a neutral acknowledgement of regrets long buried and possibilities long forsaken. “Society doesn’t much care for someone who can’t take his lumps without standing up and shooting back. Bankers, politicians, bosses…they all got their ways of kicking the shit out of you but a normal person can’t fight back. Ain’t nobody stepping on a man with a gun, though.” A gleam leapt into Lars’ eye accompanying an odd, foreign idea taking root in the hardscrabble rock of his mind. Perhaps there was a way he could walk away from this after all and not have to drink himself to sleep. “Woman, neither.”

“Josephine, where’d you learn to shoot that rifle?”

 

[CorinTraven]

Josephine sat forward with interest as he spoke, repositioning to be more comfortable, elbows on her knees, her skinny ankles crossing over one another and tucking her feet beneath her bent legs. As much as he openly disdained his profession and painted a deadly and undesirable picture with his grim words, it still sounded quite exciting to the curious girl, forgivably callow, and unable to fathom the worst of his regrets. Her voice was equal parts wonder and dismay: “So, do you have to kill most of your bounties?” She wasn’t quite frightened by that, though perhaps she should be, remembering waking in his camp, his big shadow squatted down in front of her, knife in hand, and how she’d taunted him while completely prone. Before that night, how many times had someone shot their mouth off at him and he cleaned their blood off that blade after? How many people had been in her same position, but under ‘simpler’ circumstances? It gave her new a perspective to consider him from, one that chilled her, though not without providing thrill and intrigue as well.

The girl would never go so far as to have thought him soft before, he’d demonstrated roughness and grit from their first meeting onward, but he’d done so with a mild manner and restraint that made it easy to forget he was a dangerous man, capable and experienced in extraordinary violence. She didn’t understand why he’d apparently given up on carrying her bounty through, what complication had been insurmountable, enough to abandon his goal completely, with the key to victory in hand. He told her it was because she was too much trouble, but Josephine didn’t quite believe that, he didn’t seem the type to change his course so easily, and he’d invested much into tracking her down. Josephine fretted over his reasoning like a dog on a bone, gnawing at the marrow for an answer that satisfied her, expecting that if she could only crack it open, she’d know his motivations.

His question surprised her in the swell of fondness recalled in her answer, trimmed with the melancholy of memory. “My Papa showed me- My mother’s father.” Her expression softened and her smile widened as she elaborated. “He loved hunting, and in the summers, my mother would escape the city heat with my brothers and I to stay with him in the Adirondacks. He had a lodge there- on Lake Champlain. My mother didn’t much care for it, she preferred civilization and society, she didn’t have much passion for nature…but we loved it- my brothers and I. It was the best, Lucas and I used to spend all summer making forts in the woods, we’d get it into our head we would spend the night there and be real survivalists, make ourselves sick eating blackberries…and inevitably at some point in the night Ben and Sam- our older brothers- would come up and start stomping around until we both lost our nerve and run inside screaming that we’d seen a bear." A laugh accompanied her storytelling, animating as she found a familiar rhythm and beat. "You’d think after the first year we’d figure it out or give it up- but it happened a few more times before Lucas decided he’d had enough and snuck one of our grandfather’s rifles off the wall and hid it in the fort. Thank God, our Papa noticed before it got dark and anything bad could have happened. Lucas was showing it to me and explaining his plan to kill the bear when he tore through the old tablecloth we were using as a door in a fever, and when he saw Lucas with that gun…I don’t know if I’d ever seen him more mad. He tanned Lucas’ hide pretty good, he must have been ten or eleven by then. I remember it was the only time I’d ever seen him use his belt-…he never was keen on hitting us, he had a good humor about him. My mother complained he spoiled us...But that time, I suppose it was serious, Ben and Sam got in trouble too, for terrorizing us. God, Ben had to be almost eighteen, he must not have beat them, they would have been too old, but I remember he’d scolded them and made them apologize for tormenting us. By the end of it, everybody was sore and in trouble-…except for me." She added with a glowing smugness. "Lucas tried to say it was my idea- but my Papa wouldn’t hear it.” Assured and content in that, it was obvious from her enthuse and the timbre of her voice, that she held deep affection for her grandfather, realizing with a bit of fluster, she’d prattled on at length, compelled by the warmth of her childhood memories.

“Sorry- that was stupid, none of that matters...I only meant to mention it because he would always shoot with his pals and my brothers. When I was six, he was shooting at pigeons with a new shot gun, letting my brothers try it out, and he’d held it and let Lucas fire it, and I’d asked if I could next. My mother must have been elsewhere, she wasn’t very happy when we told her later, but he did much the same he had with Lucas with me, held it, aimed it, probably helped me pull the trigger too, but we hit the bird, and I was quite convinced it’d been me and he was happy to say the same. After that, whenever he was practicing or sporting with the boys, I insisted on being part of it, much to my mother’s protests and chagrin. For my 12th birthday, he gave me a Remington Rolling block.” Her eyes gestured to the rifle of that exact model set beside her, “After I realized I was going to need a rifle out here- I thought about getting a repeater, but figured it’d be best to get a gun I know how to use.”

“But- yeah, we spent a lot of time together, and he’d take me hunting, he’d set up contests for my brothers and I, put up a prize of a quarter and coach and judge us. Lucas would get frustrated too easily and quit, he was a sore loser, especially to me. Ben was good as long as it was close- he can’t see much after about twenty yards, and Sam never liked the noise of it and would rarely participate, so it would often be just me and my Papa. Until my Mother decided that it was an unbecoming hobby for a young lady and sent me to New Jersey with my cousins the summer I was thirteen. I wrote to my Papa, begging for him to come and take me to Lake Champlain and lamenting being separated during what was sacred time for us, and before June was up, my aunt’s husband had received a telegram from him with the demand that his granddaughters be put on a train to Albany and to be updated when he should expect their arrival. Sure enough, a week later, he was waiting at the train station for my cousins and me, and we spent the rest of the summer with him…” Her smile was warm, crinkling the corners of her eyes, but draining slowly from her as her voice lost its light and enthusiasm, a tinge of pain developing in her throat, “Then that winter, he died…and well, after that, my mother got what she wanted and I wouldn’t do much shooting anymore…” Her voice trailed off, shrugging her narrow shoulders, and hoping she hadn’t bored him too terribly jabbering on about these small moments she treasured, her eyes searched his face furtively, uncharacteristic shyness strung into her expression.

“But, I guess that didn’t do her any good, did it? Put me in the finest finishing schools, made sure I had a thousand lessons on poetry, painting, proper etiquette- had me memorize an endless volume of silly, useless, frivolous nonsense that was supposed to domesticate me and polish me up to be a respectable young lady…yet, I still wound up here…If she could see me now, I bet she’d wail…she’d take one look at me and go ‘Josephine, what have you done! You’re going to freckle all over your skin, you’re completely red! You’re filthy, you smell like a horse and you’re dressed like a boy!’…” Her voice changed key and mimed franticness to imitate her mother, dropping to her normal pitch as she continued. “Not to mention, I’m keeping such gauche company. My mother could hardly tolerate if my father invited his foreman to supper, she thought it boorish when the poor man used silverware out of order. She would faint, if she knew what a waste all her hard work has culminated to. She probably would prefer I had just disappeared entirely, if she could know where I am, what I’ve been doing.”