"A Storm in the West", Chapter Three
Title: A Storm in the West
Chapter: 3/13
Fandom: Arashi
Character, Pairing(s): no pairings yet
Rating: R
Warnings: Language, and some potentially triggering violence..
Summary: A saloon owner with an enigmatic past, an idealistic sheriff, a remorseful shotgun messenger, and the town that unites them.
The cattle were gone.
Nothing, not more than hoof prints in the half-sand dirt lining the outskirts of Rapid Springs, and his prospects of staying alive had diminished significantly. One of Nagase's ranch hands was dead, the other missing; in one fell swoop Jun's life had gone from passably bearable to undeniably fucked. He stood staring out at the horizon past the town's borders and tried not to concentrate on the knot of dread in his belly, on flashbacks to Nagase's pistol and the blood on the uniform's half-rusted buttons.
He had half a mind to set out right then. If he got back soon enough, maybe he could explain what had happened- he'd practically begged not to have to return, and all he'd gotten for his troubles were bullets flying at his head.
There were footsteps behind him, and he turned. He wasn't expecting to see Ohno a few feet behind him, hands in his apron pockets.
"Come to jeer?" Jun asked, tiredly, looking back out to the setting sun, streaming in over the rolling hills of sand. "Or do you have a few bullets with my name on them as well?"
Ohno didn't answer right away, but took a few steps forward to follow Jun's gaze across the expanse.
"You runnin' again?" he asked, finally, breaking the quiet.
"I didn't run the first time," Jun snapped.
"Legs moved pretty fast for not running," Ohno replied, easily; he shrugged a bit, hands still deep in his pockets. He looked unconcerned, shoulders slumped forward. Jun bit back a mirthless laugh.
"Being chased has a way of increasing one's speed."
"Still runnin'," Ohno said, and Jun wanted to hit him- his patience was fried, his nerves were still screaming, and his ears were ringing with old haunts mingling with new memories. He was in no mood to deal with flippant shop keepers, let alone ones poking at his raw wounds with a stick.
"What would you have had me do?" Jun asked, tone bordering on predatory. It didn't seem to phase Ohno, but very little ever did.
The other man just shrugged again, the repeated action more pronounced the second time. "Gotta turn around and face it sometime, don't you?"
"Not when turning means taking a shot to the face."
There was a stretch of silence, and Jun could feel the other man's disapproval in the air. It settled around his shoulders and pushed, heavy and damning.
"I don't have to explain myself to you," Jun murmured, shaking his head.
"No," Ohno agreed, "but eventually you'll have to reconcile with yourself."
"I didn't do anything wrong," Jun cried, whirling on him. His hands were balled into fists so tight his nails were digging into the flesh of his palms, re-igniting his blood to boil all over again.
And Ohno just leveled him with an even gaze, unflinching even when Jun was ready to rail against him with all the strength he had left.
"Never said you did."
Jun stared at him for several long moments. The sun burned against the sky like the devil's laughing face, and it stung at his eyes; the dust, still roiling with smoke from the gunfire, was everywhere, making it difficult to breathe. Jun sucked in several burning lungfuls of air, and his heart sank a bit when there were more footsteps, and the clearing of a throat.
"Feel like clearin' up a few things?" the sheriff asked, and Jun didn't bother to turn around to face him. "Got some questions I'd like to ask."
"Bet you do," Jun mumbled.
"Look, I'm not really in the mood to argue," the sheriff said, and he laughed a little in a decidedly un-joyful manner. "Let me rephrase. Come with me to the station, because I'm going to interrogate you now."
Jun should have run when he had the chance. He should have ignored Ohno and thrown himself into the harshnes of the desert, because he would have fared better in the freezing night than he was going to in Rapid Springs. The whole damn town was just a giant ravine he was going to get lost in, unable to find his way out again, and unable to stop looking back.
There was a hand on his elbow, and he could feel the sheriff's muscles shaking as his grip tightened.
"Let's go," the law-maker said, and hauled him away from the nothingness towards the center of town once more.
---------
Matsumoto was laughing under his breath as Sho dragged him to his place. “You think this is a big joke?” he said, tightening his grip on the man's arm.
“You put me in there with Ninomiya, and I'm a dead man. You leave me out here, and I'm a dead man.” Matsumoto dragged his feet as Sho pulled him up the steps. “Whatever you do or don't do, Sheriff, I have a target on my back.”
“Don't much care,” he replied bitterly, kicking the door open and seeing Nino jump to his feet and grip the bars.
“I'll kill you, you son of a bitch!” Nino seethed. “Put him on in here, Sheriff, and I'll save you the trouble!”
“Watch your tongue, Ninomiya. I'm not done with you yet.” He watched Jun's eyes hit the floor, his face darkening. In anger? In shame? Sho couldn't tell. He stood still, keeping hold of Jun and met Nino's angry face. “You've caused me a heap of trouble today. You wanna fill me in on why you and Mr. Matsumoto don't see eye to eye?”
“He's a murderer!”
“That so?”
Jun said nothing as Nino spat in his direction. The saliva made it about halfway across the room, landing on the dusty floorboard. Nino scowled. “Bastard.”
Sho sighed. He wasn't getting a word out of Nino so long as Jun was in the room with him, and putting the two together would definitely end with one or both dead. Damn this place, he thought, only gracing him with one measly jail cell. “You sit tight,” he told Nino, thinking quickly. He hauled Jun forward, past Nino and into his living space.
Jun looked confused as Sho let go of him. “You're dead in the cell and dead outside. But maybe you'll keep in here,” he told Matsumoto. The other man stayed silent as Sho headed back into the other room, finding a decent pair of shackles. This wasn't his wisest decision, but it was the only one he had available. Both men had information, and neither would talk so long as they had the other in their sights.
“You should leave him for the vultures,” Nino told him. “Let me put a bullet between his eyes, and save you the ammo, Sheriff.”
“What'd he do? Rip you off?” Sho asked, hands on his hips. “Mess up one of your girl's faces?” He got up close until he could see the dark circles under Nino's eyes and he smirked. He was feeling a little mean, given the day's unpleasantness. “Oh, I know. It's awful lonesome out here. I bet you played a little Sodom and Gomorrah, and he never called on you again.”
Nino gripped the bars tighter, eyes raging. “Fuck you.”
Sho laughed bitterly. “Maybe if you cleared this all up, I wouldn't have to go insinuating things about your character.”
He went back into his room and slammed the door. Matsumoto was looking at the stack of books Sho kept on the top of his dresser. “You read?” he asked the other man, and Jun shook his head.
“Not a lot of leisure time.”
He rattled the handcuffs. “Can't trust you to stay put. But I can't just let you run off before you tell me what the hell's going on here.”
Jun raised an eyebrow, and Sho felt an uneasiness in his belly. He was in charge here, not this guy. Just because he was a bit green didn't make his star any less meaningful. He was about eye level with Matsumoto, give or take an inch, and it was times like these that he wished he was taller, wished he looked a little rougher around the edges. Wished he could look the slightest bit intimidating for once.
“I was here to do a job,” Jun informed him as he sat down on Sho's bed, dirtying the sheets with his filthy clothes. The other man yielded, holding out his wrist with a quirk to his lips. “The job has obviously gone south thanks to Mr. Ninomiya.”
“And I am sorry about that,” Sho admitted, undoing the cuffs and attaching one of them to his iron bedpost. Unless Matsumoto had wrists like a child or the criminal instincts to undo them, he wasn't going anywhere. He bent down, holding the other cuff open and grabbing hold of Jun's wrist.
“Hands are still soft.”
“What?”
Matsumoto looked away. “Just making an observation.”
Sho felt a buzzing in his ears, trying to ignore the low tone Matsumoto's voice had taken on. As if his words had slipped out before he could control them. Or maybe he was just messing with Sho. Maybe it was all some kind of mind game. The sheriff closed the metal handcuff, releasing Jun's wrist like it was burning hot. Then he stripped the man of his belt and holsters. He stepped back and sat down at his small table, crossing his arms and setting the weapons up on the dresser.
“You wanna tell me why Ninomiya wants you dead?”
Jun stared straight at him again, and it was downright unsettling. He didn't seem the type for a lot of eye contact, but since Doc Ogura's, Jun had been studying him, probably trying to gauge his weaknesses. Figure him out. “He's got every right to want me dead.”
Sho sighed. “You didn't answer my question.”
“Man has a grudge. I wronged him,” Jun explained. “Don't need to say much more than that, do I?”
There had been men with guns in the street, and yet Nino had come flying out of his establishment, shotgun blasting. To say that Jun had wronged Nino seemed like a terrible understatement. Sho hadn't done too much interrogating back in Boston, and the folks out here were even better at keeping things close and keeping their mouths shut. “Wish you would.”
Jun shook his wrist a bit, the cuff jangling with the sound of metal. “How long you gonna keep me like this?”
“As long as I want,” Sho replied. “Don't need to say much more than that.” He cracked his knuckles. “Do I?”
Matsumoto seemed to be holding in a smile. “You sleep in here too, Sheriff? Because I'm not fixing to share quarters with you if I can help it. Unless you have other ideas about interrogating.”
The sheriff could feel the man's eyes searching, probing again. It was like being a coyote's next meal, but before you even saw the coyote. Sho swallowed, feeling a flush rising in his face. Sho got to his feet. He tipped his hat, ignoring Matsumoto's insinuations. The frontier sure changed a man, and Sho realized that he was changing himself. He grabbed one of the dime novels from his dresser and tossed it to him. Grabbing his matchbox, he lit a candle so Jun could see. “You got some leisure time now. Enjoy.”
Now that he was standing and Jun was cuffed and helpless, he felt a bit better. Nobody was getting him in here. He gave Matsumoto one final glare before leaving, closing and locking the door after him. Nino was sitting on the bed inside the cell, fixing to go mad.
“Well, your friend's not much for talking. You planning to play the same game?”
Nino scowled. “My business is my own, and you can keep your silver spoon nose the hell out of it.”
Sho was getting increasingly frustrated. What the hell was he going to tell the territorial government? If he didn't have results, they'd send someone else to keep an eye on him. And that was the last kind of shame he needed. “Your business is my business when you fire a shotgun in the middle of my town, Ninomiya.”
“Ain't your town, Sheriff.” The other man's eyes were different from Matsumoto's. Jun was a tick, burrowing under your skin, finding your blood and sucking the life from you. In Ninomiya's eyes, you were already dead and he was a vulture picking your bones clean. “Ain't never gonna be your town.”
He cracked his knuckles, fingers itching to pull his revolver from his hip holster and fire a warning shot into his ceiling. If he didn't get out of this building, he'd end up doing so. Night had already fallen outside. It was going to be a long night. He imagined that Doc Ogura was already coordinating with Pastor White about burying the dead, but Sho wouldn't sleep until he got some answers.
Leaving his sheriff's office behind, he went back into the streets. The darkness kept the blood in the streets from standing out, but Sho knew it was still there. There was a candle lit in Aiba's window. He and his deputy had never talked much about Rapid Springs' past, but there was never going to be a better time.
He knocked on Aiba's door, and the blacksmith answered. His face was forlorn, not a look Sho was accustomed to seeing. Aiba's face almost looked wrong this way. “Hey Sheriff.” He held the door. “I knew you'd be coming.”
-------
A few inches of less-than-solid plywood and a row of iron bars were the only things separating them, and it felt like a shiver down his spine he couldn't get rid of. For a long time after Sakurai's footsteps had faded off beyond the door leading back to the dusty road of town, Nino sat with his hands gripping the mattress of the bed like a lifeline, like the only thing keeping him from going everywhere at once. He could see candlelight flickering under the door to the sheriff's quarters, but he couldn't hear anything.
He sat until he breathing got so ragged it was hitching in his chest, and then he launched himself upwards. He couldn't sit anymore, couldn't keep his limbs still; there wasn't much in the box of a jail cell other than a piss pot and the rotting bed, but the pot was better than nothing.
Nino took two giant steps across the cell and kicked it, sending it flying against the far corner with an angry, reverberating cry.
"Do us all a favor and knock that candle over," he shouted, hands balled into fists at his sides. "The ashes left would be too good a burial for you."
There was no answer, but he wasn't entirely sure he'd been expecting one.
"I promise you," he seethed, glaring down at the light from under the portal. "I promise you on her memory that I will blow your fucking brains out when I get out of here."
Again, only silence, and he railed against the bars, kicking at them with the toe of his boot. It hurt, and the iron was so dinged and rusty that it cut at the flesh of his palms.
"I know you can hear me, you son of a bitch," he yelled, shaking the bars as hard as he could. "You never should have come back here."
Rage bubbled in his throat, like boiling stew over the side of a pan.
"You never shoulda come back cause I should've killed you. I should have blown your head clean off your shoulders when I had the chance."
--
“I think that part of the floor is clean,” Ohno said quietly, watching him from the bar.
Nino kept sweeping anyhow. Concentrating on something nice and mundane kept his stomach from turning over inside of him. Today was the day. The little velvet case in his pocket was going to burn a hole there if he kept thinking about it. “What kind of man would I be, presenting her with a dirty old saloon?”
“I still think it's clean enough.”
He smiled. “What would you know about impressing a lady anyhow? All you do is fish and bake bread.”
Ohno came over and took the broom. “I like fishing.” He moved the broom to the corner. “And I like baking too.”
Nino sighed and let his eyes drift around, looking for imperfections. The bar and soon to be inn had been complete for two months, and he wanted everything to be right. This was going to be their home, their business. Together. He fumbled in his pocket, letting his fingers brush against the little case.
“What time's her coach getting in?”
“Oh, you know those things are never on time.” He chuckled. “And she's got a wagon full of her clothes and furniture and all that sorta thing.” In her last letter, she'd insisted she wasn't going to live like some savage in a tent. Nino didn't mind a bit of respectability. Rapid Springs was a town full of men mostly. Families were scarce. They'd do their best to turn that around.
Ohno clapped his hand on his shoulder. “I still can't believe she's coming all this way and you haven't given her a ring yet.”
He pulled the case out, flashing the band at his friend. “She knew what she was getting into with a fellow like me. Besides, all my money went to build this place.” The entire first month's profit from the saloon had gotten the ring from Santa Fe, but it was real silver, much as it had pained him to part with all that hard-earned cash. But there was no one else in the whole world he'd rather spend it on.
“Well, I can't wait to meet her. It'll be nice to have a pretty woman to look at from time to time.” Ohno headed for the exit. “I'm getting a little sick of your grumpy face.”
Nino laughed, throwing a bar towel at the exiting baker, but he was cut short when the sheriff came running in, face red and covered in sweat.
“Ninomiya, I...”
He felt a different sort of nervousness pass over him, like a knife was suddenly at his throat, keeping him from letting out one breath. His grip on the jewelry case tightened.
“I got some...something terrible's happened...”
--
Aiba stepped to one side to let the sheriff in- he'd been expecting him, really, somewhere in his head. Sakurai looked tired. The lines on his face looked like the ones that had striated the old sheriff's brow. They were the kind of lines that never really went away, the kind that stayed with you even when you succumbed to dreams.
"Care for a drink?" Aiba offered, pulling out a bottle of whiskey from one of the hope chest drawers. It'd been awhile since he'd hit the bottle- been awhile since he'd needed to.
"No," Sho said. He didn't sit. "Thank you."
Aiba poured two shot glasses anyway. He knew what the sheriff had come for, and if Sho wouldn't drink it- well, shame to let it go to waste, after all. He licked the droplets that spilled on his thumb and grimaced, replacing the stopper on the bottle again.
"Long day," Aiba said. He glanced over. Sho was still standing, hands on his hips; he looked like he both dreaded and welcomed sitting down.
"Got a feelin' it's gonna get longer," Sho said. He gave Aiba a pointed glance, and the blacksmith rubbed his palms against his apron.
"Just leave it alone," he suggested, knowing full well the sheriff wouldn't heed the advice.
"Can't," Sho answered, curt. "Gotta man in my cell who fired on innocents, and a stranger who won't talk, yet seems to know everybody else in town. Neither of them will give me any answers."
He trailed off, and Aiba didn't offer anything in the silence. When the sheriff finally realized that, he cleared his throat.
"I don't want to pull rank here, deputy," he said, pointedly, and Aiba let his shoulders slump forward a little further. He reached for the first shot of whiskey. It burned, but not as bad as the memories still did- always did. "But I will."
"It's old business," Aiba said, wheezing a bit from the liquor.
"Not today."
He was clearly not going to get out of it- so Aiba reached for the second shot, and gulped that down, too.
--
"Answer me, else I'll pull out your tongue myself!"
The door did little to actually muffle the sounds, and Jun feverently wished it did more. The cuffs were sharp against his wrists, and a little tight- either the sheriff had misjudged the necessary space, or trusted Jun even less than he'd insinuated. Tugging only made it worse, so Jun just leaned back against the side of the bed.
There was silence, and he thought maybe Ninomiya had given up.
"Her favorite color was blue," came the next bit, softer; softer, but far more dangerous. "She was gonna decorate our room in blue, did you know that? Said it was cleansing, to wake up to, like the sky without clouds."
Jun squeezed his eyes shut. There was no way to block the sound- or the images that rose unbidden to his mind.
"Think I would have liked a blue bedroom," Ninomiya continued. "Think I would have liked being married. Would have been something, wouldn't it?"
A pause, and then an angry thud, like kicks against the offending iron holding him back.
"Huh? Wouldn't it?"
It would have been something. She'd said the same thing, all bright eyes and blonde curls, with dimples on her cheeks when she smiled- laughed the same way, with a little cock to her head. She'd laughed the whole time, til the end, overcome with the giddiness of her arrival; not at the end, though. She hadn't been laughing at the end at all.
Bile rose hot in the back of Jun's throat, and he couldn't swallow it down.
--
"Why don't you start at the beginning, deputy?"
Sho finally sat, spurs scraping against the wood, and Aiba reached for the bottle again to refill the glasses.
"Don't know the beginning, sheriff," he replied. "Only know the parts that came here."
"And what parts were those?" Sho asked.
Another swig, and the burn was multiplied.
"She was comin' from back East. Comin' by train, and then by coach."
"Who was?" the sheriff asked. His voice had dropped a little bit, bravado tapering off; maybe he was beginning to realize that the situation wasn't as simple as he wished it could be. There were some things that star on his lapel wasn't going to fix, and muddling his hands in them was only going to stir the pot worse in the wrong direction.
"Ninomiya's girl," Aiba said. It was hard to choke out. "Fiance."
Nino had smiled back then, hadn't he? It was hard to remember, but the image was still there, layered beneath the grime and tears and hot sun when they put her in the ground just past the church yard. There was a long silence, and what sounded like a sigh from the other side of the room.
"Think I'll be takin' that drink now," Sho said, finally. Aiba walked it over to him. When the sheriff's fingers closed around the glass, he looked up, eyes hooded. "Aiba?"
"Mm?"
Knuckles whitened. "What exactly happened?"
--
Ohno was watching the saloon, for all that Nino had paid attention as he'd bolted for the nearest horse he could find. The sheriff had huffed and puffed after him, getting on his own horse. The man had said nothing as they rode out of town, and Nino knew it was not good. His hands were trembling as he held the reins.
When he saw the overturned wagon, they were deep in Friendship Pass, high canyon walls on either side. They were only six miles from town. She'd come all this way, and she'd only had six miles to go. He'd barely slowed the horse to a trot when he leapt off, his feet stinging in his shoes from the impact as he ran.
The deputy, Aiba the blacksmith, had already seen him. “Nino, stop!” The man came hurrying over, throwing his arms around him to try and stop him from moving forward. “You don't need to see, please.” Nino felt like he was in a fog, Aiba's desperately trying to keep him back. The blacksmith had tears in his eyes. “You don't need to see.”
His throat was nearly dry, but he shoved Aiba away. “Get the hell off of me!” The deputy stepped back, and Nino continued forward, seeing the tipped wagon. There were dresses strewn every which way, end tables and bed linens, and he finally had to look away when he saw her sewing basket with needles and thread tossed ever so cruelly into the dirt.
The stagecoach was just beyond, door wrenched open, and he saw blood in the dirt, a trail leading its way, guiding Nino's footsteps like a marker. First, a leather boot with delicate laces. A stocking. And his heart ripped right in half when he went behind the large rock where they'd left her. He didn't scream. He wanted to. Wanted to shout and cry and curse, but she was here, and she'd never much cared for him using dirty language.
He knelt beside her, seeing the pale skin of her throat ripped apart by some bandit's jagged blade. Her eyes were closed, and Nino could only imagine that Aiba had thought to do so before he'd gotten there. Try as he did to look away, they'd shoved her dress up to her hips. He recognized the brown muslin fabric. He'd sent the money to her, and she'd written to him, saying she'd be wearing it the next time their eyes met. Flesh he'd never seen, uncovered and bloodied, and he knew instantly that those bastards hadn't been satisfied just to kill her.
His hand shook as he tugged on the muslin and the torn petticoat beneath, pulling the dress back down to give her the dignity she deserved. He tasted salt, and his tears were falling all over, try as he might to fight against it. “I'm sorry, I'm sorry,” he mumbled, reaching for her hand. The little box was still in his pocket, and he pulled it free, opening it.
He'd gotten the size perfect, and the silver gleamed in the harsh sun as he slipped it onto her finger. “Hope you like it. Took me a whole month of saving, and you know I don't like parting with my money.” He laughed, low in his throat, as he brushed some of her hair from her face. “You're always on me about being thrifty, I'm sorry.”
There was a shadow in the dirt beside him, and he could hear audible crying. Aiba was keeping watch. He bent over, and her lips were as soft as the day they'd parted a year earlier with a promise and a shared dream. “Made that soup your mama always did when I came over. It's back at the bar. Enough to feed a whole wagon train, but I don't think it's as good as hers. I'm sorry.”
He turned to see Aiba holding a hat Nino didn't recognize. There was a bullet hole shot clean through the brim of it. “Doc Ogura's coming,” Aiba said, his face streaked with tear tracks. “The man who was escorting...well, he crawled all bloody back to town and told me and the sheriff...”
Nino's vision nearly went dark. “He's still alive?”
Aiba hesitated. “I...I don't know, we left and...”
He got to his feet, wrenching the hat from the deputy's hand. “That bastard's still breathing?!”
“Don't do nothing rash, Nino. Please. Not now.” Nino wanted to rip the hat in half, but she was still here. She always hated him in a temper. He could still see the ring on her hand, shining. Putting the hat on his own bare head, he crouched down and lifted her. “Hey, the Doc's coming. You don't have to...”
“Aiba, clear the way.”
He held her, and even now she was light as a feather. In her last letter, she'd complained about losing weight from some nasty flu she'd caught. The deputy moved aside, wiping his eyes with a handkerchief. The hat had another man's sweat on it. He could smell it as he carried her through Friendship Pass, past the overturned wagon and the horse he'd arrived on.
--
"She wasn't much of a cook, but she was aimin' to get better," Nino said. The rust from the iron had cut the skin 'round his fingernails, and he couldn't quite register the pain. It ran together with all the rest. "Said she'd be the cook at our hotel, and feed all the travelers."
From within the sheriff's quarters there was a soft bang- a heel against the floor. Then again. Matsumoto was trying to drown him out.
"She used to sing while she cleaned," Nino continued, raising the decibel of his voice. "Did she sing while you were traveling? Did she sing as you rode through the desert?"
Someone was laughing, and it took a long moment for him to realize it was coming from between his own mouth. It was hysterical, a giddy release, and his entire body shook with the force of it. His palms trembled against the bars as he pressed against them.
"Did she sing when they came from behind? Did she sing while you let them cut her throat open?"
"Stop it." Finally, a response- a response far too late, far too little.
"Did she sing when they forced themselves on her like she was a common whore?" He was screaming, raging against the bars. "Did she?!"
"Stop it!"
"It should have been you!" Nino yelled. There was a warbling to his tone, and he could taste hot salt on his lips. He hadn't cried for her in a long time- and he'd forgotten how much it hurt, how much the action tore at his chest. "It should have been you they killed, you fucking murderer! Better your blood on their knife than hers!"
The sob choked him, clogging his throat. Unable to dislodge it, he kicked at the bars again.
"It should have been you!"
"And I wish it would have been!" came the response from beyond the door.
--
Aiba had followed on his horse, offering every few minutes to help carry his burden, but Nino wouldn't let any other man touch her. Not now. He'd fallen to his knees a few time, in the heat and in his grief, but she wouldn't lay in the dirt again until a minister had blessed the ground. His feet were blistering in his shoes.
“I can see the steeple of the church right now,” he told her. “You'll like Pastor White. He's already got it reserved for next Saturday morning. I mean, if that day's still good for you. If it's too sudden, we can change the day.”
The sun beat down on his back as he stumbled his way to the town entrance, hearing the clopping steps of Aiba's horse a few paces behind. “There's a creek bed just outside of town. Ohno...you'll like him, he's a good man. But anyhow, Mr. Ohno goes fishing there whenever there's water. He doesn't catch nothing, but he just likes to go. His bread's the best. It'll go great with your spare ribs.”
Doc Ogura was already driving out his wagon, when he made it to the town entrance. The older man halted his horses, stepping down. “Ninomiya, I'm sorry.”
Aiba pulled his horse up along side. “Let's get her to the Doc's place, Nino, okay? Is that okay?”
“Huh?”
The Doc was already holding his arms out, and Aiba had his hand on his shoulder. “It's okay, Nino, we can help you,” Aiba said.
“Don't need help,” he replied, continuing his walk, past the doctor's wagon. He couldn't let her go, not yet. She hadn't seen the saloon yet. The hat was still on his head, and he could already feel the shotgun in his hands, couldn't wait to get it out from under the bar. But she was in his arms, and he wouldn't dare let her see him doing something like that.
The doctor and Aiba followed behind, too close, as others stepped out of their houses and businesses to spy on things they had no right to spy on. “Aiba, the deputy. He's a blacksmith too. I couldn't tell you which job he's better at, to be truthful.” Nino heard sniffling behind him and tried not to join in with the deputy's tears.
Finally, they made it, and Nino could feel pride swelling in his chest as he carried her to the swinging doors. “I know it took you ages to come, but here it is. Ninomiya's Saloon. I'm sure you can come up with a better name. We've got a room here, and I haven't decorated it too much. You know I don't have an eye for that sort of thing. I made sure they built enough space for your vanity table and your nice mirror. I think you'll like it. And the bar's cherry wood, got a great color to it. I mean, for a bar in a dusty hole like Rapid Springs.”
Ohno was there, and he was crying too. Like the whole town already knew. The other man said nothing, just holding the doors open so he could carry her inside. He heard Aiba and Ohno and Ogura talking behind him at the entrance, something about the man getting a shot clean through his shoulder and his hat. Nino kept that in the back of his mind as he held her tight and got her to the room he'd prepared for them, what would have been their marriage bed come Saturday.
Nino didn't scream until he laid her down in the bed and her blood hit the linen blanket.
--
The sheriff was silent for a long time, eyes focused somewhere far beyond the walls of the small room Aiba kept at the side of the forge.
"Wasn't his fault," he said, finally. He reached for the whiskey bottle, foregoing the glasses completely. "Bandits are everywhere 'round these parts. It's just- the nature of this place. But it wasn't his fault."
"No," Aiba agreed. "Wasn't."
Sho chewed on his bottom lip, contemplative.
"So that's it?" he asked, finally meeting Aiba's gaze again. "That's the story? He left?"
"No," Aiba said, with a mirthless laugh. "He didn't leave. He got ran outta town at gunpoint."
"And never came back."
"And never came back," Aiba echoed. Another period of quiet, and the sheriff sighed, running a hand wearily through his hair.
"He picked a fine time to come back to Rapid Springs," he mused.
------
Ninomiya had finally quieted down, screaming himself to sleep. Every second of silence reminded Jun about the cows, about the hands and about Nagase's gleaming Army-issue revolver pointing in his face.
The candle wax had dripped all over Sheriff Sakurai's crooked table, and the cuff on his wrist was chafing him, leaving deep red indentations in his skin. It'd be another day at least before the other kid got back to Nagase, and that was if he hadn't been scared so completely that he'd taken off in the other direction. But it didn't matter. Nagase would find out, and Nagase knew enough people in the territory that he'd be discovered and brought back to the ranch. Would Nagase shoot on site or drag it out? Would he have the jacket on?
Well, that was if Ninomiya didn't kill him first. He couldn't forget the sound of the other man's voice, the cold way he'd reminded Jun of her. Of how pretty and kind and sweet she'd been, and how he'd failed so completely to protect her. It was like all the ways the devil had chosen to invade his dreams brought into reality. Having the words spoken out loud had been like hot lead, like the bullet tearing through his shoulder had felt on that horrible day.
The door to the sheriff's station opened, and Jun stirred, his limbs cracking from having sat in the same position for hours. Nino was silent in the other room. Maybe he'd just given up. He heard the key turn in the lock, and Sho was back, his footsteps dragging. He'd been drinking a bit, and Jun could only figure he'd been talking to Aiba. The sheriff had been brought up to speed - but he'd never have the full story.
“Know why you got that hole in your hat,” the man slurred, removing his star and slapping it down on his dresser, followed thereafter by his holster and weapon. There was no way he could get across the room to it, and he wasn't much in the mood to hold a sheriff at gunpoint when he was already a dead man walking. For as bad as he seemed to be at his job, Sheriff Sakurai wasn't completely inept.
He decided that commenting on what Sho did or did not know wouldn't make a lick of difference. His wrist hurt something terrible though. “Gotta take a piss.”
Sho sighed and nodded. He fumbled at his belt for the handcuff key, and if Jun really wanted to, it wouldn't be hard to get the keys away since the sheriff's reflexes were slowed. There was a bucket in the corner, but Sho took him outside into the cool night air, past Ninomiya's cell where the other man was curled up in a ball, unmoving. Jun felt another stab in his gut, but the need to piss overtook it.
The sheriff walked him around the side of the building. There was an outhouse a ways back, but Sho stopped him at the rear of the sheriff's station. “Here's fine.”
Sakurai just leaned against the building with his eyes closed, exhausted, while Jun relieved himself. He didn't feel like running. Where would he go? “Done.”
“Alright.” Sho got him around the arm again, and Jun could smell the whiskey on him. Maybe sad stories really got to people from back east who thought life out west was something glamorous and exciting. Truth was that the west was a cesspool of filth and vermin who'd sell their family to pan for a little gold and slash another man's throat to avoid the bank taking his land away.
Jun had met a lot of men like Sho who'd come out west thinking of living like one of those dime novel heroes. Thinking they'd bring their civilized ways and do some real reforming. Thinking that by polishing their boots and showing how many words they knew that they'd whip people into line. Sakurai, with his soft, callus-free skin and his amiable eyes, was finally getting a real education. This place was going to kill him, as it had so many Yankee hopefuls before him.
The sheriff shuffled him back into his room, and Jun could see the gleam of the handcuffs again. His wrist was already throbbing in anticipation. Sho looked like he was going to pass out standing up. “I'm not going anywhere, Sheriff.”
Sho shook his head. “I know.” He picked up the cuffs again, putting his hand on Jun's shoulders and pushing down until he was sitting on the floor beside the sheriff's bed. “I know you're not gonna run.”
Jun allowed Sho to cuff him again, this time his hand was out to the side where it was attached to the bed post. He wouldn't be more than a foot away the whole night. He was surprised when the man pulled a blanket off the bed and tossed it on him. He didn't know whether to laugh or say thanks. He said nothing instead.
“I'll need to get you to sign off on some things tomorrow,” Sho said, taking off his vest and shrugging out of his boots. “Folks in Santa Fe will need a full report of what went down. I can send Aiba to your employer, explain what happened. Clear you of wrongdoing.”
He sighed. Nagase wouldn't believe some deputy from a no-name town. Jun looked away while the other man undressed, rustling through drawers. He nearly snorted at the sight of the sheriff, clad in clean cotton pajamas. It seemed that Sheriff Sakurai hadn't fully forgotten his roots yet.
The candle was extinguished, and the bed dipped with the other man's weight. Jun felt the mattress moving behind him as Sho sighed and settled himself under the covers like any other man going to sleep in any other town. It was passing strange indeed. “I'll just have to trust that you won't strangle me with the cuffs or your hands.”
“I'm not fixin' to kill you.”
The silence that followed was awkward. Jun tried to adjust himself a bit, moving the blanket over his lap with his free hand and stretching out his legs and leaning his head back against the mattress. Minutes passed, and the sheriff hadn't fallen asleep yet.
“How was the book?”
“Didn't read it.”
“Mmm.” It was quiet again. The bed creaked as Sho turned over, and Jun felt fingers on his hair which were quickly snatched back. “Sorry.”
He felt Sho move away. The mattress springs were noisy as he probably flattened himself against the opposite wall away from where Jun was resting his head. He tried to ignore the sensations prickling in his scalp from the contact, the tingling in his wrist. People rarely got close enough to touch him. Jun didn't allow that.
“You walked six miles with a bullet through your shoulder.”
Jun closed his eyes, body aching from the unforgiving floor. Aiba hadn't left any details out, had he? “Didn't walk.”
“Huh?”
“Said I didn't walk.” He remembered the dirt caked over the blood on his hands, the pathetic spattered trail he left on the way back from Friendship Pass. His shoulder itched, the scar on the front and the larger exit wound scar on his back reminding him of being on Doc Ogura's table and getting run out of town before he'd even had a chance to heal.
“I'm sorry.” Sho's voice was lower, quieter, and it sent a shiver down Jun's spine. “Just cooperate with me, and we'll get your situation straightened out.”
He shook his head, for all that Sho could see in the dark. No amount of explaining could get him out of this. Nagase had put all his faith in Jun, and there was no place for mistakes. He licked his lips, thirsty for water, and it would be a long night. Sho's breathing evened out, and Jun listened to the other man for a long while before sleep came to claim him too.
Chapter: 3/13
Fandom: Arashi
Character, Pairing(s): no pairings yet
Rating: R
Warnings: Language, and some potentially triggering violence..
Summary: A saloon owner with an enigmatic past, an idealistic sheriff, a remorseful shotgun messenger, and the town that unites them.
The cattle were gone.
Nothing, not more than hoof prints in the half-sand dirt lining the outskirts of Rapid Springs, and his prospects of staying alive had diminished significantly. One of Nagase's ranch hands was dead, the other missing; in one fell swoop Jun's life had gone from passably bearable to undeniably fucked. He stood staring out at the horizon past the town's borders and tried not to concentrate on the knot of dread in his belly, on flashbacks to Nagase's pistol and the blood on the uniform's half-rusted buttons.
He had half a mind to set out right then. If he got back soon enough, maybe he could explain what had happened- he'd practically begged not to have to return, and all he'd gotten for his troubles were bullets flying at his head.
There were footsteps behind him, and he turned. He wasn't expecting to see Ohno a few feet behind him, hands in his apron pockets.
"Come to jeer?" Jun asked, tiredly, looking back out to the setting sun, streaming in over the rolling hills of sand. "Or do you have a few bullets with my name on them as well?"
Ohno didn't answer right away, but took a few steps forward to follow Jun's gaze across the expanse.
"You runnin' again?" he asked, finally, breaking the quiet.
"I didn't run the first time," Jun snapped.
"Legs moved pretty fast for not running," Ohno replied, easily; he shrugged a bit, hands still deep in his pockets. He looked unconcerned, shoulders slumped forward. Jun bit back a mirthless laugh.
"Being chased has a way of increasing one's speed."
"Still runnin'," Ohno said, and Jun wanted to hit him- his patience was fried, his nerves were still screaming, and his ears were ringing with old haunts mingling with new memories. He was in no mood to deal with flippant shop keepers, let alone ones poking at his raw wounds with a stick.
"What would you have had me do?" Jun asked, tone bordering on predatory. It didn't seem to phase Ohno, but very little ever did.
The other man just shrugged again, the repeated action more pronounced the second time. "Gotta turn around and face it sometime, don't you?"
"Not when turning means taking a shot to the face."
There was a stretch of silence, and Jun could feel the other man's disapproval in the air. It settled around his shoulders and pushed, heavy and damning.
"I don't have to explain myself to you," Jun murmured, shaking his head.
"No," Ohno agreed, "but eventually you'll have to reconcile with yourself."
"I didn't do anything wrong," Jun cried, whirling on him. His hands were balled into fists so tight his nails were digging into the flesh of his palms, re-igniting his blood to boil all over again.
And Ohno just leveled him with an even gaze, unflinching even when Jun was ready to rail against him with all the strength he had left.
"Never said you did."
Jun stared at him for several long moments. The sun burned against the sky like the devil's laughing face, and it stung at his eyes; the dust, still roiling with smoke from the gunfire, was everywhere, making it difficult to breathe. Jun sucked in several burning lungfuls of air, and his heart sank a bit when there were more footsteps, and the clearing of a throat.
"Feel like clearin' up a few things?" the sheriff asked, and Jun didn't bother to turn around to face him. "Got some questions I'd like to ask."
"Bet you do," Jun mumbled.
"Look, I'm not really in the mood to argue," the sheriff said, and he laughed a little in a decidedly un-joyful manner. "Let me rephrase. Come with me to the station, because I'm going to interrogate you now."
Jun should have run when he had the chance. He should have ignored Ohno and thrown himself into the harshnes of the desert, because he would have fared better in the freezing night than he was going to in Rapid Springs. The whole damn town was just a giant ravine he was going to get lost in, unable to find his way out again, and unable to stop looking back.
There was a hand on his elbow, and he could feel the sheriff's muscles shaking as his grip tightened.
"Let's go," the law-maker said, and hauled him away from the nothingness towards the center of town once more.
---------
Matsumoto was laughing under his breath as Sho dragged him to his place. “You think this is a big joke?” he said, tightening his grip on the man's arm.
“You put me in there with Ninomiya, and I'm a dead man. You leave me out here, and I'm a dead man.” Matsumoto dragged his feet as Sho pulled him up the steps. “Whatever you do or don't do, Sheriff, I have a target on my back.”
“Don't much care,” he replied bitterly, kicking the door open and seeing Nino jump to his feet and grip the bars.
“I'll kill you, you son of a bitch!” Nino seethed. “Put him on in here, Sheriff, and I'll save you the trouble!”
“Watch your tongue, Ninomiya. I'm not done with you yet.” He watched Jun's eyes hit the floor, his face darkening. In anger? In shame? Sho couldn't tell. He stood still, keeping hold of Jun and met Nino's angry face. “You've caused me a heap of trouble today. You wanna fill me in on why you and Mr. Matsumoto don't see eye to eye?”
“He's a murderer!”
“That so?”
Jun said nothing as Nino spat in his direction. The saliva made it about halfway across the room, landing on the dusty floorboard. Nino scowled. “Bastard.”
Sho sighed. He wasn't getting a word out of Nino so long as Jun was in the room with him, and putting the two together would definitely end with one or both dead. Damn this place, he thought, only gracing him with one measly jail cell. “You sit tight,” he told Nino, thinking quickly. He hauled Jun forward, past Nino and into his living space.
Jun looked confused as Sho let go of him. “You're dead in the cell and dead outside. But maybe you'll keep in here,” he told Matsumoto. The other man stayed silent as Sho headed back into the other room, finding a decent pair of shackles. This wasn't his wisest decision, but it was the only one he had available. Both men had information, and neither would talk so long as they had the other in their sights.
“You should leave him for the vultures,” Nino told him. “Let me put a bullet between his eyes, and save you the ammo, Sheriff.”
“What'd he do? Rip you off?” Sho asked, hands on his hips. “Mess up one of your girl's faces?” He got up close until he could see the dark circles under Nino's eyes and he smirked. He was feeling a little mean, given the day's unpleasantness. “Oh, I know. It's awful lonesome out here. I bet you played a little Sodom and Gomorrah, and he never called on you again.”
Nino gripped the bars tighter, eyes raging. “Fuck you.”
Sho laughed bitterly. “Maybe if you cleared this all up, I wouldn't have to go insinuating things about your character.”
He went back into his room and slammed the door. Matsumoto was looking at the stack of books Sho kept on the top of his dresser. “You read?” he asked the other man, and Jun shook his head.
“Not a lot of leisure time.”
He rattled the handcuffs. “Can't trust you to stay put. But I can't just let you run off before you tell me what the hell's going on here.”
Jun raised an eyebrow, and Sho felt an uneasiness in his belly. He was in charge here, not this guy. Just because he was a bit green didn't make his star any less meaningful. He was about eye level with Matsumoto, give or take an inch, and it was times like these that he wished he was taller, wished he looked a little rougher around the edges. Wished he could look the slightest bit intimidating for once.
“I was here to do a job,” Jun informed him as he sat down on Sho's bed, dirtying the sheets with his filthy clothes. The other man yielded, holding out his wrist with a quirk to his lips. “The job has obviously gone south thanks to Mr. Ninomiya.”
“And I am sorry about that,” Sho admitted, undoing the cuffs and attaching one of them to his iron bedpost. Unless Matsumoto had wrists like a child or the criminal instincts to undo them, he wasn't going anywhere. He bent down, holding the other cuff open and grabbing hold of Jun's wrist.
“Hands are still soft.”
“What?”
Matsumoto looked away. “Just making an observation.”
Sho felt a buzzing in his ears, trying to ignore the low tone Matsumoto's voice had taken on. As if his words had slipped out before he could control them. Or maybe he was just messing with Sho. Maybe it was all some kind of mind game. The sheriff closed the metal handcuff, releasing Jun's wrist like it was burning hot. Then he stripped the man of his belt and holsters. He stepped back and sat down at his small table, crossing his arms and setting the weapons up on the dresser.
“You wanna tell me why Ninomiya wants you dead?”
Jun stared straight at him again, and it was downright unsettling. He didn't seem the type for a lot of eye contact, but since Doc Ogura's, Jun had been studying him, probably trying to gauge his weaknesses. Figure him out. “He's got every right to want me dead.”
Sho sighed. “You didn't answer my question.”
“Man has a grudge. I wronged him,” Jun explained. “Don't need to say much more than that, do I?”
There had been men with guns in the street, and yet Nino had come flying out of his establishment, shotgun blasting. To say that Jun had wronged Nino seemed like a terrible understatement. Sho hadn't done too much interrogating back in Boston, and the folks out here were even better at keeping things close and keeping their mouths shut. “Wish you would.”
Jun shook his wrist a bit, the cuff jangling with the sound of metal. “How long you gonna keep me like this?”
“As long as I want,” Sho replied. “Don't need to say much more than that.” He cracked his knuckles. “Do I?”
Matsumoto seemed to be holding in a smile. “You sleep in here too, Sheriff? Because I'm not fixing to share quarters with you if I can help it. Unless you have other ideas about interrogating.”
The sheriff could feel the man's eyes searching, probing again. It was like being a coyote's next meal, but before you even saw the coyote. Sho swallowed, feeling a flush rising in his face. Sho got to his feet. He tipped his hat, ignoring Matsumoto's insinuations. The frontier sure changed a man, and Sho realized that he was changing himself. He grabbed one of the dime novels from his dresser and tossed it to him. Grabbing his matchbox, he lit a candle so Jun could see. “You got some leisure time now. Enjoy.”
Now that he was standing and Jun was cuffed and helpless, he felt a bit better. Nobody was getting him in here. He gave Matsumoto one final glare before leaving, closing and locking the door after him. Nino was sitting on the bed inside the cell, fixing to go mad.
“Well, your friend's not much for talking. You planning to play the same game?”
Nino scowled. “My business is my own, and you can keep your silver spoon nose the hell out of it.”
Sho was getting increasingly frustrated. What the hell was he going to tell the territorial government? If he didn't have results, they'd send someone else to keep an eye on him. And that was the last kind of shame he needed. “Your business is my business when you fire a shotgun in the middle of my town, Ninomiya.”
“Ain't your town, Sheriff.” The other man's eyes were different from Matsumoto's. Jun was a tick, burrowing under your skin, finding your blood and sucking the life from you. In Ninomiya's eyes, you were already dead and he was a vulture picking your bones clean. “Ain't never gonna be your town.”
He cracked his knuckles, fingers itching to pull his revolver from his hip holster and fire a warning shot into his ceiling. If he didn't get out of this building, he'd end up doing so. Night had already fallen outside. It was going to be a long night. He imagined that Doc Ogura was already coordinating with Pastor White about burying the dead, but Sho wouldn't sleep until he got some answers.
Leaving his sheriff's office behind, he went back into the streets. The darkness kept the blood in the streets from standing out, but Sho knew it was still there. There was a candle lit in Aiba's window. He and his deputy had never talked much about Rapid Springs' past, but there was never going to be a better time.
He knocked on Aiba's door, and the blacksmith answered. His face was forlorn, not a look Sho was accustomed to seeing. Aiba's face almost looked wrong this way. “Hey Sheriff.” He held the door. “I knew you'd be coming.”
-------
A few inches of less-than-solid plywood and a row of iron bars were the only things separating them, and it felt like a shiver down his spine he couldn't get rid of. For a long time after Sakurai's footsteps had faded off beyond the door leading back to the dusty road of town, Nino sat with his hands gripping the mattress of the bed like a lifeline, like the only thing keeping him from going everywhere at once. He could see candlelight flickering under the door to the sheriff's quarters, but he couldn't hear anything.
He sat until he breathing got so ragged it was hitching in his chest, and then he launched himself upwards. He couldn't sit anymore, couldn't keep his limbs still; there wasn't much in the box of a jail cell other than a piss pot and the rotting bed, but the pot was better than nothing.
Nino took two giant steps across the cell and kicked it, sending it flying against the far corner with an angry, reverberating cry.
"Do us all a favor and knock that candle over," he shouted, hands balled into fists at his sides. "The ashes left would be too good a burial for you."
There was no answer, but he wasn't entirely sure he'd been expecting one.
"I promise you," he seethed, glaring down at the light from under the portal. "I promise you on her memory that I will blow your fucking brains out when I get out of here."
Again, only silence, and he railed against the bars, kicking at them with the toe of his boot. It hurt, and the iron was so dinged and rusty that it cut at the flesh of his palms.
"I know you can hear me, you son of a bitch," he yelled, shaking the bars as hard as he could. "You never should have come back here."
Rage bubbled in his throat, like boiling stew over the side of a pan.
"You never shoulda come back cause I should've killed you. I should have blown your head clean off your shoulders when I had the chance."
--
“I think that part of the floor is clean,” Ohno said quietly, watching him from the bar.
Nino kept sweeping anyhow. Concentrating on something nice and mundane kept his stomach from turning over inside of him. Today was the day. The little velvet case in his pocket was going to burn a hole there if he kept thinking about it. “What kind of man would I be, presenting her with a dirty old saloon?”
“I still think it's clean enough.”
He smiled. “What would you know about impressing a lady anyhow? All you do is fish and bake bread.”
Ohno came over and took the broom. “I like fishing.” He moved the broom to the corner. “And I like baking too.”
Nino sighed and let his eyes drift around, looking for imperfections. The bar and soon to be inn had been complete for two months, and he wanted everything to be right. This was going to be their home, their business. Together. He fumbled in his pocket, letting his fingers brush against the little case.
“What time's her coach getting in?”
“Oh, you know those things are never on time.” He chuckled. “And she's got a wagon full of her clothes and furniture and all that sorta thing.” In her last letter, she'd insisted she wasn't going to live like some savage in a tent. Nino didn't mind a bit of respectability. Rapid Springs was a town full of men mostly. Families were scarce. They'd do their best to turn that around.
Ohno clapped his hand on his shoulder. “I still can't believe she's coming all this way and you haven't given her a ring yet.”
He pulled the case out, flashing the band at his friend. “She knew what she was getting into with a fellow like me. Besides, all my money went to build this place.” The entire first month's profit from the saloon had gotten the ring from Santa Fe, but it was real silver, much as it had pained him to part with all that hard-earned cash. But there was no one else in the whole world he'd rather spend it on.
“Well, I can't wait to meet her. It'll be nice to have a pretty woman to look at from time to time.” Ohno headed for the exit. “I'm getting a little sick of your grumpy face.”
Nino laughed, throwing a bar towel at the exiting baker, but he was cut short when the sheriff came running in, face red and covered in sweat.
“Ninomiya, I...”
He felt a different sort of nervousness pass over him, like a knife was suddenly at his throat, keeping him from letting out one breath. His grip on the jewelry case tightened.
“I got some...something terrible's happened...”
--
Aiba stepped to one side to let the sheriff in- he'd been expecting him, really, somewhere in his head. Sakurai looked tired. The lines on his face looked like the ones that had striated the old sheriff's brow. They were the kind of lines that never really went away, the kind that stayed with you even when you succumbed to dreams.
"Care for a drink?" Aiba offered, pulling out a bottle of whiskey from one of the hope chest drawers. It'd been awhile since he'd hit the bottle- been awhile since he'd needed to.
"No," Sho said. He didn't sit. "Thank you."
Aiba poured two shot glasses anyway. He knew what the sheriff had come for, and if Sho wouldn't drink it- well, shame to let it go to waste, after all. He licked the droplets that spilled on his thumb and grimaced, replacing the stopper on the bottle again.
"Long day," Aiba said. He glanced over. Sho was still standing, hands on his hips; he looked like he both dreaded and welcomed sitting down.
"Got a feelin' it's gonna get longer," Sho said. He gave Aiba a pointed glance, and the blacksmith rubbed his palms against his apron.
"Just leave it alone," he suggested, knowing full well the sheriff wouldn't heed the advice.
"Can't," Sho answered, curt. "Gotta man in my cell who fired on innocents, and a stranger who won't talk, yet seems to know everybody else in town. Neither of them will give me any answers."
He trailed off, and Aiba didn't offer anything in the silence. When the sheriff finally realized that, he cleared his throat.
"I don't want to pull rank here, deputy," he said, pointedly, and Aiba let his shoulders slump forward a little further. He reached for the first shot of whiskey. It burned, but not as bad as the memories still did- always did. "But I will."
"It's old business," Aiba said, wheezing a bit from the liquor.
"Not today."
He was clearly not going to get out of it- so Aiba reached for the second shot, and gulped that down, too.
--
"Answer me, else I'll pull out your tongue myself!"
The door did little to actually muffle the sounds, and Jun feverently wished it did more. The cuffs were sharp against his wrists, and a little tight- either the sheriff had misjudged the necessary space, or trusted Jun even less than he'd insinuated. Tugging only made it worse, so Jun just leaned back against the side of the bed.
There was silence, and he thought maybe Ninomiya had given up.
"Her favorite color was blue," came the next bit, softer; softer, but far more dangerous. "She was gonna decorate our room in blue, did you know that? Said it was cleansing, to wake up to, like the sky without clouds."
Jun squeezed his eyes shut. There was no way to block the sound- or the images that rose unbidden to his mind.
"Think I would have liked a blue bedroom," Ninomiya continued. "Think I would have liked being married. Would have been something, wouldn't it?"
A pause, and then an angry thud, like kicks against the offending iron holding him back.
"Huh? Wouldn't it?"
It would have been something. She'd said the same thing, all bright eyes and blonde curls, with dimples on her cheeks when she smiled- laughed the same way, with a little cock to her head. She'd laughed the whole time, til the end, overcome with the giddiness of her arrival; not at the end, though. She hadn't been laughing at the end at all.
Bile rose hot in the back of Jun's throat, and he couldn't swallow it down.
--
"Why don't you start at the beginning, deputy?"
Sho finally sat, spurs scraping against the wood, and Aiba reached for the bottle again to refill the glasses.
"Don't know the beginning, sheriff," he replied. "Only know the parts that came here."
"And what parts were those?" Sho asked.
Another swig, and the burn was multiplied.
"She was comin' from back East. Comin' by train, and then by coach."
"Who was?" the sheriff asked. His voice had dropped a little bit, bravado tapering off; maybe he was beginning to realize that the situation wasn't as simple as he wished it could be. There were some things that star on his lapel wasn't going to fix, and muddling his hands in them was only going to stir the pot worse in the wrong direction.
"Ninomiya's girl," Aiba said. It was hard to choke out. "Fiance."
Nino had smiled back then, hadn't he? It was hard to remember, but the image was still there, layered beneath the grime and tears and hot sun when they put her in the ground just past the church yard. There was a long silence, and what sounded like a sigh from the other side of the room.
"Think I'll be takin' that drink now," Sho said, finally. Aiba walked it over to him. When the sheriff's fingers closed around the glass, he looked up, eyes hooded. "Aiba?"
"Mm?"
Knuckles whitened. "What exactly happened?"
--
Ohno was watching the saloon, for all that Nino had paid attention as he'd bolted for the nearest horse he could find. The sheriff had huffed and puffed after him, getting on his own horse. The man had said nothing as they rode out of town, and Nino knew it was not good. His hands were trembling as he held the reins.
When he saw the overturned wagon, they were deep in Friendship Pass, high canyon walls on either side. They were only six miles from town. She'd come all this way, and she'd only had six miles to go. He'd barely slowed the horse to a trot when he leapt off, his feet stinging in his shoes from the impact as he ran.
The deputy, Aiba the blacksmith, had already seen him. “Nino, stop!” The man came hurrying over, throwing his arms around him to try and stop him from moving forward. “You don't need to see, please.” Nino felt like he was in a fog, Aiba's desperately trying to keep him back. The blacksmith had tears in his eyes. “You don't need to see.”
His throat was nearly dry, but he shoved Aiba away. “Get the hell off of me!” The deputy stepped back, and Nino continued forward, seeing the tipped wagon. There were dresses strewn every which way, end tables and bed linens, and he finally had to look away when he saw her sewing basket with needles and thread tossed ever so cruelly into the dirt.
The stagecoach was just beyond, door wrenched open, and he saw blood in the dirt, a trail leading its way, guiding Nino's footsteps like a marker. First, a leather boot with delicate laces. A stocking. And his heart ripped right in half when he went behind the large rock where they'd left her. He didn't scream. He wanted to. Wanted to shout and cry and curse, but she was here, and she'd never much cared for him using dirty language.
He knelt beside her, seeing the pale skin of her throat ripped apart by some bandit's jagged blade. Her eyes were closed, and Nino could only imagine that Aiba had thought to do so before he'd gotten there. Try as he did to look away, they'd shoved her dress up to her hips. He recognized the brown muslin fabric. He'd sent the money to her, and she'd written to him, saying she'd be wearing it the next time their eyes met. Flesh he'd never seen, uncovered and bloodied, and he knew instantly that those bastards hadn't been satisfied just to kill her.
His hand shook as he tugged on the muslin and the torn petticoat beneath, pulling the dress back down to give her the dignity she deserved. He tasted salt, and his tears were falling all over, try as he might to fight against it. “I'm sorry, I'm sorry,” he mumbled, reaching for her hand. The little box was still in his pocket, and he pulled it free, opening it.
He'd gotten the size perfect, and the silver gleamed in the harsh sun as he slipped it onto her finger. “Hope you like it. Took me a whole month of saving, and you know I don't like parting with my money.” He laughed, low in his throat, as he brushed some of her hair from her face. “You're always on me about being thrifty, I'm sorry.”
There was a shadow in the dirt beside him, and he could hear audible crying. Aiba was keeping watch. He bent over, and her lips were as soft as the day they'd parted a year earlier with a promise and a shared dream. “Made that soup your mama always did when I came over. It's back at the bar. Enough to feed a whole wagon train, but I don't think it's as good as hers. I'm sorry.”
He turned to see Aiba holding a hat Nino didn't recognize. There was a bullet hole shot clean through the brim of it. “Doc Ogura's coming,” Aiba said, his face streaked with tear tracks. “The man who was escorting...well, he crawled all bloody back to town and told me and the sheriff...”
Nino's vision nearly went dark. “He's still alive?”
Aiba hesitated. “I...I don't know, we left and...”
He got to his feet, wrenching the hat from the deputy's hand. “That bastard's still breathing?!”
“Don't do nothing rash, Nino. Please. Not now.” Nino wanted to rip the hat in half, but she was still here. She always hated him in a temper. He could still see the ring on her hand, shining. Putting the hat on his own bare head, he crouched down and lifted her. “Hey, the Doc's coming. You don't have to...”
“Aiba, clear the way.”
He held her, and even now she was light as a feather. In her last letter, she'd complained about losing weight from some nasty flu she'd caught. The deputy moved aside, wiping his eyes with a handkerchief. The hat had another man's sweat on it. He could smell it as he carried her through Friendship Pass, past the overturned wagon and the horse he'd arrived on.
--
"She wasn't much of a cook, but she was aimin' to get better," Nino said. The rust from the iron had cut the skin 'round his fingernails, and he couldn't quite register the pain. It ran together with all the rest. "Said she'd be the cook at our hotel, and feed all the travelers."
From within the sheriff's quarters there was a soft bang- a heel against the floor. Then again. Matsumoto was trying to drown him out.
"She used to sing while she cleaned," Nino continued, raising the decibel of his voice. "Did she sing while you were traveling? Did she sing as you rode through the desert?"
Someone was laughing, and it took a long moment for him to realize it was coming from between his own mouth. It was hysterical, a giddy release, and his entire body shook with the force of it. His palms trembled against the bars as he pressed against them.
"Did she sing when they came from behind? Did she sing while you let them cut her throat open?"
"Stop it." Finally, a response- a response far too late, far too little.
"Did she sing when they forced themselves on her like she was a common whore?" He was screaming, raging against the bars. "Did she?!"
"Stop it!"
"It should have been you!" Nino yelled. There was a warbling to his tone, and he could taste hot salt on his lips. He hadn't cried for her in a long time- and he'd forgotten how much it hurt, how much the action tore at his chest. "It should have been you they killed, you fucking murderer! Better your blood on their knife than hers!"
The sob choked him, clogging his throat. Unable to dislodge it, he kicked at the bars again.
"It should have been you!"
"And I wish it would have been!" came the response from beyond the door.
--
Aiba had followed on his horse, offering every few minutes to help carry his burden, but Nino wouldn't let any other man touch her. Not now. He'd fallen to his knees a few time, in the heat and in his grief, but she wouldn't lay in the dirt again until a minister had blessed the ground. His feet were blistering in his shoes.
“I can see the steeple of the church right now,” he told her. “You'll like Pastor White. He's already got it reserved for next Saturday morning. I mean, if that day's still good for you. If it's too sudden, we can change the day.”
The sun beat down on his back as he stumbled his way to the town entrance, hearing the clopping steps of Aiba's horse a few paces behind. “There's a creek bed just outside of town. Ohno...you'll like him, he's a good man. But anyhow, Mr. Ohno goes fishing there whenever there's water. He doesn't catch nothing, but he just likes to go. His bread's the best. It'll go great with your spare ribs.”
Doc Ogura was already driving out his wagon, when he made it to the town entrance. The older man halted his horses, stepping down. “Ninomiya, I'm sorry.”
Aiba pulled his horse up along side. “Let's get her to the Doc's place, Nino, okay? Is that okay?”
“Huh?”
The Doc was already holding his arms out, and Aiba had his hand on his shoulder. “It's okay, Nino, we can help you,” Aiba said.
“Don't need help,” he replied, continuing his walk, past the doctor's wagon. He couldn't let her go, not yet. She hadn't seen the saloon yet. The hat was still on his head, and he could already feel the shotgun in his hands, couldn't wait to get it out from under the bar. But she was in his arms, and he wouldn't dare let her see him doing something like that.
The doctor and Aiba followed behind, too close, as others stepped out of their houses and businesses to spy on things they had no right to spy on. “Aiba, the deputy. He's a blacksmith too. I couldn't tell you which job he's better at, to be truthful.” Nino heard sniffling behind him and tried not to join in with the deputy's tears.
Finally, they made it, and Nino could feel pride swelling in his chest as he carried her to the swinging doors. “I know it took you ages to come, but here it is. Ninomiya's Saloon. I'm sure you can come up with a better name. We've got a room here, and I haven't decorated it too much. You know I don't have an eye for that sort of thing. I made sure they built enough space for your vanity table and your nice mirror. I think you'll like it. And the bar's cherry wood, got a great color to it. I mean, for a bar in a dusty hole like Rapid Springs.”
Ohno was there, and he was crying too. Like the whole town already knew. The other man said nothing, just holding the doors open so he could carry her inside. He heard Aiba and Ohno and Ogura talking behind him at the entrance, something about the man getting a shot clean through his shoulder and his hat. Nino kept that in the back of his mind as he held her tight and got her to the room he'd prepared for them, what would have been their marriage bed come Saturday.
Nino didn't scream until he laid her down in the bed and her blood hit the linen blanket.
--
The sheriff was silent for a long time, eyes focused somewhere far beyond the walls of the small room Aiba kept at the side of the forge.
"Wasn't his fault," he said, finally. He reached for the whiskey bottle, foregoing the glasses completely. "Bandits are everywhere 'round these parts. It's just- the nature of this place. But it wasn't his fault."
"No," Aiba agreed. "Wasn't."
Sho chewed on his bottom lip, contemplative.
"So that's it?" he asked, finally meeting Aiba's gaze again. "That's the story? He left?"
"No," Aiba said, with a mirthless laugh. "He didn't leave. He got ran outta town at gunpoint."
"And never came back."
"And never came back," Aiba echoed. Another period of quiet, and the sheriff sighed, running a hand wearily through his hair.
"He picked a fine time to come back to Rapid Springs," he mused.
------
Ninomiya had finally quieted down, screaming himself to sleep. Every second of silence reminded Jun about the cows, about the hands and about Nagase's gleaming Army-issue revolver pointing in his face.
The candle wax had dripped all over Sheriff Sakurai's crooked table, and the cuff on his wrist was chafing him, leaving deep red indentations in his skin. It'd be another day at least before the other kid got back to Nagase, and that was if he hadn't been scared so completely that he'd taken off in the other direction. But it didn't matter. Nagase would find out, and Nagase knew enough people in the territory that he'd be discovered and brought back to the ranch. Would Nagase shoot on site or drag it out? Would he have the jacket on?
Well, that was if Ninomiya didn't kill him first. He couldn't forget the sound of the other man's voice, the cold way he'd reminded Jun of her. Of how pretty and kind and sweet she'd been, and how he'd failed so completely to protect her. It was like all the ways the devil had chosen to invade his dreams brought into reality. Having the words spoken out loud had been like hot lead, like the bullet tearing through his shoulder had felt on that horrible day.
The door to the sheriff's station opened, and Jun stirred, his limbs cracking from having sat in the same position for hours. Nino was silent in the other room. Maybe he'd just given up. He heard the key turn in the lock, and Sho was back, his footsteps dragging. He'd been drinking a bit, and Jun could only figure he'd been talking to Aiba. The sheriff had been brought up to speed - but he'd never have the full story.
“Know why you got that hole in your hat,” the man slurred, removing his star and slapping it down on his dresser, followed thereafter by his holster and weapon. There was no way he could get across the room to it, and he wasn't much in the mood to hold a sheriff at gunpoint when he was already a dead man walking. For as bad as he seemed to be at his job, Sheriff Sakurai wasn't completely inept.
He decided that commenting on what Sho did or did not know wouldn't make a lick of difference. His wrist hurt something terrible though. “Gotta take a piss.”
Sho sighed and nodded. He fumbled at his belt for the handcuff key, and if Jun really wanted to, it wouldn't be hard to get the keys away since the sheriff's reflexes were slowed. There was a bucket in the corner, but Sho took him outside into the cool night air, past Ninomiya's cell where the other man was curled up in a ball, unmoving. Jun felt another stab in his gut, but the need to piss overtook it.
The sheriff walked him around the side of the building. There was an outhouse a ways back, but Sho stopped him at the rear of the sheriff's station. “Here's fine.”
Sakurai just leaned against the building with his eyes closed, exhausted, while Jun relieved himself. He didn't feel like running. Where would he go? “Done.”
“Alright.” Sho got him around the arm again, and Jun could smell the whiskey on him. Maybe sad stories really got to people from back east who thought life out west was something glamorous and exciting. Truth was that the west was a cesspool of filth and vermin who'd sell their family to pan for a little gold and slash another man's throat to avoid the bank taking his land away.
Jun had met a lot of men like Sho who'd come out west thinking of living like one of those dime novel heroes. Thinking they'd bring their civilized ways and do some real reforming. Thinking that by polishing their boots and showing how many words they knew that they'd whip people into line. Sakurai, with his soft, callus-free skin and his amiable eyes, was finally getting a real education. This place was going to kill him, as it had so many Yankee hopefuls before him.
The sheriff shuffled him back into his room, and Jun could see the gleam of the handcuffs again. His wrist was already throbbing in anticipation. Sho looked like he was going to pass out standing up. “I'm not going anywhere, Sheriff.”
Sho shook his head. “I know.” He picked up the cuffs again, putting his hand on Jun's shoulders and pushing down until he was sitting on the floor beside the sheriff's bed. “I know you're not gonna run.”
Jun allowed Sho to cuff him again, this time his hand was out to the side where it was attached to the bed post. He wouldn't be more than a foot away the whole night. He was surprised when the man pulled a blanket off the bed and tossed it on him. He didn't know whether to laugh or say thanks. He said nothing instead.
“I'll need to get you to sign off on some things tomorrow,” Sho said, taking off his vest and shrugging out of his boots. “Folks in Santa Fe will need a full report of what went down. I can send Aiba to your employer, explain what happened. Clear you of wrongdoing.”
He sighed. Nagase wouldn't believe some deputy from a no-name town. Jun looked away while the other man undressed, rustling through drawers. He nearly snorted at the sight of the sheriff, clad in clean cotton pajamas. It seemed that Sheriff Sakurai hadn't fully forgotten his roots yet.
The candle was extinguished, and the bed dipped with the other man's weight. Jun felt the mattress moving behind him as Sho sighed and settled himself under the covers like any other man going to sleep in any other town. It was passing strange indeed. “I'll just have to trust that you won't strangle me with the cuffs or your hands.”
“I'm not fixin' to kill you.”
The silence that followed was awkward. Jun tried to adjust himself a bit, moving the blanket over his lap with his free hand and stretching out his legs and leaning his head back against the mattress. Minutes passed, and the sheriff hadn't fallen asleep yet.
“How was the book?”
“Didn't read it.”
“Mmm.” It was quiet again. The bed creaked as Sho turned over, and Jun felt fingers on his hair which were quickly snatched back. “Sorry.”
He felt Sho move away. The mattress springs were noisy as he probably flattened himself against the opposite wall away from where Jun was resting his head. He tried to ignore the sensations prickling in his scalp from the contact, the tingling in his wrist. People rarely got close enough to touch him. Jun didn't allow that.
“You walked six miles with a bullet through your shoulder.”
Jun closed his eyes, body aching from the unforgiving floor. Aiba hadn't left any details out, had he? “Didn't walk.”
“Huh?”
“Said I didn't walk.” He remembered the dirt caked over the blood on his hands, the pathetic spattered trail he left on the way back from Friendship Pass. His shoulder itched, the scar on the front and the larger exit wound scar on his back reminding him of being on Doc Ogura's table and getting run out of town before he'd even had a chance to heal.
“I'm sorry.” Sho's voice was lower, quieter, and it sent a shiver down Jun's spine. “Just cooperate with me, and we'll get your situation straightened out.”
He shook his head, for all that Sho could see in the dark. No amount of explaining could get him out of this. Nagase had put all his faith in Jun, and there was no place for mistakes. He licked his lips, thirsty for water, and it would be a long night. Sho's breathing evened out, and Jun listened to the other man for a long while before sleep came to claim him too.