Firstly, thank you for the kind reviews and I'm very sorry for neglecting to update. I tend to fall behind with these kinds of things and (well) everything else.

I just remembered as I was finishing this chapters that there are a few things you should probably know:

This is set in Arizona, because I wasn't creative enough to pick a new state, but it's set a solid few years before the movie takes place. I guess you could say it's kind of about how people become the way they are.

So that's enough cryptic messaging for now... read read read!

Chapter Two: Common Knowledge

Will did not hear the gunshots being fired outside of town, and upon future reflection, she would later decide that it wouldn't have mattered either way. There were no precautions she could have taken against her life being turned so completely upside down. It played out in her head over and over again, and it always turned out the same way.

Had she heard the gunshots, Will would have paused as she poured drinks, doing a non-visual double take. She would not, of course, have believed her ears. But when four more shots rang out across the Arizona skyline, she would have known for certain that something was wrong, that trouble was afoot not too far off. She would have put down the bottle of whatever alcohol she happened to be pouring and taken a moment in the back room to collect herself. She would have been startled but unafraid, and certainly not panicky enough to ask Jocelyn to work through her approaching break so she'd have some backup if the afooted trouble arrived. No. When Josie came to the back room to check on her, Will would have said that she was just getting a new keg because the old one was nearly out. Jocelyn would not have cared enough to question and would have gone on her break in fifteen minutes with nothing on her mind but visiting Arthur at his father's shop.

But Will didn't need to lie about the keg or worry about the repercussions of gunshots because she didn't hear them, and when it really came down to it, this changed nothing, because Jocelyn went on her break and Will was left to tend the bar and everything got on as it would have done anyway; it was just all the more surprising when the band of criminals piled in.

Will had never seen an outlaw up close before and therefore had no way of knowing what they were when they walked in, the sunshine attacking her eyes and clouding her vision of their faces. They carried a lot of guns, she noticed, but this was Arizona and everybody carried guns; she herself kept a pistol under the counter to protect herself during her shifts. The real fishy thing was the way they walked, the confident swaggers that seemed at the same time to be a conscious effort, like blending in was a practiced skill. By the time they started pulling men out of their seats and leading them to the door, Will had pegged them and steeled herself. In her heart of hearts, there was only one true criminal, and she knew his face well from the wanted posters.

Will recognized Ben Wade the first time she saw him: not as tall as she'd expected, but with a concrete presence that more than made up for it. She recognized Charlie Prince, the understatedly notorious right-hand man who had the stillest hands she'd ever seen, and the bluest eyes. She recognized various faces, names, all gunmen, all killers. Men like these could kill boys like Tommy before anyone could blink, could draw, shoot, and take off as easy as the sun shines or the wind blows or the heat comes off the sand in waves.

In roughly five seconds she worked this out, and was unafraid.

It didn't take her long to figure out the degree to which Ben Wade was in charge. The men didn't seem to want to sit down until he did; they loitered around the tables and shuffled their feet until he had settled himself at one end of the bar, at which point they joined him. When he tipped his hat to her, they all mimicked him. He ordered the drinks and Will, understanding the hierarchy, poured his first. He didn't look at her, and she was glad, because she didn't think she could have handled herself if she'd been made to meet his eyes. A cold fury was pulsing through her, turning her blood thick and syrupy and making her head pound. The same hands that gripped the glass were the hands that had held the gun that killed her brother, left him to bleed in the desert.

She could shoot him right now, she thought as she screwed the cap back on the alcohol and returned it to its place on the wall behind the bar. She was considering it, too, taking the pistol out from under the counter and shooting the bastard right between the eyes. She was a quick shot, and it wasn't doubt that stopped her; it was her father. He was sitting at home right now, waiting for her to come and feed him dinner. Will could have killed Ben Wade if she wanted to, but she imagined that the still hands of Charlie Prince wouldn't remain so if someone took his master from him. Will would die just as surely as Wade.

"The wagon's ready in the back," said a male voice from behind her. She cooled, listened. "James and Arden are loading it up. It's small. Two horses will take it, easy."

Will felt a chill creep up her spine, an electrifying bout of excitement. A wagon meant they were moving something. Money.

"Good," said another man who could only be Ben Wade. "We'll ride across the border. You'll meet us there later."

"Me? Boss -- "

"Yes you, Charlie," said Ben Wade. "You're the only person I trust not to run once you've got the wagon. We'll leave today. In one week, when the chaos has died down, you'll wait until it gets dark and then you'll follow us. We'll meet you at the Hotel Reina in Nogales. Can you handle that?"

"Of course," said Charlie Prince, opting to be flattered by his boss's offering of trust rather than insulted by the condescending tone to his voice.

"Then we don't have a problem, do we?" Will heard him drain the rest of his drink and set it down on the bar. "Excuse me, miss."

She turned around and kept her face determinedly expressionless. He smiled politely and she felt every inch of her revolt from within. It took all of her strength not to show it.

"Room for one," he said. "A week's stay."

She took his money and got him his key. He stared at her strangely, examining her face in a close and concentrated way that was unnerving. She kept her eyes fixed firmly on his, refusing to be weak and turn away.

"You look familiar," he said at last. "Have we met before?"

"I'm sure that I'd remember our meeting, Mr. Wade," she said dryly. He chuckled.

"Yes, I'm sure you would," he said, shifting in his chair as if to see her from a new angle, "but I'll be damned if those aren't the greenest pair of eyes I've ever seen. I knew a girl with eyes like that once."

Will slid the room key across the table to him. "I'm not her," she said gently.

He smiled. "No," he said, "I suppose you're not."

He got up and his company followed him, replacing hats and pulling pants up with their hands looped beneath their belts. Even Charlie Prince, who'd been chosen to stay behind, got up to see Ben Wade out the door. They exchanged a brief and quiet goodbye at the door, none of which Will caught. Ben Wade tossed her one last look over his shoulder before he left, and she set her jaw. She would not do him the honour of letting him see her smile.

Charlie Prince looked much smaller and very alone once his comrades were gone. He didn't seem to know what to do with himself, and the air became thick with the silence that filled the empty room. Will should've said something to him; it was her job to make small talk with men who had nothing else to do, but she couldn't think of what to say. He was holding the key in his hand, watching his fellows leave on horseback.

"Can I do anything else for you, sir?" Will asked at last, but it didn't matter; he didn't seem to hear her, to remember that he was not alone in the bar. After a few minutes it must have occured to him because he turned around, but he didn't answer her question. He smiled in a way that was not entirely friendly and then left, walking down the hall to, she guessed, find the room whose number was marked on his key. She watched him go. When his back had disappeared, she started clearing away the glasses that they'd left on the bar, the wheels in her mind turning.

From what she'd heard, she could figure out most of what was going on. Ben Wade had just stolen money. A good amount of money, it sounded like, otherwise he wouldn't need a wagon to transport it. He was going to let the authorities put their heads and false pretences back on, giving Charlie Prince an easy out. He'd bring the money to them in Mexico and they'd disappear, once again slipping through the sheriff's fingers and under the radar. He was clever, Will had to admit, but he obviously hadn't counted on her having a head attached to her shoulders, because he hadn't considered the consequences of telling an outsider his entire plan.

So Will started to devise her own. She wasn't a bad person by nature, but she was human and she had needs. One was money. She and her father couldn't keep going the way they were; they needed to pay for their water, their food. Another was revenge. She hated to think of Ben Wade living the rest of his life thinking that he could take and do whatever he wanted. He should be made to pay for his crimes. Now she had a way to do that.

It was a simple enough plan. Maybe part of Will's problem was that she never paused to think about whether or not it was too simple, whether she wasn't giving the infamous Ben Wade (and his followers) enough credit. It's difficult to say whether this kind of thought process would have helped her.

She knew when Charlie Prince was planning to leave. One week from that day, he would wait until night and then he'd hook up his wagon and disappear. All she had to do was kill him before he skipped town. She'd take some of the money out of that wagon: enough to make sure that she wouldn't have to worry about herself anymore. Then she'd report Ben Wade's location to the sheriff so he could send one of his little scouting parties out and arrest him. Ben Wade would be put into prison and hung like any other man who stole from someone else. He would be cut down to size and destroyed.

Will smiled as she put the glasses in the washing tub, her dress sticking to her waist as she moved. Who said revenge was best served cold?

Charlie Prince wasn't the type of person who enjoyed being idle. He loved planning for a job, loved the thrill of success. He knew that it was his responsibility to Ben Wade to stay behind and take care of the wagon, but it didn't make him any less uncomfortable to have to sit alone in the hotel room like a watch dog, waiting for one night, then the next, then the next, until he knew that the boss had reached Nogales and was safe.

Charlie's loyalty to Ben Wade was not something to be suspicious of on any count. It had been created out of debt by an honest man who had no reason to pretend that he was anything he wasn't. To assume that Charlie Prince had some ulterior motive was to assume that he'd beat around the bush if he did. He wouldn't. If he'd wanted something more than trust from Ben Wade, he would have taken it long ago.

Charlie knew in some deep place that Ben Wade didn't necessarily need him. He was an asset, certainly; he could shoot better than anyone else in the outfit besides the boss himself and he didn't particularly care what man the gun was aimed at. He didn't need to question why a man's life should be taken.

Sometimes things just went bad.