Sadie

We sat by the fire recounting the last five years of our lives to the detective. He barely interrupted, listening intently and only stopping us to ask poignant questions. Little of what we said seemed to phase him, and I began to wonder if the outside world really was safer than the gathering.

"How much time do you spend out at the camps?"

Darcy and I exchanged a look. "We never go to the camps. The women who do, can't come back."

"There's only one reason to visit those soldiers." Darcy said.

That gave the sergeant pause and he stared at us. "Prostitution. Here?"

We nodded and Ken asked, "What do the soldiers use for payment?"

"Anything really. Whiskey, rum, food. Anything from the outside. For some of the girls it's worth it to have the convenience of toilet paper, even at the risk of the marshall or his men rousting them from the camps and turning them out."

"Turning them out?"

We nodded.

"To the wilderness." Darcy said.

"Wait...someone...breaks the rules in his town and the marshall's response is to banish them?"

Darcy's chin fell against her chest and she studied the ground quietly. I knew what she was thinking but I waited for her to tell him.

"That's what he says he does." She began. "...but I think he kills them. Or worse." Tears were sparkling in Darcy's eyes when she looked up again. "I made a skirt for a friend of mine, the first year I was here. She came out and lived with us a while, but she fell in love with a soldier and they wanted to get married. She went out to see him every night and she got caught. We were told that they were both banished, and we thought...we thought that meant they went back to the city. That they just couldn't come to the gathering anymore."

Darcy swallowed but the tears had already begun to pearl on her cheeks. "A week later the marshal's girl had on the same skirt I made for my friend. I'd worked so hard on it, I knew it by heart."

"Were you ever able to find a body? A grave? Anything?"

Darcy shook her head.

"What happened last year?"

Darcy and I looked at each other, surprised that the sergeant knew about it, even to ask.

"A man was killed. At the Saturday night dance." I responded, suddenly feeling guilty, as if I had been the one to pull the trigger.

"The "marshal" has a gun ordinance in place, I hardly think he'd let that go without some form of retribution."

"The marshal pulled the trigger." I said, feeling the words leave me like a curse. "He accused Walter of stealing a horse, just like your friend there. At first, we….we thought it was a gag. Something new and interesting that the marshal had worked up to bring a little drama into things."

"But the bullets weren't fake?"

We shook our heads in unison.

"The...the guy in the black frock coat. The reverend. Was he there last year?"

Before either of us could answer, a weary voice spoke from behind the sergeant. "Oh..he was there. Playing the same game he played this time around."

Ken was on his feet before Darcy or I could think to move, supporting his partner, his hands clasped around the Yankee's biceps. I couldn't remember his last name, but his first name was the same as my brother, David. I hadn't seen David since my first year at the gathering and I very suddenly wanted to do everything in my power to help this David escape.

Darcy moved to shift the hot water pot back over the flames and started digging in her box of herbs. I took a step toward the two men, wanting to help Dave onto the log his partner had been perched on most of the night, but Ken waved me away.

By the time he was settled, a blanket wrapped loosely over his shoulders, the water in the pot was boiling and Darcy had a cup of leaves ready. She tipped a jigger's worth of whiskey into the cup as well then handed it to Dave.

For a long moment both men stared at us, jaws hanging open.

"What?" Darcy finally demanded.

Ken and David exchanged a look so much like those that Darcy and I used that I had to smile.

"We've just...been stumbling around blind trying to play at living like it was the mid-1800s and the two of you...you don't even flinch." Ken explained, before he leaned toward the steaming cup in his partner's hand.

David pulled it away before Ken could get a whiff, and blew at the steam before taking a sip. I giggled at the look David gave Darcy, knowing that most people weren't accustomed to the taste of herbs steeped in hot water, at least without a sweetener.

Darcy bent to return the water pot to the S-hook hanging over the fire and sat. "You get used to it quickly when you don't have a choice."

"I heard some of what you said." David told us, his eyes a little brighter now that he had whiskey in his system. "You've put up with more than most women could handle."

"Nothing more than our ancestors did." Darcy said, suddenly surly. "But none of them did it without sleep."

"Oh...I'm sorry." Ken started, but Darcy put her hand up to stop him.

"It's been a long night, and tomorrow is going to be longer. Sadie and I usually sleep in shifts anyway. It's a blessing to have two more people around, even if they are keeping us awake."

"I won't anymore, I promise." Ken said.

"Tent is all yours, ladies." David said.

Hutch

I waited, staring at the fire until the ladies had settled into the tent and blown out the lantern. The night sounds around us seemed louder now that I wasn't digging as much as I could out of Sadie and Darcy.

I glanced at my partner. The eye that had swollen shut was closest to me but I could see the lashes of the other eye flickering lazily beyond the bridge of his nose. He was awake, staring at the same fire I was staring at, but miles away.

"I thought I would ride the damn thing into camp. Be a real hero." Starsky said finally.

I shifted enough so that I could lean back against the log with my elbows propped, and said nothing.

"I knew better. I knew I had no business riding a horse, no business jumping off that wagon. But I was getting dirty looks all around and we had to find a way in...I figured-" Starsky shrugged his left shoulder, grunted softly, then took in a careful breath. "Get the horse, return it to the reverend, prove myself to a couple of those guys, and I'd have bragging rights for a day or two."

The side of Starsky's mouth curved up in a wry grin, but there was little mirth in my partner.

"No sooner had I settled my butt in the saddle, and the marshal and his men came tearing around the corner. They terrified the horse. It took off. I held on." The aloof tone bled out of Starsky's voice and his face tensed, his eyes no longer roaming but staring dead ahead.

"I heard the marshal shout, 'Horse thief.' And I thought, 'How can I steal something I can't even control?' They caught up with me, dragged me outta the saddle, yanked off my coat and tied me to a tree." Starsky drained his cup in one gulp then stared at the empty tin until I took it from him.

I sat up, and got to my feet to fill it again, if not with hot water, than with the whiskey. With his hands free, Starsky touched his own face, testing the swelling around his eye and the edges of the cut just above it.

"It's different, when somebody's hittin' ya because he wants something else. Money, names, freedom. You know there's an end goal. All you have to do is give in...and it'll stop."

Starsky took the cup when I offered it to him, but hesitated to drink. I sipped from mine, sitting down on his good side so that I could see him, and he could see me.

"When he's hitting you because he enjoys it. Because its-" Starsky's voice cut off, and his lips tightened.

"He enjoyed it, Hutch." Starsky dragged a hard breath into his lungs. "H-he took his time. He stood...behind me and narrated...Told me how long he'd been perfecting the art. He told me what my back looked like. What it was going to look like in a day. Two days. A week. He knew because he'd done it before."

Starsky swallowed and a pool of liquid gathered in his good eye then fell. "I couldn't move. I couldn't fight. I did this…" He said finally, pointing at the cut over his eye. "I smashed my head against that tree until it bled, hoping that if I was unconscious…" Starsky's voice dropped. "...he would stop."

"I'm sorry." I tried to say it louder than the hoarse whisper that I'd managed, but my voice was twisted in a knot.

Starsky shook his head, no more than a centimeter. "You couldn't have known. If it had been you, and not me, I couldn't have known." Starsky fought for a moment, jaw tense, eyes welling with what he couldn't hold back. He swallowed and said, "I was scared. I was hurting." He cleared his throat and swiped at the wetness on his face, then finally tipped the whiskey in his cup into his mouth.

"The reverend stopped it." He said, and shot me a sideways glance. A puff of air came out of him, a pale reflection of a laugh. "By then I couldn't tell if it was an act, some bizarre part of the plan or...or if he'd really seen enough."

"What do you want to do?"

Starsky blinked, then stared at me with his good eye, surprised by the question.

"Get the hell out." He said at first, then wiped at his cheek and said, "Get those girls, and head west and ask the army to bomb this place off the map."

We were quiet long enough for the fire to dim and start shooting sparks. I tossed a few split logs on the coals and they caught readily.

"Why don't we bomb it ourselves?"

"What?"

"We got cannons five miles that way. Plenty of black powder. There are small battalions of men that go out every three days to hunt, so you know they have live ammunition."

"Hutch...you're talkin' crazy. Or your drunk."

"As far as he's concerned, the "marshal" is the supreme authority out here, right? He probably bought the town or laid a claim to the land. He's no more a real marshal than I am a real Confederate soldier. We're all fakes here. But the marshal has been doing his damnedest to make it real. So...why don't we lend him a hand?"

"Because there are at least fifty innocent civilians living in that town." Starsky said, his voice picking up in volume.

"So we move 'em."

"Aw you are crazy."

"Think about it, partner. With his dirt bike and his goons and his guns the marshal can afford to spend whole days chasing down deserters and horse thieves as long as there's only one, or two. If the whole town breaks the law... "

"We're practically fugitives." Starsky protested, enunciating each word. "I can hardly sit up straight, and we're free only because of two girls, who are also now fugitives, that took pity on us."

"Two girls that know thirty girls who would be just as willing to help if they thought they had a fighting chance." The statement came from the tent, and I recognized the tenor of Sadie's voice right away.

"The men out on that battlefield are there, Starsky, because they want to honor the memory of their forefathers. They're living that history because it means something to them. You don't think they'll be rip roarin' ready to tear the marshal and his sick little town apart given half the chance?"

"Rip roarin'?"

"Go ahead and mock, Starsk. This is our one chance to do what we always wished we could but didn't, because we were in a city full of eyes and ears. It took a year for news of a cold blooded murder to reach our precinct. We're never gonna get the kind of evidence we need to put this guy away. Not before all of us die of old age."

Starsky's face flushed and he swayed a little. I caught his elbow and steadied him. He slipped from the log to the ground, then grabbed for my sleeve and held onto me until the spinning stopped. "What...what are we talkin' about here, Hutch? What-"

"We're gonna run the marshal out of his own town."

"Like in the movies?"

"Better than the movies."

"You're sure this isn't getting in over our heads?"

"No that's...that's probably what this is."

Starsky's teeth appeared. He was still dazed, wiped out by the conversation, which wasn't going to bode well for my plan. But the smile on his face was genuine.

"But sometimes we're good at that, right?"

"Yeah, sometimes, Starsk."

"Can we take a nap first?"

"Might be a good idea."

"Oh, good." Starsky said, his forehead coming to rest against my sternum. I held onto him until started to breathe evenly, then started to plan.