I step off the train
I'm walking down your street again
And past your door, but you don't live there anymore
It's years since you've been there
Now you've disappeared somewhere, like outer space
You've found some better place.
Everything But the Girl"So where the hell we goin'?"
Sadie glanced at John from astride her horse, then dug into her saddlebag for a moment. At length she pulled out a crumpled sheet of paper, which she hucked at John underhand. John caught it awkwardly, fumbling a little in the dark.
"God dammit, you coulda just handed it to me -"
"Guess your reflexes ain't what they used to be," said Sadie, laughing.
"Hell." John straightened in his saddle, flattening the paper against his chest and glaring at Sadie. "Can't nothin' be easy with you, lady, you're worse than Abigail."
"Oh, just look at it and quit moanin'."
John pulled a match from his breast pocket and popped it alight with a thumbnail, holding it a few inches before Rachel's mane. His eyes roved down the aged poster, brows knit.
"And who the hell is Harvey Logan, pray tell? Looks like his mama fell outta the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down."
Sadie snorted. "Good God, John Marston, I can see you been outta the game a couple years if you gotta ask me that."
"You wanna make me feel stupid about goin' straight now, do ya? Sure seems helpful."
"Quit gettin' all injured about it, Christ." Sadie was laughing a little as John glared at her from over the matchlight. "He ran with the Wild Bunch, and I surely do hope you know who that is, or Lord help me, there ain't nothin' more I can do for ya."
John waved the match out and gaped at her. "Good grief. Kid Curry. That's Kid fuckin' Curry, ain't it?"
"The very same, sir."
John scoffed loudly, looking outraged. "Sadie, I came with ya to find Micah Bell, not to rub up rough on Butch goddamned Cassidy -!"
"You ain't gonna rub up rough on nobody," said Sadie, shaking her head. "That boy's been turned loose of Butch's gang for goin' on a year now, they don't have no love for him anymore. But he's worth a pretty penny, and he's real well sought after in the business."
"And you think Rane's after him, too."
"Oh, I know she is." Sadie readjusted herself in her saddle, snatching the poster from John's hands and stuffing it back into her pocket. "This wasn't a public reward, John, this was a personal favor from the sheriff of Annesburg. He told me he tasked me with it along with two other folks, and one of 'em died yesterday morning. He was shot up knee to neck with his throat slit from ear to ear, from what I heard. Sheriff wouldn't tell me who the third one was, but he said 'she' a couple times, and that was pretty much enough for me to draw conclusions on."
John sighed, rubbing his forehead. "Jesus, what the hell have I got myself into."
"Oh, quit. You killed worse men than that Johnny-come-lately in your day." Sadie glanced at him. "What, you want out now that you know?"
"Nah. Can't exactly piss off now, can I? You got me good and cornered." John tipped his hat down a little further. "So where's he located? You know?"
"Just about. I picked up his trail yesterday, he was headed north of Valentine, up toward the Grizzlies."
"I sure would've liked to know that before I left the ranch without a coat."
"Oh, shit, a little bit of snow ain't gonna kill ya, it's the spring thaw, for Christ's sake. Damn, but ain't you gone domestic." Sadie veered her horse to the west. "This feller is holed up in a little cave up the road a ways, probably waiting for shit to die down back in civilization before he starts showin' his face again. All by his lonesome, from what I can tell."
"And him alone is plenty enough, from what I hear tell. Papers said that crazy bastard shot nine lawmen dead and busted outta jail more times than I can count on both hands."
"Well, John, lemme just remind you that we ain't here to take down Kid Curry, much as I'd love that reward" said Sadie, sounding a little amused. "We're here to ambush Rane. She's gonna know where he is same as us, this job was just put out two days back, and I bet she scoped him out same as I did. That third feller was the only damned fool to rush in and try to take him point-blank, and we see how that turned out."
"What makes you so sure she's gonna be there tonight?"
"Well, I ain't sure, but way I figure it she'd likely have hung back a little bit after that first dumb fucker bought it," said Sadie without remorse. "Same way I did. Let ol' Mister Logan settle down so he don't spook so easy. So what we're gonna do is sit up far away and watch and wait for her to show up."
"And how do we know she ain't turned up already?"
"I reckon if he's still alive, then she ain't been by yet," said Sadie grimly.
"Goddamn." John glanced at Sadie, looking impressed. "Woman, I ain't never heard you talk this way before."
"Well, I guess you ain't the only one that's changed," said Sadie, smirking at him, and kicked her horse into a canter.
THE two of them came upon the cave where Logan was hiding out some ten minutes later, and there was no doubt at all right off the bat that they had come to the right place. The man himself was sitting outside of the hollow in front of a brazenly billowing campfire, cross-legged and quite at his ease, his hat sat at his side in the dirt and the carcass of what looked like a rabbit hanging over the spit. There was a roan horse hitched to a nearby tree, unsaddled and untacked, and the man looked not a trifle concerned with anything aside from his supper. Sadie and John stashed the horses in a little copse of pine some ways back and crouched on a snowy cliff overhanging above, looking down on the camp.
"Bold," John muttered, shaking his head.
"Well, when you've been riding with Butch Cassidy a couple years, I imagine you get a little brave," Sadie admitted, shrugging. "Though I am a little surprised he ain't bein' a bit more quiet about it, havin' a bounty hunter set on him just yesterday . . ."
"Yeah, me too. Comfortable as a tick on a dog's hide, ain't he?"
Sadie cleared out a spot in the snow and sat down, resting her hands on her knees. "The son of a bitch ain't met his maker yet, so I reckon he ain't had any visits just yet. So now we wait."
John sat beside her, rubbing his arms through the thin fabric of his shirt. "Hope we ain't out here too long, I'm already freezin' my ass off."
They didn't. It wasn't ten minutes later that Sadie leaned forward, squinting into the darkness beyond the reach of Kid Curry's firelight. She pointed, nudging John.
"Look there, Mister Milton. What'd I tell ya?"
John followed her finger and saw something that made his heart falter in his chest. There was a rider approaching in the snow, slow and unhurried. The horse was black, its fetlocks tangled with snow and its long mane rippling down one side of its muscular neck. The lean figure astride it was hooded, featureless in the darkness, draped in a sheepskin-lined cloak. Logan, too, had noticed his company. He was getting to his feet slowly, his hand resting on his pistol.
"Who goes there?" he shouted.
"Come on," said Sadie, slapping John's shoulder with the back of her hand. "Hurry."
John followed Sadie down the hill, drawing closer to the campfire from behind Logan and taking refuge behind an ancient downed longleaf pine. He didn't seem to notice these new arrivals; he was quite focused on his new acquaintance.
"You lost or somethin', girl?" Logan was aiming his weapon from the waist, his voice gravelly and low. "You're a far cry from the nearest town and this is perilous country up here, 'specially for a woman. Liable to run into dangerous folk."
"No siree, I'm not lost." The rider slipped off the horse, still hooded, striding toward the fire. "I think I'm right where I need to be."
"Well, I guess I ain't sure what you mean by that. Show yourself, stranger. I shoot folks out of hand who don't have their faces out on display, you oughta know." Logan cocked his gun. "Go on, now."
"Oh!" There was a rustling of cloth as the hood was thrown back. "Rude of me. How's that?"
John sucked in a lungful of involuntary air, his heart suddenly pounding. "Shit, Sadie, it is her!"
"I know it is," said Sadie, very low, her own eyes wide.
It was, indeed. She was striding into the firelight now, clad in a black blouse and a pair of jeans beneath the sheepskin-lined cloak, her ancient leather scabbard still hanging from her belt. She was thin, and there were dark shadows beneath her eyes, as if she'd spent many nights either sleepless or drunk, but it was her. It was like seeing a ghost.
"Well, I reckon it'll do for the nonce, sure." Logan was still watching her, his mouth drawn down into a sneer, one hand still hovering over his gun. "So you wanna tell me who you are and why it is you're aggravating me during my supper?" He lifted a chin towards her sword. "I don't much abide by weapons at the dinner table, missy."
"Well, I won't be staying long, so don't worry on my account," said Rane, striding towards him. "I'm looking for a man by the name of Har -"
Logan drew from the hip and fired twice, hideously fast. The crash of the reports was shockingly loud, startling nesting birds from the treetops nearby, making both John and Sadie flinch. Rane's sword was in her hand in an instant, and the first bullet that was meant for her flew from its blade, throwing hissing sparks into the snow. It struck about four feet from Sadie's hand, spraying bark and making her gasp. The other ricocheted off into the night air with a sound like breaking glass. Logan froze, gawking at her, his face blanching as the ringing echo of the gunshots faded to a low mutter, sweeping away across the snowy landscape.
"Whoooa!" crowed Rane, grinning at him, her sword still held before her. "You got an itchy finger or something?"
"What in the hell -?"
"Ah-ah-ah, no sir," Rane pointed her sword at him, shaking her head slowly as he began to lift his pistol again. She was still smiling, quite unruffled. "You don't dare pull that trigger again, sweetheart. I'm gonna let you have those first two on the house but the next one I have to hook is going into your head, it's just too damn late in the day for that kind of shit. How's that sound?"
"How the fuck did you do that, lady?" Logan gasped at her, flustered.
"Same way you get to Carnegie Hall." Rane gestured with her sword. "Put that gun away and sit down, you're making me nervous."
She certainly didn't look nervous, but Logan obliged anyway, stowing his weapon and slowly lowering himself down onto the log beside his fire. Rane twirled her sword once around her wrist, lifting her eyebrows at him.
"If I put this away, are you gonna be cool?"
Logan nodded, watching her uneasily. Sadie and John remained where they were, hunkered down, watching all this behind the downed tree, their breath puffing out in front of their faces in white clouds.
"You sure? Because this is really killing my buzz and Courvoisier ain't exactly peanuts."
Logan nodded again. Rane sheathed her sword with a clang, satisfied, then pulled a flask from her jeans pocket and drank long on it before stowing it away again, wiping at her mouth with one bare wrist, taking a seat opposite him in the snow and sweeping the filthy, frayed hem of her cloak beneath her as she did.
"So based on the fact that you tried to murder me just there, I assume that you've already arrived there on your own," she said, digging into her jeans pocket with one hand, "but for the sake of transparency my name is Claire Gray and I'm a bounty hunter."
"That your real name?" Logan asked her skeptically. "You don't look like a Claire to me, lady."
Rane ignored this. She was still digging in her pocket, her tongue stuck between her teeth, and a moment later produced a heavily folded sheet of parchment which she smoothed out against her chest and then held up, eyes cutting from the poster to Logan and back again. After a moment she lowered it, stuffing it back into her pocket.
"So it would appear that you're Harvey Logan, otherwise known as . . . " Rane cast about, smirking. "What was it, Szechuan Bob or Kung Pow Pete or some fucking thing like that -?"
"It's CURRY, you damn bitch, KID CURRY!" Logan snapped, looking highly affronted.
"That's the one. I was in China when I should have been in Thailand, I guess." Rane pulled her flask again, took a swig and replaced it, eyeing him wryly as she did, a little smile playing about her lips. "Why the fuck do they call you that, anyway? Are you like Cassidy's personal chef or something? Just . . . out of morbid curiosity."
"You know what else they call me?" Logan snarled, his face red.
"No, but I'm sure whatever it is, it's very - hic - very sinister and intimidating," said Rane, waving a hand. "Let's get down to it. As I'm sure you're aware, you've got a big, fat, tasty bounty on your head from all the rustling and shooting and whoring and all other manner of Dionysian monkeyshines you've been getting up to, and they're willing to pay for you warm or cold. It doesn't much matter to me which it is. So are you going to come with me nice-like or -?"
"You take me in and Butch'll be after your scrawny ass so fast it'll make your head spin, cunt."
Rane spread her arms expansively, wavering a little. "Hey, that works for me. He's worth even more than you are, Szechuan, I'm happy to march his happy ass downtown right along with -"
Logan tried again, leaping to his feet, his gun flying up, and another shot crashed around them in the snowy landscape. Rane was faster; her sword was out in a heartbeat and with a quick motion, from sheath to hanging over her shoulder, the bullet was deflected. This time it took Logan in the forehead, just above his left eyebrow.
"I told you it was too late for that shit," said Rane, shaking her head and watching him unsmilingly.
Logan gaped at her for a moment, blood running down the side of his face, then he crumpled onto the ground, the pistol clattering from his hand. Rane sighed, getting laboriously to her feet, brushing the snow off her ass.
"Cold it is," she muttered, and then without looking around she lifted her voice and pointed her sword to her right, directly toward the log where Sadie and John were hiding. "Come on out. Both of you. And gimme your hands too, or I'm gonna hit you where you live."
John glanced at Sadie, alarmed.
"Better you come out than I have to come over there and find you," said Rane grimly, running her sword through a wad of her cloak and frowning down at it, her hair hanging in her face. "I'm not in a very good mood right now."
John and Sadie acquiesced, rising slowly, palms held out before them. Rane turned toward them at last, starting over, her sword held loosely in one hand, but at the sight of the two of them she stopped dead, her eyes springing wide.
"Hello, Rane," said John quietly. "Been a while."
