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CHAPTER TEN - Faded Pig
He crashed through the door, kicking it wide onto an open entry way. Only a table and a chandelier greeting him. "Anyone home?!" he yelled, one hand gripped the old man's collar while the other held the shotgun against the back of his head at an upward angle. Frank's arms were around Jesse's neck, his breath wheezing in Jesse's ears as they drug their way into the house.
"Someone besides you live here?" The old man hesitated his answer, but then, feeling like he'd be shot if the truth wasn't spoken, let it out.
"Yes sir," he mumbled, with his rupturous white mutton chops working on his jaw like great wings. "My grandchildren."
Jesse kicked into the dining room area, finding the table laden with dishes and tightened his grip on the old man's collar as he swiped arm and shotgun against the dishes, knocking them to the floor.
"Where are they?" He helped Frank up onto the table as the clatter and smashing brought two women into the room.
The two girls were pretty, one a full head taller than the other. The taller of the two had her brown hair pinned back haphazardly, tucked back around her head as her dark eyes darted here an there, looking from Jesse to his brother edgily. She wore a waist length, white bodice with a gold chain hanging down the front of it. Its outturned collar had a thick stripe of dark violet and the long violet skirt beneath it wrapped ruffled about her legs.
The smaller one, looking about eighteen, had a beautiful and soft face, with long brown hair that hung over her shoulders like a shroud. She wore a striped bodice and solid skirt of the same color as her sister, but instead of a chain, her cupping collar held a broach of ivory. Atop her crown of brown hair was pinned a lacy cap that only sat about the apex of her skull. Her almond eyes didn't ever leave Jesse; her knitted black shall snatched tightly around her shoulders with her long, delicate fingers.
Both girls were beautiful.
"Colonel?" The younger girl, with a swoop of her older sister's arm, took steps back out into the entryway, giving them space to move and possibly snatch away should the moment deem necessary.
"Get back in here." Jesse said though clenched teeth as he brought the gun back against the man's white hair, the younger girl stumbling, but her sister holding her back.
Jesse took a step forward, bringing the man with him as the girls took another step back. When he took the third step forward, and they back, he was out in the entryway again.
"Move one more step, you son of a bitch, and I'll shoot you dead." Jesse turned to see a man on the bottom of the curling stairs, his rifle muzzle sideways through the banisters, a cold blue eye over the sight. "Drop your gun."
Deciding that he was no good to Frank dead, he let the gun slide from his hand and drop to the carpeted floor, the old man stepping away from him and back towards his family, holding his daughters close as they consumed him.
"Now your gunbelt," the man said simply, watching him carefully as Jesse's hand went for his belt. "That's it, easy now." Letting the weight drop to the floor, it clattered against his boot. "Kick it away." He did so, the belt not able to slide far on the carpet.
The man on the stairs slowly rose to his feet, exposing himself as a man of regular stature, with thin, strong arms that held the rifle sideways and aloft. He had a splash of sun wheat hair that was parted down the middle and was grown long, meshing slightly with the golden stubble that pierced his chin and ran down his neck into his collar. He was about Frank's age, maybe more, but looked worn like he'd seen too many things in such a short period of time.
Suddenly, there came a moan from the dining room, signaling Frank's awakening, and the man's rifle swung towards the wall. Jesse dropped and rolled, grabbing his gun as his fingers touched the floor and coming up with his pistol pressed against the blond man's forehead,
quick as a flash.
The blond man took a heartbeat to raise his rife to Jesse's chest, pressing the barrel against it.
"Robert!" Called the shorter of the two young girls, but she didn't stray a foot closer. She was eyeing Frank's blood that stained Jesse's shirt, still exposed and gleaming in the hanging oil lamps lights.
From the dining room, there came a crash of plates and china, crumbling against the floor as Frank stumbled around, awake again and disoriented. Jesse could hear his wheezing breaths through the hollow walls, his fingers clutching at the bureau tops as he tried to keep his footing.
From the corner of his eye, Jesse saw the girl who'd called out make a move towards the door, but her brother's words stopped her.
"Don't you go in there Elsie." The man on the stairs, Robert, said, keeping his eyes pinned into Jesse's. "Don't you even take a breath towards that room."
"Robert," she said again, this time almost a pleading.
"No, Elsie, it's a trick."
"It's not a trick. Please," Jesse spoke, and the whole room stopped breathing to listen. "My brother's dying, he needs help."
"Shut up," Robert pressed the gun harder against Jesse's chest, peeling a pain in his ribs as he pressed his own gun harder into Robert's forehead. When the man gave out a pent up breath, Jesse could smell alcohol on it.
Jesse could hear Frank begin to scramble around again after having fallen silent for a moment, his hands sliding across the wall as he moaned his brother's name in a hoarse, loud whisper. Suddenly then, there was heavy thump as Frank fell to the floor. Jesse's head turned to the wall, distracted, and was surprised at how quick Robert made his move.
His limbs were fluid as he tipped his rifle up hard and knocked Jesse's pistol out of his hand, leaving an abrasion from the dried mud as it slid off his forehead and went flying into the air. It flipped once before coming back down just as Robert's hand reached up to grab it, keeping Jesse busy with a quick flip of the rifle, so the butt came up and struck him right at the bottom of his jaw - like he'd done to the old man. As Jesse arced back and went sprawling, his head caught hard on the wall as he came crashing down, clouding his vision with dancing black blotches onto the carpet.
Meanwhile, Robert had both Jesse's pistol and his spinning rifle fully cocked and pointed at Jesse's spread body, aiming for his heart and head.
"Get up!" Robert ordered, heaving the rifle. Jesse, coming up onto his elbows for a moment and scowling at the man, raising a hand to feel his smarting jaw before coming up onto his knees, his head waist-high to Robert now. The rifle was pointed at his head now, while the pistol had swayed down to his crotch.
"You need to help my brother," Jesse spoke softly, tasting the coppery sting of blood in his mouth, guessing Robert had knocked a tooth loose.
"I'd lick a pig before I'd help your brother." The man sneered hard, taking a step forward so that the rifle was between Jesse's eyes. Jesse's dark eyes didn't move from their glazed glare from beneath his tangle of black eyebrows.
"He's dying," maybe it the fact that he wouldn't be able to get to Frank alive, or maybe it was the exhaustion running through him; whatever it was, Jesse suddenly didn't care about his own life. "You have to help him."
"I said," the man reached back with the pistol, his face coming down to cloud Jesse's vision. "I'd rather lick a shitting pig."
"Robert don't!" cried the girl as Jesse got another blow across the side of the head with his own pistol butt, rupturing the corner of his mouth as he went back down onto the carpet. He coughed as a rush of blood came to his tongue, some dribbling out onto the fine rug.
"Stupid son of a bitch." The blond man stepped up over him, planting his feet around his chest and bringing the rifle down a moment towards the center of Jesse's chest, letting it settle there. "Ain't so tough now, are you?"
Suddenly, a smile broke wide on Jesse's face, his eyes opening to meet Robert's.
"Why the hell are you smiling?"
Without answering, Jesse kicked his legs up hard, the toe of his boot catching Robert right in the small of his spine, knocking him forward as he lurched and crashed hard into the corner of the entryway, shattering a large blue vase with his knee.
Jesse kicked himself up onto his feet in a flash, beginning to roll back his sleeves and stripping the makeshift bandaging from his hand, soaked and heavy and threw it to the floor, clenching his hands into fists.
Robert spun on his heel and mimicked Jesse, rolling up his sleeves and sticking out his fists as he came forward, both of them beginning to circle. "I'm gonna kick your ass." Robert goaded as they circled, Jesse only answering by the wily smile plastered across his face.
"Robert, stop this." The taller of the two girls said this, she had a strong thin voice, one that actually made Robert hesitate before he shook himself back into the fight. "You're drunk."
Robert licked his lips, taking a swing out at Jesse, only knicking his jaw with his knuckles as Jesse answered with an uppercut. He caught Robert across the side of the jowls, not enough to knock him anywhere, only to stun him as he took his other bloody fist to his stomach.
Robert threw his shoulder down and into Jesse's ribs, driving him back against the wall as stacked plates on the other side shook on their shelves. He held one hand high to protect his face as he other tried to deflect the heavy fists coming towards everything else that wasn't covered.
He could hear the two girls call from behind them, but their words were lost in the heat and breaths of the two men. He struck out blindly, catching Robert in the cheek and sent him off him, allowing him to step away from the wall momentarily.
Robert came rushing forward again though, his fists gripping Jesse's collar as he lifted him clean off the ground and knocked him hard against the wall again, trying to physically force him through the divide.
Jesse kicked out hard, catching Robert in the solar plexus, causing him to lose his grip and letting him slump hard to the ground, his face stinging. He was up like a spring though as Robert came back, reaching around the back of his head and giving him a knee to the stomach. Jesse went down on his hands and knees as Robert caught him with the toe of his boot right across his throat and peeled him over onto his back led by his head, his hand going wide to knick the butt of his pistol as he sprawled.
One hand grabbed at his bruised throat while the other was stretched out above his head, trying to find and finger the pistol, having trouble getting a good hold on it. Each flick of his finger against its handle scooted it a bit farther away.
Robert, preoccupied with the next wail to Jesse's side with his boots, was surprised when Jesse stretched and arced up onto the balls of his feet and his head, snatching up the hilt of the gun in one fail jerk and falling sideways, swinging around to spin and wrench himself upward away from Robert's foot reach.
His quick rise put Robert's final stomp as nothing more than an action to squash a large tick beneath the rug and before he knew it, he was backed up against the wall with the pistol at his forehead.
"Don't!" came a cry from the girls behind him.
He shoved the gun hard into the man's head, tired from the fighting and the riding and the worrying.
"Do it..." The man shoved his head out on his neck, despite the force trying to hold it back and spit on Jesse's face when he spoke. Allen Pinkerton had said the same thing. "You know you wanna shoot me..."
"Yeah I do..." Jesse admitted as he cocked back the hammer, not seeing the man flinch in the least. He took him up by the collar of his shirt to try and force the issue, wanting something out of the man, but not what he was getting.
"Then why don't you, you gutless scum sucker?"
Jesse gritted his teeth and squeezed his finger around the trigger, but didn't ever pull it all the way. Instead, his grip slackened and he stepped away from the man, "My brother needs a doctor. And I ain't gonna waist my time killing you while he dies in the next room."
He was about to turn when something blunt and hard shattered against his head. And as he fell to the ground, he could see the old man standing above him, a broken vase in his hands as his vision faded to black.
CHAPTER TEN - Faded Pig
He crashed through the door, kicking it wide onto an open entry way. Only a table and a chandelier greeting him. "Anyone home?!" he yelled, one hand gripped the old man's collar while the other held the shotgun against the back of his head at an upward angle. Frank's arms were around Jesse's neck, his breath wheezing in Jesse's ears as they drug their way into the house.
"Someone besides you live here?" The old man hesitated his answer, but then, feeling like he'd be shot if the truth wasn't spoken, let it out.
"Yes sir," he mumbled, with his rupturous white mutton chops working on his jaw like great wings. "My grandchildren."
Jesse kicked into the dining room area, finding the table laden with dishes and tightened his grip on the old man's collar as he swiped arm and shotgun against the dishes, knocking them to the floor.
"Where are they?" He helped Frank up onto the table as the clatter and smashing brought two women into the room.
The two girls were pretty, one a full head taller than the other. The taller of the two had her brown hair pinned back haphazardly, tucked back around her head as her dark eyes darted here an there, looking from Jesse to his brother edgily. She wore a waist length, white bodice with a gold chain hanging down the front of it. Its outturned collar had a thick stripe of dark violet and the long violet skirt beneath it wrapped ruffled about her legs.
The smaller one, looking about eighteen, had a beautiful and soft face, with long brown hair that hung over her shoulders like a shroud. She wore a striped bodice and solid skirt of the same color as her sister, but instead of a chain, her cupping collar held a broach of ivory. Atop her crown of brown hair was pinned a lacy cap that only sat about the apex of her skull. Her almond eyes didn't ever leave Jesse; her knitted black shall snatched tightly around her shoulders with her long, delicate fingers.
Both girls were beautiful.
"Colonel?" The younger girl, with a swoop of her older sister's arm, took steps back out into the entryway, giving them space to move and possibly snatch away should the moment deem necessary.
"Get back in here." Jesse said though clenched teeth as he brought the gun back against the man's white hair, the younger girl stumbling, but her sister holding her back.
Jesse took a step forward, bringing the man with him as the girls took another step back. When he took the third step forward, and they back, he was out in the entryway again.
"Move one more step, you son of a bitch, and I'll shoot you dead." Jesse turned to see a man on the bottom of the curling stairs, his rifle muzzle sideways through the banisters, a cold blue eye over the sight. "Drop your gun."
Deciding that he was no good to Frank dead, he let the gun slide from his hand and drop to the carpeted floor, the old man stepping away from him and back towards his family, holding his daughters close as they consumed him.
"Now your gunbelt," the man said simply, watching him carefully as Jesse's hand went for his belt. "That's it, easy now." Letting the weight drop to the floor, it clattered against his boot. "Kick it away." He did so, the belt not able to slide far on the carpet.
The man on the stairs slowly rose to his feet, exposing himself as a man of regular stature, with thin, strong arms that held the rifle sideways and aloft. He had a splash of sun wheat hair that was parted down the middle and was grown long, meshing slightly with the golden stubble that pierced his chin and ran down his neck into his collar. He was about Frank's age, maybe more, but looked worn like he'd seen too many things in such a short period of time.
Suddenly, there came a moan from the dining room, signaling Frank's awakening, and the man's rifle swung towards the wall. Jesse dropped and rolled, grabbing his gun as his fingers touched the floor and coming up with his pistol pressed against the blond man's forehead,
quick as a flash.
The blond man took a heartbeat to raise his rife to Jesse's chest, pressing the barrel against it.
"Robert!" Called the shorter of the two young girls, but she didn't stray a foot closer. She was eyeing Frank's blood that stained Jesse's shirt, still exposed and gleaming in the hanging oil lamps lights.
From the dining room, there came a crash of plates and china, crumbling against the floor as Frank stumbled around, awake again and disoriented. Jesse could hear his wheezing breaths through the hollow walls, his fingers clutching at the bureau tops as he tried to keep his footing.
From the corner of his eye, Jesse saw the girl who'd called out make a move towards the door, but her brother's words stopped her.
"Don't you go in there Elsie." The man on the stairs, Robert, said, keeping his eyes pinned into Jesse's. "Don't you even take a breath towards that room."
"Robert," she said again, this time almost a pleading.
"No, Elsie, it's a trick."
"It's not a trick. Please," Jesse spoke, and the whole room stopped breathing to listen. "My brother's dying, he needs help."
"Shut up," Robert pressed the gun harder against Jesse's chest, peeling a pain in his ribs as he pressed his own gun harder into Robert's forehead. When the man gave out a pent up breath, Jesse could smell alcohol on it.
Jesse could hear Frank begin to scramble around again after having fallen silent for a moment, his hands sliding across the wall as he moaned his brother's name in a hoarse, loud whisper. Suddenly then, there was heavy thump as Frank fell to the floor. Jesse's head turned to the wall, distracted, and was surprised at how quick Robert made his move.
His limbs were fluid as he tipped his rifle up hard and knocked Jesse's pistol out of his hand, leaving an abrasion from the dried mud as it slid off his forehead and went flying into the air. It flipped once before coming back down just as Robert's hand reached up to grab it, keeping Jesse busy with a quick flip of the rifle, so the butt came up and struck him right at the bottom of his jaw - like he'd done to the old man. As Jesse arced back and went sprawling, his head caught hard on the wall as he came crashing down, clouding his vision with dancing black blotches onto the carpet.
Meanwhile, Robert had both Jesse's pistol and his spinning rifle fully cocked and pointed at Jesse's spread body, aiming for his heart and head.
"Get up!" Robert ordered, heaving the rifle. Jesse, coming up onto his elbows for a moment and scowling at the man, raising a hand to feel his smarting jaw before coming up onto his knees, his head waist-high to Robert now. The rifle was pointed at his head now, while the pistol had swayed down to his crotch.
"You need to help my brother," Jesse spoke softly, tasting the coppery sting of blood in his mouth, guessing Robert had knocked a tooth loose.
"I'd lick a pig before I'd help your brother." The man sneered hard, taking a step forward so that the rifle was between Jesse's eyes. Jesse's dark eyes didn't move from their glazed glare from beneath his tangle of black eyebrows.
"He's dying," maybe it the fact that he wouldn't be able to get to Frank alive, or maybe it was the exhaustion running through him; whatever it was, Jesse suddenly didn't care about his own life. "You have to help him."
"I said," the man reached back with the pistol, his face coming down to cloud Jesse's vision. "I'd rather lick a shitting pig."
"Robert don't!" cried the girl as Jesse got another blow across the side of the head with his own pistol butt, rupturing the corner of his mouth as he went back down onto the carpet. He coughed as a rush of blood came to his tongue, some dribbling out onto the fine rug.
"Stupid son of a bitch." The blond man stepped up over him, planting his feet around his chest and bringing the rifle down a moment towards the center of Jesse's chest, letting it settle there. "Ain't so tough now, are you?"
Suddenly, a smile broke wide on Jesse's face, his eyes opening to meet Robert's.
"Why the hell are you smiling?"
Without answering, Jesse kicked his legs up hard, the toe of his boot catching Robert right in the small of his spine, knocking him forward as he lurched and crashed hard into the corner of the entryway, shattering a large blue vase with his knee.
Jesse kicked himself up onto his feet in a flash, beginning to roll back his sleeves and stripping the makeshift bandaging from his hand, soaked and heavy and threw it to the floor, clenching his hands into fists.
Robert spun on his heel and mimicked Jesse, rolling up his sleeves and sticking out his fists as he came forward, both of them beginning to circle. "I'm gonna kick your ass." Robert goaded as they circled, Jesse only answering by the wily smile plastered across his face.
"Robert, stop this." The taller of the two girls said this, she had a strong thin voice, one that actually made Robert hesitate before he shook himself back into the fight. "You're drunk."
Robert licked his lips, taking a swing out at Jesse, only knicking his jaw with his knuckles as Jesse answered with an uppercut. He caught Robert across the side of the jowls, not enough to knock him anywhere, only to stun him as he took his other bloody fist to his stomach.
Robert threw his shoulder down and into Jesse's ribs, driving him back against the wall as stacked plates on the other side shook on their shelves. He held one hand high to protect his face as he other tried to deflect the heavy fists coming towards everything else that wasn't covered.
He could hear the two girls call from behind them, but their words were lost in the heat and breaths of the two men. He struck out blindly, catching Robert in the cheek and sent him off him, allowing him to step away from the wall momentarily.
Robert came rushing forward again though, his fists gripping Jesse's collar as he lifted him clean off the ground and knocked him hard against the wall again, trying to physically force him through the divide.
Jesse kicked out hard, catching Robert in the solar plexus, causing him to lose his grip and letting him slump hard to the ground, his face stinging. He was up like a spring though as Robert came back, reaching around the back of his head and giving him a knee to the stomach. Jesse went down on his hands and knees as Robert caught him with the toe of his boot right across his throat and peeled him over onto his back led by his head, his hand going wide to knick the butt of his pistol as he sprawled.
One hand grabbed at his bruised throat while the other was stretched out above his head, trying to find and finger the pistol, having trouble getting a good hold on it. Each flick of his finger against its handle scooted it a bit farther away.
Robert, preoccupied with the next wail to Jesse's side with his boots, was surprised when Jesse stretched and arced up onto the balls of his feet and his head, snatching up the hilt of the gun in one fail jerk and falling sideways, swinging around to spin and wrench himself upward away from Robert's foot reach.
His quick rise put Robert's final stomp as nothing more than an action to squash a large tick beneath the rug and before he knew it, he was backed up against the wall with the pistol at his forehead.
"Don't!" came a cry from the girls behind him.
He shoved the gun hard into the man's head, tired from the fighting and the riding and the worrying.
"Do it..." The man shoved his head out on his neck, despite the force trying to hold it back and spit on Jesse's face when he spoke. Allen Pinkerton had said the same thing. "You know you wanna shoot me..."
"Yeah I do..." Jesse admitted as he cocked back the hammer, not seeing the man flinch in the least. He took him up by the collar of his shirt to try and force the issue, wanting something out of the man, but not what he was getting.
"Then why don't you, you gutless scum sucker?"
Jesse gritted his teeth and squeezed his finger around the trigger, but didn't ever pull it all the way. Instead, his grip slackened and he stepped away from the man, "My brother needs a doctor. And I ain't gonna waist my time killing you while he dies in the next room."
He was about to turn when something blunt and hard shattered against his head. And as he fell to the ground, he could see the old man standing above him, a broken vase in his hands as his vision faded to black.