Hello all! This chapter was a fun way to play around with the idea of how Josh learned to gamble and got his guns. Hope you all like it! :D

Josh is twenty-two years old the first time he kills a man. It was bound to happen eventually; their line of work came with the knowledge that at some point it would come down to you and your gun and you have the be faster than the person shooting at you. He's managed to avoid the inevitability of death for the past six years but it wouldn't last forever and he knew it.

Tom took great pains teaching him how to shoot a gun properly and even greater pains teaching him how to shoot without killing. He taught him to aim for the hands and arms, a crippling move rather than a killing one. In his view the only time you should shoot to kill was if there were no other alternatives. Josh had only ever seen him kill another man in a fight a handful of times and each time it was because he was put in a position where that was his only choice.

"Respect your guns, Josh," he told him one afternoon after a duel devolved into a murder. The other man had accused Tom of cheating him out of some money and wasn't going to let him walk away without a bullet in his breast. Diplomacy was useless and peaceful talks were completely out of the question; the man wanted blood and wouldn't stop until he had it. Tom was faster though, Tom was always faster, and the man was dead before he ever pulled the trigger.

Tom shook his head in disgust and slipped the gun back into its holster, looking over his shoulder at the younger man at his back. Their partnership was an odd one but they always watched each other's backs. "You treat your guns like you treat a good woman and they'll never let you down."

Tom has two guns that he's christened Ethel and Maria and he takes care of them with his life. Ethel was named in honor of his mother and Maria was named after his wife. Josh didn't know much about Tom's past or his relationship with Maria, if she had died or if she left him, but he knows she's gone now. He thinks she must have been a wild one either way; the gun named in her honor is touchy and a bit unpredictable but it always worked for Tom.

He hears Tom talk about her when he's drunk sometimes ("here's to you, Maria," he muttered one night, raising a shot of whiskey to the empty air when he thought no one was looking) but Josh knows better than to ask any questions. Instead he just takes his advice and respects the pistol in his care.

Tom didn't have a designated profession, he was more of a drifter than anything. He had a pocketful of skills to his name, many of which he taught Josh along the way, and he used them from one town to the next to keep their heads above water. He was a carpenter and a cattle rustler, a blacksmith and a broker; he knew a little about a lot of things and a lot about a few things. He wasn't the best mentor in the world but he was the best Josh could have asked for. Even if Tom didn't always think so.

Josh had been following Tom since he was about sixteen, jumping from one job to the next, one town to the other. Sure, Tom had grumbled about it for the first couple of months, muttering that Josh needed to figure out his own way of life instead of following in the footsteps of others. But Josh was smart and a quick learner and a lot of the jobs Tom took required more than one set of hands so he stopped grumbling after a while and just let the kid follow along.

They've stopped in a little town outside of Tucson called Legacy that probably won't live to see the end of the century. There are literally dozens of identical towns all over the country that were established with the hope of success and fruition that dry up as soon as the mines are depleted and the rivers run dry. Little towns like this had to be strong to survive and even stronger to become permanent. Problem was, by the looks of it, Legacy wasn't either of those things. The town has all the staples one would need for even the most fleeting success, though: a church, a jail, and a saloon.

Tom had taken a job that was set to last for a few weeks and he managed to secure a position for Josh as well. They work on a ranch with a man named Adams during the day, mending fences and wrangling livestock and patching up the barn. It's long, hot work but Adams pays them well and treats them like old friends. In the evening, once the work has been done and Adams releases them from the ranch, they find ways to entertain themselves in town. Tom was a good enough man but he wasn't perfect; he had an affinity for liquor, gambling, and women, all of which could be found in abundance at the saloon.

That's where they've found themselves again tonight, sitting at a table with a stack of cards and a couple bottles of liquor. There are three other men there with them but Josh can only remember one of their names. The burly man to his right is named Regis and he looks remarkably like a boar wearing men's clothing. The other two men are brothers, James and Robert or Jack and Richard (Josh honestly can't remember) and they're both so nondescript it's not even worth committing them both to memory. If the color beige was a person it would be these two.

The one thing they have going for them is that they're good at poker. They've been playing the better part of two hours and James/Jack and Robert/Richard have won at least half of the games between the two of them. Regis has won a couple of hands and Tom has had a few successful turns of his own. Josh has won two hands. He's got a load of dumb luck under his belt but none of it factors into card games apparently.

"Just gotta learn to read the cards, kid," Tom tells him with a bit of a drunken grin when Josh grumbles a curse under his breath.

"You know I can't read," Josh mutters back defensively, shoving another penny in Robert/Richard's direction.

Tom just smirks and takes a sip of his whiskey. "Then learn."

That was one of the things about Tom; the word "can't" just didn't exist to him. He didn't accept it as an excuse or a reason and had very little sympathy for those who did. If you didn't know something, learn it. If you couldn't do something, figure it out. There were no allowances or compromises; "can't" didn't exist.

Josh was still young enough to get frustrated and huffy when he couldn't do something but Tom would just smirk and shrug his shoulders at his plight. "No man ever learned something in a day, Josh," he'd tell him, watching as his young partner struggled with whatever it was he was stuck on. "And you ain't gonna be the first."

Tom taught him everything he knew (which was a lot) so it wasn't hard to see how he'd been successful all these years. He taught him how to practice with his gun, how to clean and take care of it so it never backfired. He taught him how to gamble and shuffle cards, the art of trickery and manipulation when the game required it. He even taught him a couple of magic tricks, little sleights of hand that looked like pure witchcraft to the untrained eye.

The one thing he never taught him how to do was cheat and the one time he caught him doing so, he gave him a black eye for the deceit. "Real men don't cheat, boy. You win fair 'n square of you don't win at all. Cheatin' is one of the fastest ways to get yourself shot in these towns and I ain't gonna help you if you get caught."

Josh was still learning, picking things up along the way, but he was getting a handle on things pretty quickly. Gambling was still a bit of an issue, though; he needed to figure out how to play the game without losing his ass at every hand.

There's a bit of a commotion up near the bar and Josh looks up to see a drunken patron hassling one of the dancing girls. His hands are on her and she's trying to pull away but he's not letting her. Josh glances back at Tom and sees the older man's jaw clench.

That was another thing about Tom; disrespecting and abusing women was unacceptable. Tom didn't have a lot of rules but the few that he did have were resolute. No cheating and no abusing of women or children. If either of those rules were broken, Tom had no problem dealing with it himself.

"Pardon me, gentlemen," he says, standing slowly and resting his hat on the table. "Somethin' I need to take care of real quick." He stepped away from the table and tapped Josh on the shoulder twice as he passed, a silent message that said 'watch my back.'

Josh nods without saying anything and turns sideways in his chair, watching the older man walk across the room toward the hassled dancer. His hand drifts to the pistol at his hip but he doesn't pull it out yet, he doesn't even touch it. Tom had told him once that a man never touches his gun unless he's planning to use it; it wasn't time for that yet.

They're too far away for him to hear the conversation but he can make out the gestures well enough. Tom is speaking to the man harassing the dancer and the man looks like he can't decide whether he wants to punch him or ignore him. Tom is nothing if not persistent though and makes it impossible for the other man to ignore him even if he wanted to. This will turn into a fight before it's all said and done and there's a heavy tension in the atmosphere that wasn't there before.

Josh sees another group of men start to rise up near the bar, friends of the patron hassling the dancer no doubt, and he stands as well. He hears Regis and the Bland Brothers stand up behind him but no one moves for the moment, all of them simply waiting and watching for the right moment.

Someone fires a gun, it's hard to tell who or from where, but the saloon descends into utter chaos instantly. Tom grabs the woman and pulls her behind him, shoving her in the direction of the bar for cover. The drunken patron makes a grab for him but Tom sidesteps and shoots the man in the leg, stepping over him neatly when he crumples.

The man's friends are all pulling their guns while the dancing girls around the room scream and run for cover. There are explosions of gunpowder and broken glass everywhere and the saloon has turned into a full-fledged war zone.

Tom is holding his own well enough but Josh isn't about to leave him to face the rest of the crowd on his own so he pulls his own pistol out and joins the fight. His pistol is smaller and less powerful than the two guns Tom has but they get the job done and that's all that matters.

He finds himself back-to-back with his mentor, shooting back at the men firing at them. Tom glances over his shoulder at him and elbows him in the side, nodding toward the clump of girls hiding behind the bar. "Get them outside, I'll cover you."

Josh wants to argue but he knows it would be pointless; Tom's word went above everything else so it was easier to just listen than fight it. He returns a few shots, hitting one or two of the men across the room, and ducks behind the bar where the terrified girls are gathered. He grabs one of them by the arm and she grabs the others hiding with her and he drags them all toward the door together.

He kicks the door open and pushes them out into the street one at a time, covering them as they run away from the firefight inside. He's gotten nearly all of them out of the saloon and into the relative safety of the street but it doesn't go unnoticed. One of the men from the other table manages to sneak up on him while his back is turned and breaks a whiskey bottle over the back of his head. Josh bites out a curse and staggers, gripping the side of the door to keep himself upright.

The remaining two girls screams and try to run but the man grabs one of them by her hair and jerks her backwards to him. Josh curses again and goes for his gun but the man is just a little faster, shooting the pistol out of his hand and sending it skittering across the floor. The shock is enough to dislocate his thumb and jar his wrist and Josh realizes he's well and truly screwed then.

The man aims again but never gets the chance to fire as a bullet punches its way through his chest from the back. The man gasps and chokes on blood, collapsing to his knees and releasing his hold on the girl. She screams again and runs, disappearing out into the street with the others.

Tom approaches him from behind, kicking the dead man out of the way. He gives Josh a once over and frowns. "Where's your gun?" he asks, noticing the younger man cradling his empty hand.

Josh opens his mouth to respond but then there's a barely audible click from across the room and suddenly Tom is standing in front of him, his back to Josh. There are two short blasts and the drunk man from before, the one who was started this whole thing, staggers back, clutching his bleeding shoulder and dropping his gun. Tom is still standing in front of him, gun held level in his hand, and he's watching for the man to get up again.

For a moment Josh thinks it's over, that the fight is done and there's nothing left but the apologies and cleanup. But then Tom sways and staggers back and he knows something is wrong.

He steps forward to steady him, catching him underneath the arms, and his hand comes away bloody. Dread hits like a punch in the gut and he looks down to see the blossom of crimson spreading fast and bright across the older man's shirt. The bullet hole is a gruesome, bloody mess and it's high up and centered. It's a fatal shot and they both know it.

"Oh God, Tom…" Josh stammers, pressing one bloody hand over the hole in a vain attempt to staunch the gush of blood. "J-Just hang on, alright? I'll get the doctor, you're gonna be fine…" He knows it's a lie, they both do, but denial is a strange thing and it makes him babble out meaningless reassurances.

This wasn't supposed to happen, Tom was the best gun man he'd ever seen. He was sharper, more precise, reacting on instinct and intuition. Tom was also faster, always had been. Faster to react to the sound of bullet dropping into the chamber. Faster to realize he couldn't return fire in time and that the bullet would have struck Josh and killed him where he stood. Faster to step in front of his young partner and take the bullet for himself. Tom was always faster...

Tom just shakes his head, blood staining his teeth and trickling out from the corner of his mouth. "Don't you forget everything I taught you, boy…" he gasps, his voice gurgling and broken as blood fills his throat.

He passes his gun to Josh, pressing it into his hand with blood-slicked fingers. "You take care'a my girls now," he says with a throaty gasp, his breath shuddering and shallow. "Treat 'em right...and they'll return the favor…"

He gives him a small, bloody grin and goes still, gone from one breath to the next.

For several seconds Josh doesn't move, he just stares at the dead man in his arms and the pistol in his hand. He's numb and detached, watching the world pass around him like he's looking at it through someone else's eyes.

He doesn't remember laying Tom down on the ground and standing up, the pistol still gripped in his bloody hands. He doesn't remember crossing the room, stepping over bodies and bottles and broken tables. He doesn't remember coming to a stop in front of the man on the ground, the man with bleeding leg and bleeding shoulder. The man who shot Tom.

What he does remember is the man babbling out some kind of apology, an excuse, something he thought might spare his life. He remembers the look on the man's face when he realized there was nothing in the world that could save him now.

He remembers Tom's words the first time he ever witnessed him kill a man. Six pounds of pressure, Josh, Tom had told him once. That's all it takes to kill a man. He remembers leveling the pistol between the man's eyes and pulling the trigger. He remembers the recoil and the splatter of blood and the heavy, oppressive silence that followed.

He's twenty-two years old and he just shot a man in cold blood. It should probably feel worse than it does but honestly Josh is too numb to care. He tucks the gun into his holster and steps away from the body, walking back across the room toward Tom. The older man is still on the floor, right where he left him, blood staining his clothes in bright crimson patches. He's still dead and nothing will change that.

Josh drops down to one knee beside Tom and fishes his other gun out of the holster. The metal is smooth and warm, fitting into the palm of his hand like it was made to be there. Maria and Ethel, Tom's leading ladies.

He reaches out and squeezes Tom's shoulder once, a silent thanks and an apology. Tom deserved better than what he got out of life; he deserved better than this. He says a silent prayer and lets his hand linger for a second more before pulling away.

"I'll take care of your girls, old man," he says quietly, standing slowly and walking out of the saloon.

Poor Tom =/ More to come soon guys!