Redwood Station, Redwood Run
…
"So you really did that, did you?"
"Yep."
"You cut off a man's arm with a sword while trying to stab her in the heart?"
"Yep."
"And you really enjoyed doing that, did you?"
"Oh yeah."
…
"Okay, then."
In all honesty, Zora did not imagine recounting how she nearly murdered a foreman, a police officer, and a wanted swindler across several different states down the Mississippi, although that last one might not have sounded so bad, to go as smoothly as it was as of this moment.
But Nada was taking all of this surprisingly well. Aside from a few pauses to ask her to repeat some of the more… eccentric parts of her story, the missionary had kept his word when he said he would hear her side of what had happened on that chaotic Monday morning.
So much so, that it actually rather scared her a little how well he was taking all of this, which led her to ask the one question that had been eating away at her mind since he had agreed to hear her out.
"Nada… how are you taking all of this so well?"
And there it was, the dying question had finally been put on the metaphorical table for Nada to see. How he would react to it she did not know at first given the briefly static look on his face.
And then, a frown formed the lines of his lips. But this one was not that of simple sarcastic annoyance or unamused disapproval. In the eyes of the bounty hunter, this was probably the first time she had ever seen him so genuinely and utterly saddened. Even his red eyes, once so filled with the life and hope she had grown to strangely adore so much, had now seemed only drained and soulless as he drew a drawn out sigh.
"Because I know too well of the kind of madness you are referring to… the kind that took away everything I knew."
"Took away…" her eyes widened in realization before softening in a rare bout of sympathy for the missionary she never knew she even had as her face mellowed in sadness.
"Oh, Nada…"
He nodded glumly at her for understanding as old memories began shaking up.
"It was around 30 years ago. The old country was tearing itself apart. Armed uprisings and civil unrest had thrown the entire nation into war."
"Why?" she could not help but ask, although the man could understand her curiosity.
"I did not know." his brows furrowed in rare frustration, a hand hardening into a knuckle on his lap. "But as far as most conflicts go, I am willing to bet it was for one petty reason after another."
"Ain't that the truth." Nada smiled slightly at Zora's remark before bringing both of his hands together, locking in his fingers.
"We had hope that it would at least stay out of where we lived… but nowhere was safe." the bounty hunter could almost feel the ominous aura the man's body was building beside her, as if unable to bring himself to recall what was about to come next.
But he knew he had to.
"Then one day, the war found its way into our town and… well, I think you know the rest." the missionary felt a warm hand clasped over his own, a thumb gently rubbing against his hardened knuckles. A short smile drew on his lips as he turned to the bounty hunter, her comfort in simply being by his side momentarily drowning out all sorrow he held.
"I'm sorry you had to go through that." he turned his hand over and she held his palm. It felt firm and warm to the touch, something the bounty Hunter found rather inviting.
"Do not be. I had cherished what little time I had with my family until the end."
He then turned to the left and lifted the silver guitar he had rested on the bench side since his conversation with Howie and gently laid it down on his lap, Zora simply staring with gentle awe at the instrument's metallic luster as he plucked away at the strings with no real attention.
"And for all that has happened in the past… at least I have this to remember them by."
"You never told me anything about this."
"Only because you never asked." the bounty hunter gave an unamused deadpan at that retort before averting her attention back to the acoustic.
"I assume this belonged to your old man, ain't it?"
"Grandfather, actually." Zora held a curious brow at the correction.
"Your grandfather was a street performing missionary?"
"Actually, he used to be a prolific womanizer."
…
"Come again?" she surely must have misheard that, but Nada was quick to douse her doubts.
"You heard me. My grandfather could not get enough of the female figure when he was alive and he only stopped because he promised to settle down with my grandmother, who was the last woman he met."
…
"You must have had some strange family get-togethers." Nada only gave a light giggle in response as Zora suddenly found herself in thought.
"My family never had these sorts of things aside from the occasional robbers looking to steal from our bonesites."
And it was at this moment that she realized something. Something that made her rather riled up.
"Wait a minute… this whole talk wasn't just some trick to make me spill my family's secrets to you, ain't it?"
The missionary only gave her a blank stare and a stupid smile in return.
"Even if I did, would that have stopped you?" now her blood was really starting to boil as she gave him a grim and growing glare.
"Nada…"
…
"Well, what do you think?"
"I think… that you are just the worst."
"That I am, Dawn. That I am."
She temporarily turned away from him with a huff, before seething a slow sigh and returning to meet his stupid grin with her own.
"I hate you so much."
"All is fair, as you said." a knowing smirk the bounty hunter responded with before her friend brought up the request.
"So… your family?"
And with no other choice, she started sorting through the memories, to more or less simpler times.
"My ma and pa used to be paleontologists just outside of here. I was maybe 6 or so around then."
"Your family unearthed dinosaur skeletons?" she nodded in response to his curious inquiry and returned to her story.
"We used to get contracts from other big paleontologists looking for a Pulitzer prize to put in their marvelous museums. But the pay was always piss poor for us so we decided to strike out on our own, though we would always end up with scraps by the time we got anywhere."
Nada could already feel the tale turning for the terrible tragedy that was to come as he braced for the inevitable information.
"Then one day while we were out digging for bones, we hit something… something hard."
"What was it?"
"A golden lockbox fulla cash someone left buried in the dirt and didn't care to come back for it." her lips lit up in a light smile momentarily.
"I'd never seen either Ma or Pa so happy before in my life. It seemed like our luck had finally turned after so many short ends."
And just like that, the smile on her face fell as flat as it had ever been a frown, brows arching sharply down her eyes, glaring tensely at the station floor.
"And then the Blasters came raining down… and Ma and Pa were laying on the ground in a pool of their own blood." she did not even need to turn around to know the absolutely horrified and haunted expression on the missionary's face.
For a little girl to have to see her mother and father getting gunned down before her eyes. He would have made a comic reference to that given the context, but now was definitely not the time nor the place, especially when she started drawing out her Remington revolver from her holster, her fingers wrapped tightly against the varnish as if threatening to snap it to splinters.
"I've sworn that I would not stop until every last one of those yellow-bellied goggle-eyed bastards were food for worms for what they'd done." she raised the iron aimlessly at the empty air in front of her, as if there was a Banzai Blaster fit for the kill.
Before loosely lowering her arm and gun to her lap, a sad and somber sigh from her lips as her eyes faded in golden glow and held low.
"But it was never enough." she uselessly held up the gun in her hand, almost resenting it.
"All those Banzai bodies piling up only reminded me of the murderous monster that I had become, made only more malicious when Bliss Ocean had me in their sights, but you already knew that, don't ya Blood Eyes?"
Her feminine form curled itself up on the old wooden chair, her arms wrapped around herself and her head hanging down in quiet despair.
This was so much more than the night in the forest. This was a tidal wave of every misstep, every mistake, every lack of self control that she had ever allowed herself to fall into coming out for her to see, and the pain of reliving it all only got worse as the seconds ran by.
Until she felt a pair of hands holding onto her shoulders and pulling her close.
"No one should have to endure what you had to, Zora. And I am sorry that I could not give you any more than I can now."
That did it. All of her emotions that had been left bottled up for so long finally burst out of her mind as the first stream of tears began running down her cheeks, her arms slowly wrapping themselves around the missionary's back and her head resting solemnly on his shoulder as she cried her sorrows away.
"Nada?" her voice was nearly choked at this point.
"Yes, Zora?"
"Don't let me go… please." his hands gently rubbed away at her shaking shoulders as he held his comforting smile for her.
"I will not… I promise."
And for the hours that came and went by the station, the two remained as they were, holding onto each other's arms in consoling calm, unwilling to let the other one go as they found solace in the company of one another and the soothing subtlety of the coming sounds of nature's ambience.
And Zora could not have found herself any happier than where she was now, wrapped in the warmth of the blood eyed missionary that came down to her that night like an angel sent from God.
Well, as far as angels falling from the sky and flattening her against the saloon floor went anyway.
"Thank you, Nada." her smile found its way to her lips once more, eyes still wet but her woes all but ebbing away. "Thank you so much."
"Of course, Zora. Always."
They then pulled apart, the missionary using his thumb to wipe away the tears on her cheeks as she held his caressing hand with hers with a serene sigh and a soft smile.
Her eyes closed gently as she enjoyed the welcoming warmth of his touch dedicating tracing the corners of her face.
DING! DONG!
Before the moment was soundly interrupted at the toll of the station's clock tower, with the pair breaking apart in annoyed response.
"Noon already? Huh." the missionary turned away from the clock tower's gong to the bounty hunter.
"So, what do we do now?"
A small thought lingered in the bounty hunter's mind for a moment.
Then, a knowing smile.
—
Gods & Demons around the World - La Llorona
Crying is a common emotion in human nature to help cope with life's various tragedies. But hear the cries of La Llorona, and run. Once a beautiful village girl who fell in love with a wealthy noble, her heart was shattered when she learned of his affairs with other women behind her back, causing her to furiously drown her two sons in the nearby river before throwing herself in grief. Now she wanders the various waters of Mexico in tears, desperately trying to find her sons, and drowning any who are unfortunate to come across her.
—
Howdy's Hootin House o' Hooch, Redwood Run
SNAP!
CLATTER!
"Aw damn it." Howdy moved to lift up and nail in the broken shelf from behind the makeshift counter. Rebuilding the saloon was taking a lot longer than needed, and that was without having any complications caused from his blindness.
SWING!
RING!
…
"Ola, señor." the hillbilly beamed brightly by the greeting behind him.
"Kid!" he hurriedly hopped over the counter with glee and hobbled over to him with a chipper chuckle to meet his friend, the missionary smiling all the same for his caretaker and the cat meowing from his head.
"How are you, Howdy?"
The hillbilly huffed a hard breath in annoyance.
"Coulda been better, as you can probably see." he gestured to the still mostly torn up saloon, barely held together by what little nails the hillbilly could have managed to scavenge for, Nada taking immediate notice before placing a hand on Howdy's shoulder.
"I think I might be able to help with that."
"Oh yeah? How?" the missionary stepped aside.
Allowing his other friend to step up towards the hillbilly.
"Hey, old man."
…
"So… yer back, huh?" his blind eyes narrowed in judgment at the bounty hunter in front of him.
"Yep."
"Feeling better?" she shrugged her shoulders at that.
"More or less."
…
"Alright then!" the hillbilly smiled as he held himself by his hips. "Now, about my saloon…"
The bounty hunter took one look at the missionary beside her, then smiled warmly at Howdy.
"Where do we start?"