Little Red Ants on a Hill, Part Two
Mar. 31st, 2008 01:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
handful_ofdustLITTLE RED ANTS ON A HILL, Part Two of Three
By Gemma Files
Fandom: 3:10 to Yuma
Pairing: Charlie Prince/Ben Wade, Charlie Prince/OFC
Rating: Pre-slash, some het, R.
Summary: Charlie helps Ben pull the long con, with some fallout.
The “town” they’re going to—Bewelcome, New Mexico—turns out to be a loose clump of camps with aspirations of the sort Charlie’d normally ride through at top speed, not looking ‘round while he does, then never think of again, after. It’s only got two real buildings (a general store and a church, surprise surprise); what streets as they have are full of yokels, dust and an uncommon amount of truly bad Jesus loves me, Power in the blood-type caterwaul disguised as legitimate song. Reminds him of that one shit-stain nearby township his kin once dreamed on raising enough stock to eventually move to, the which fact alone is enough to make Charlie hate each and every part of it on sight.
These folks are the kind who’d probably call ‘emselves “poor but honest”—more poor than honest, by Charlie’s reckoning. Starving rats running a losing race, constantly at the mercy of larger forces, waiting in line to get ground into the dirt…like clockwork, or gravity. No point mourning over any of it, though; he knows full well how this particular game usually turns out, even if they don’t (as yet).
“This place really is the asshole of the world,” Charlie mutters, keeping his voice low and his mouth immobile, as he does. To which Ben replies, idly—bestowing a suitably beatific smile on every single grinnin’ fool who passes, at the same damn time—
“Oh, come now, ‘Ethan’. I’m sure you’ll learn to love it…for long as we have to stay to work the trick right through to it conclusion, at least.”
“And how long’s that gonna be?”
“Eight weeks at the most, a month at the very least; patience is a virtue, you’ll do well to remember. Now stop your sulkin’, and find us a place to get hitched up.”
These marks have been waiting on some educated body like “good” Reverend Beckford for quite a span, apparently—long enough to billet him in the nicest house in town, at any rate, while he organizes the rest of ‘em to pony up their scam-funds in the most efficient manner possible. Actually, turns out the mayor’s been corresponding with Ben for nigh on five months now, which frankly amazes Charlie; the scheme they’ve cooked up “together”—one-tenth divine/mayoral inspiration, nine-tenths patented Ben Wade steerage from behind—is bent on raising money for a (conveniently nonexistent) missionary campaign to convert the Apache, thus freein’ up their land for “civilized” development…ridiculous idea at best, but the Bewelcomers all eat it up like cake, especially since it’s delivered wrapped in Ben’s usual honeyed load of Bible-babble.
Charlie mainly skips right over the mechanics, though—always easier by far for him to concentrate on watching Ben’s back, rather than pay close attention to whatever web of lies he might happen to be weavin’. Besides which, it ain’t as though they can spend any of the money they’re gathering until they’re safely gone—and in Charlie’s view, money you can’t spend is only slightly less useless than a gun you can’t shoot.
So he spends most of the next month walking around all yokelized, tryin’ his best to ignore how crazy it makes him: Not being taken seriously anymore, just on his own mere presence; not being able to give orders and know they’ll be obeyed instantly, without question—because he speaks for Ben, and Ben Wade trumps every damn thing. Not being the dangerous, terrifying thing he’s struggled so hard to make of himself, while simultaneously having to play pretend he could ever really go back to what he once was, before the War…
…like he even really remembers what that was, anyhow, long’s it’s been since.
What Charlie hates most is how their eyes skip over him, like he’s just somehow meant to be there, part of the normal Bewelcome run of things. Or worse—how, when they see him comin’, they don’t any of ‘em even know enough to run the other way, fast and hard; just smile and start over for him in turn, all friendly.
“Damn dumbshit farmers,” Ben overhears him muttering to himself, as he lays out the texts for the latest Meeting-hall do. “Lookin’ at me like I’m one of their own, like I ain’t killed near a hundred men already…”
“That’s overstating the case just a tad, ain’t it, Charlie?”
Charlie pooches out his lip, mutinous. Allowing, at last: “Maybe. I sure wasn’t countin’.”
From this angle, he can hear the grin in Ben’s voice, more than see it. “Look, it won’t be for much longer, I reckon: So just fake it, play pretend. I know you can do that—seen you do it before, more’n enough times.”
“Not for days, you ain’t. Not for eight Goddamn weeks.”
Ben turns to look at him then, long and level, like he’s noticing something about him for the very first time. Observing—
“You truly do despise simple people, don’t you, Charlie? Why is that, I wonder?”
Charlie shrugs. “Just don’t think too much on ‘em, that’s all.”
“I’m sure they’d be main happy to keep it that way, too, they only knew you like I do.”
Charlie grins at that, with genuine amusement, wide and mean: “Yeah, probably.” A pause. “Hell…they should be.”
And the thought does cheer him up a bit—for a while, at least. ‘Til the next friendly face comes grinnin’ towards him, right about: Him with his itchy palms, his sweaty back-small, his store-bought nobody’s clothes, stranded in the middle of a herd of human cattle who all assume he wears their exact same brand. Charlie Prince, trapped amongst fools without his finery, his beard, his own damn name to answer to…
Without even his Goddamn guns.
*
Happens like Spring, everywhere they go, from Mexico to Texas: Stay there long enough, people start parading their daughters by for Ben—or Reverend Will, more like—to gawk at. And oh, but Ben does love this process, much like a schoolboy loves his pie; due tribute offered up daily for him to luxuriate in, amused and watchful as some big cat, fair purring with the so-damn-fitting right-ness of it all. Just one more comfort to enjoy, in ways Charlie might find frankly ridiculous—weak, silly, contemptible—were he watching them played out by anybody else.
But: If there’s anything Ben Wade ain’t, it’s weak…not to mention how it’d take a sight more than some passing sashay of corn-pone country pussy to ever render him so, even if Charlie wasn’t already in place to ward off all other potential threats to the boss’s supremacy.
This time ‘round, the front-runner’s an overblown bloom of a gal named Clarabelle Pye who comes joined at the hip with her bosom pal, Lyla Ferriday—dark where Clarabelle’s fair, plank-skinny where she’s dewy-buxom, sharp and hard where Clarabelle’s all giggly and giving. The first time they pop up—arm in arm—is after a particularly rousing sermon Ben gives on the Slaughter of the Idolators (Ezekiel, 9-1 to 9-11) to cover for Clarabelle’s daddy, Bewelcome’s more usual preacher, who’s down sick with the food-poisoning, or some-such:
Pass through the city after him, and kill; your eye shall not spare, and you shall show no pity…Defile the house, and fill the courts with the slain. Go!
Not exactly the sort’a thing to fill most young girls’ hearts with thoughts of marital bliss, from what Charlie can gather—but then again, what little Charlie really knows about the state of matrimony would probably fit pretty good inside just one of his holsters, with plenty of space left over for extra bullets. It ain’t a thing he’s given much thought to, or ever plans to.
So here comes Clarabelle, blushing and stammering, while Lyla hangs silent on her arm. Exclaiming, to Charlie: “That was…so inspiring, Mister Rees! Wasn’t it, Lyla? The Reverend…”
Charlie shrugs. “Reverend Beckford’s—not like other men.”
“He’s sure not!” Clarabelle agrees, nodding like her head’s tryin’ to work itself free—then falls dead silent as Ben swans over, strutting like he’s still got a gun on his hip, to introduce himself. While Charlie watches the way Lyla scowls to see Clarabelle’s mouth hang open, and gets a brief yet familiar stab at the sight—‘cause damn if it ain’t like catching sight of himself in some whorehouse mirror, noticing Ben notice some gal with green eyes…or brown, or blue, or whatever the Hell Ben Wade might think himself in the mood for, that particular evening. Knowing he’ll just have to amuse himself awhile, whether he wants to or not—and make sure to watch the boss’s back for him, too, as he does so.
He can’t ever quite make out what color Clarabelle’s eyes are, in the end, though Lyla’s stay flat and black as Apache Joe’s own, no matter how often proximity forces him to stare into them. So they end up sitting next to each other in church each day, equally uncomfortable, while Clarabelle and Ben flirt shamelessly in the next pew across—Lyla all stiff and sallow under her poky bonnet, staring fixedly, while Charlie mainly studies the floor. The both of ‘em trying to touch as seldom as humanly possible.
“I think she likes you,” Ben tells him. “I mean, Clarabelle’s folks’re already talkin’ up how they might have to plan a double wedding…”
“Yeah? Well, they might be jumpin’ the gun just a bit with that, ‘cause I think she really don’t. Don’t like anyone too damn much at all, that one, far as I can tell—‘sides from her friend, that is. And maybe Jesus Christ.”
“So you’re made for each other, then.” Charlie bites his lip, and sees Ben grin. “Aw, you underestimate your own attractions, ‘Ethan’. Try taking her out a time or two, perhaps when Clarabelle and I are out and about—use us as cover, or vice versa. Might be sort’ve nice for you to kiss a woman without having to pay her for it afterwards, for once.”
And: Oh, uh huh, Charlie thinks. ’Cause you know how I’ve been worryin’ over that, obviously—been fair kept up nights, worn to a thin white rope. And you’re just always thinkin’ of me, ain’t you, boss? My welfare, how best to keep me happy…
(Yeah, right.)
It’s around then, however, that Charlie realizes what everyone else (including Ben, and possibly even Lyla) seems to have missed entirely—that Lyla’s actually in love with Clarabelle, genuinely flat-out queer for her in some flowery girlish way he ain’t really encountered close-up, but always suspected probably existed. ‘Cause it’s not like Charlie’s never run into anything similar before, what with spending time in the army; before that, too. And after. The real Ethan Rees, for example, who used to stake out his Daddy’s swimming hole every summer and challenge anybody showed up past a certain time of day to wrestle with him, naked. Or that offputtingly neat-spoken feller ran the general store in Gila, who agreed to sell Charlie his white leather jacket for half-price, ‘long as Charlie promised to come back for a slightly more intimate “chat” after the place was officially closed. Which Charlie eventually did, seein’ how he already had to linger ‘round town ‘til Ben and the others showed up for their usual pre-stagecoach robbery planning session, anyhow…
But none of that’s hardly the point, though it does make him wonder what in the Hell she can possibly want with him, given: An excuse to keep close enough to see what Clarabelle’s getting’ herself into, probably, if nothin’ else. All of which comes to a head on the night they follow “Reverend Will” and Clarabelle out into Bewelcome’s tiny graveyard, only to see ‘em stretch out under the stars on a blanket Clarabelle’s own mother provided with a wink and a nudge, earlier that same evening—for since everyone knows how Clarabelle’s poised to become the next Mrs Beckford, why not turn a blind eye if she and he want to act like they’re married a month (or even two) before the full shindig goes through? Like cows in a field or dogs in an alley, it’s only natural.
As Ben slides his hand up under Clarabelle’s skirt, Lyla freezes—then turns to Charlie with a scary look in her eye, seizes his hand, and tries to make it do the same: Past her goose-bumped thigh to the open leg of her drawers, then straight on into tangled hair and tight, wet heat—the whole pulsing mess of her laid bare, sudden-shocking, like some dead dog in the road. Charlie rips his slimy fingers back like he’s been burnt, but she don’t aim to let him go so easy.
“He’s gonna ruin her,” she says, “so you got to ruin me too, Ethan, don’t you see? You just got to.”
Charlie: “What? No, I don’t. You got to do every damn thing she does, that it?”
That scowl again, deeper than ever, lip trembling on the edge of what might be a sob, a snarl, a scream. Pointing out—
“You do everything he does, though…the Reverend. Everything he tells you to, and some things he don’t—things you just think he wants. If he said ‘jump’, cliff-side, you’d be halfway down ‘fore you even thought to worry ‘bout dyin’.”
“He’s my boss, gal, Goddamnit. It’s…” A pause. Then, lamely: “…it’s just…different.”
She shakes her head, sinking down and hauling him with her, stronger than some tiny little might-be-halfbreed girl has a right to be, under any circumstances. Saying, firmly, as she does so: “No. It ain’t.”
*
He can’t quite carry through, though, not in the end—pulls out at the very height of the act and spills his seed like Onan, telling her how she’ll thank him for it; ignores her when she spits right in his face like some short-changed Mexicali whore and hisses that she won’t, ‘cause long as her folks think she’s still a virgin, they’ll never stop tryin’ to marry her off…away from Bewelcome, from Clarabelle. So if it ain’t him, it’ll have to be someone, anyone, and right damn quick, too…
Right damn quick, goin’ by the noise sweet Clarabelle’s makin’, face-down in the dirt just over that hill. But it’s hardly Charlie Prince’s business how Lyla’s been fool enough to rope herself at the heart-strings with some Scripture-drunk slut can’t keep her skirts down, after all—not even Ethan Rees’s, come to that.
So he up and leaves her there, crying to herself with her face in her hands, rendered plainer than ever by grief—and later, as the moon’s just begun to dip, Charlie strips himself off hard and fast with the fingers of one hand stuffed far enough to hurt down his throat, to keep himself quiet while he does so. Thinking far less about Lyla’s desperate heat than of those noises Ben Wade pulled from Clarabelle, lodged fast between her legs.
He doesn’t sleep the whole rest of that night and rises up cranky, wishing with all his considerable might that the first person he meets on the road will be somebody he could get away with shootin’.
To Be Continued
By Gemma Files
Fandom: 3:10 to Yuma
Pairing: Charlie Prince/Ben Wade, Charlie Prince/OFC
Rating: Pre-slash, some het, R.
Summary: Charlie helps Ben pull the long con, with some fallout.
The “town” they’re going to—Bewelcome, New Mexico—turns out to be a loose clump of camps with aspirations of the sort Charlie’d normally ride through at top speed, not looking ‘round while he does, then never think of again, after. It’s only got two real buildings (a general store and a church, surprise surprise); what streets as they have are full of yokels, dust and an uncommon amount of truly bad Jesus loves me, Power in the blood-type caterwaul disguised as legitimate song. Reminds him of that one shit-stain nearby township his kin once dreamed on raising enough stock to eventually move to, the which fact alone is enough to make Charlie hate each and every part of it on sight.
These folks are the kind who’d probably call ‘emselves “poor but honest”—more poor than honest, by Charlie’s reckoning. Starving rats running a losing race, constantly at the mercy of larger forces, waiting in line to get ground into the dirt…like clockwork, or gravity. No point mourning over any of it, though; he knows full well how this particular game usually turns out, even if they don’t (as yet).
“This place really is the asshole of the world,” Charlie mutters, keeping his voice low and his mouth immobile, as he does. To which Ben replies, idly—bestowing a suitably beatific smile on every single grinnin’ fool who passes, at the same damn time—
“Oh, come now, ‘Ethan’. I’m sure you’ll learn to love it…for long as we have to stay to work the trick right through to it conclusion, at least.”
“And how long’s that gonna be?”
“Eight weeks at the most, a month at the very least; patience is a virtue, you’ll do well to remember. Now stop your sulkin’, and find us a place to get hitched up.”
These marks have been waiting on some educated body like “good” Reverend Beckford for quite a span, apparently—long enough to billet him in the nicest house in town, at any rate, while he organizes the rest of ‘em to pony up their scam-funds in the most efficient manner possible. Actually, turns out the mayor’s been corresponding with Ben for nigh on five months now, which frankly amazes Charlie; the scheme they’ve cooked up “together”—one-tenth divine/mayoral inspiration, nine-tenths patented Ben Wade steerage from behind—is bent on raising money for a (conveniently nonexistent) missionary campaign to convert the Apache, thus freein’ up their land for “civilized” development…ridiculous idea at best, but the Bewelcomers all eat it up like cake, especially since it’s delivered wrapped in Ben’s usual honeyed load of Bible-babble.
Charlie mainly skips right over the mechanics, though—always easier by far for him to concentrate on watching Ben’s back, rather than pay close attention to whatever web of lies he might happen to be weavin’. Besides which, it ain’t as though they can spend any of the money they’re gathering until they’re safely gone—and in Charlie’s view, money you can’t spend is only slightly less useless than a gun you can’t shoot.
So he spends most of the next month walking around all yokelized, tryin’ his best to ignore how crazy it makes him: Not being taken seriously anymore, just on his own mere presence; not being able to give orders and know they’ll be obeyed instantly, without question—because he speaks for Ben, and Ben Wade trumps every damn thing. Not being the dangerous, terrifying thing he’s struggled so hard to make of himself, while simultaneously having to play pretend he could ever really go back to what he once was, before the War…
…like he even really remembers what that was, anyhow, long’s it’s been since.
What Charlie hates most is how their eyes skip over him, like he’s just somehow meant to be there, part of the normal Bewelcome run of things. Or worse—how, when they see him comin’, they don’t any of ‘em even know enough to run the other way, fast and hard; just smile and start over for him in turn, all friendly.
“Damn dumbshit farmers,” Ben overhears him muttering to himself, as he lays out the texts for the latest Meeting-hall do. “Lookin’ at me like I’m one of their own, like I ain’t killed near a hundred men already…”
“That’s overstating the case just a tad, ain’t it, Charlie?”
Charlie pooches out his lip, mutinous. Allowing, at last: “Maybe. I sure wasn’t countin’.”
From this angle, he can hear the grin in Ben’s voice, more than see it. “Look, it won’t be for much longer, I reckon: So just fake it, play pretend. I know you can do that—seen you do it before, more’n enough times.”
“Not for days, you ain’t. Not for eight Goddamn weeks.”
Ben turns to look at him then, long and level, like he’s noticing something about him for the very first time. Observing—
“You truly do despise simple people, don’t you, Charlie? Why is that, I wonder?”
Charlie shrugs. “Just don’t think too much on ‘em, that’s all.”
“I’m sure they’d be main happy to keep it that way, too, they only knew you like I do.”
Charlie grins at that, with genuine amusement, wide and mean: “Yeah, probably.” A pause. “Hell…they should be.”
And the thought does cheer him up a bit—for a while, at least. ‘Til the next friendly face comes grinnin’ towards him, right about: Him with his itchy palms, his sweaty back-small, his store-bought nobody’s clothes, stranded in the middle of a herd of human cattle who all assume he wears their exact same brand. Charlie Prince, trapped amongst fools without his finery, his beard, his own damn name to answer to…
Without even his Goddamn guns.
*
Happens like Spring, everywhere they go, from Mexico to Texas: Stay there long enough, people start parading their daughters by for Ben—or Reverend Will, more like—to gawk at. And oh, but Ben does love this process, much like a schoolboy loves his pie; due tribute offered up daily for him to luxuriate in, amused and watchful as some big cat, fair purring with the so-damn-fitting right-ness of it all. Just one more comfort to enjoy, in ways Charlie might find frankly ridiculous—weak, silly, contemptible—were he watching them played out by anybody else.
But: If there’s anything Ben Wade ain’t, it’s weak…not to mention how it’d take a sight more than some passing sashay of corn-pone country pussy to ever render him so, even if Charlie wasn’t already in place to ward off all other potential threats to the boss’s supremacy.
This time ‘round, the front-runner’s an overblown bloom of a gal named Clarabelle Pye who comes joined at the hip with her bosom pal, Lyla Ferriday—dark where Clarabelle’s fair, plank-skinny where she’s dewy-buxom, sharp and hard where Clarabelle’s all giggly and giving. The first time they pop up—arm in arm—is after a particularly rousing sermon Ben gives on the Slaughter of the Idolators (Ezekiel, 9-1 to 9-11) to cover for Clarabelle’s daddy, Bewelcome’s more usual preacher, who’s down sick with the food-poisoning, or some-such:
Pass through the city after him, and kill; your eye shall not spare, and you shall show no pity…Defile the house, and fill the courts with the slain. Go!
Not exactly the sort’a thing to fill most young girls’ hearts with thoughts of marital bliss, from what Charlie can gather—but then again, what little Charlie really knows about the state of matrimony would probably fit pretty good inside just one of his holsters, with plenty of space left over for extra bullets. It ain’t a thing he’s given much thought to, or ever plans to.
So here comes Clarabelle, blushing and stammering, while Lyla hangs silent on her arm. Exclaiming, to Charlie: “That was…so inspiring, Mister Rees! Wasn’t it, Lyla? The Reverend…”
Charlie shrugs. “Reverend Beckford’s—not like other men.”
“He’s sure not!” Clarabelle agrees, nodding like her head’s tryin’ to work itself free—then falls dead silent as Ben swans over, strutting like he’s still got a gun on his hip, to introduce himself. While Charlie watches the way Lyla scowls to see Clarabelle’s mouth hang open, and gets a brief yet familiar stab at the sight—‘cause damn if it ain’t like catching sight of himself in some whorehouse mirror, noticing Ben notice some gal with green eyes…or brown, or blue, or whatever the Hell Ben Wade might think himself in the mood for, that particular evening. Knowing he’ll just have to amuse himself awhile, whether he wants to or not—and make sure to watch the boss’s back for him, too, as he does so.
He can’t ever quite make out what color Clarabelle’s eyes are, in the end, though Lyla’s stay flat and black as Apache Joe’s own, no matter how often proximity forces him to stare into them. So they end up sitting next to each other in church each day, equally uncomfortable, while Clarabelle and Ben flirt shamelessly in the next pew across—Lyla all stiff and sallow under her poky bonnet, staring fixedly, while Charlie mainly studies the floor. The both of ‘em trying to touch as seldom as humanly possible.
“I think she likes you,” Ben tells him. “I mean, Clarabelle’s folks’re already talkin’ up how they might have to plan a double wedding…”
“Yeah? Well, they might be jumpin’ the gun just a bit with that, ‘cause I think she really don’t. Don’t like anyone too damn much at all, that one, far as I can tell—‘sides from her friend, that is. And maybe Jesus Christ.”
“So you’re made for each other, then.” Charlie bites his lip, and sees Ben grin. “Aw, you underestimate your own attractions, ‘Ethan’. Try taking her out a time or two, perhaps when Clarabelle and I are out and about—use us as cover, or vice versa. Might be sort’ve nice for you to kiss a woman without having to pay her for it afterwards, for once.”
And: Oh, uh huh, Charlie thinks. ’Cause you know how I’ve been worryin’ over that, obviously—been fair kept up nights, worn to a thin white rope. And you’re just always thinkin’ of me, ain’t you, boss? My welfare, how best to keep me happy…
(Yeah, right.)
It’s around then, however, that Charlie realizes what everyone else (including Ben, and possibly even Lyla) seems to have missed entirely—that Lyla’s actually in love with Clarabelle, genuinely flat-out queer for her in some flowery girlish way he ain’t really encountered close-up, but always suspected probably existed. ‘Cause it’s not like Charlie’s never run into anything similar before, what with spending time in the army; before that, too. And after. The real Ethan Rees, for example, who used to stake out his Daddy’s swimming hole every summer and challenge anybody showed up past a certain time of day to wrestle with him, naked. Or that offputtingly neat-spoken feller ran the general store in Gila, who agreed to sell Charlie his white leather jacket for half-price, ‘long as Charlie promised to come back for a slightly more intimate “chat” after the place was officially closed. Which Charlie eventually did, seein’ how he already had to linger ‘round town ‘til Ben and the others showed up for their usual pre-stagecoach robbery planning session, anyhow…
But none of that’s hardly the point, though it does make him wonder what in the Hell she can possibly want with him, given: An excuse to keep close enough to see what Clarabelle’s getting’ herself into, probably, if nothin’ else. All of which comes to a head on the night they follow “Reverend Will” and Clarabelle out into Bewelcome’s tiny graveyard, only to see ‘em stretch out under the stars on a blanket Clarabelle’s own mother provided with a wink and a nudge, earlier that same evening—for since everyone knows how Clarabelle’s poised to become the next Mrs Beckford, why not turn a blind eye if she and he want to act like they’re married a month (or even two) before the full shindig goes through? Like cows in a field or dogs in an alley, it’s only natural.
As Ben slides his hand up under Clarabelle’s skirt, Lyla freezes—then turns to Charlie with a scary look in her eye, seizes his hand, and tries to make it do the same: Past her goose-bumped thigh to the open leg of her drawers, then straight on into tangled hair and tight, wet heat—the whole pulsing mess of her laid bare, sudden-shocking, like some dead dog in the road. Charlie rips his slimy fingers back like he’s been burnt, but she don’t aim to let him go so easy.
“He’s gonna ruin her,” she says, “so you got to ruin me too, Ethan, don’t you see? You just got to.”
Charlie: “What? No, I don’t. You got to do every damn thing she does, that it?”
That scowl again, deeper than ever, lip trembling on the edge of what might be a sob, a snarl, a scream. Pointing out—
“You do everything he does, though…the Reverend. Everything he tells you to, and some things he don’t—things you just think he wants. If he said ‘jump’, cliff-side, you’d be halfway down ‘fore you even thought to worry ‘bout dyin’.”
“He’s my boss, gal, Goddamnit. It’s…” A pause. Then, lamely: “…it’s just…different.”
She shakes her head, sinking down and hauling him with her, stronger than some tiny little might-be-halfbreed girl has a right to be, under any circumstances. Saying, firmly, as she does so: “No. It ain’t.”
*
He can’t quite carry through, though, not in the end—pulls out at the very height of the act and spills his seed like Onan, telling her how she’ll thank him for it; ignores her when she spits right in his face like some short-changed Mexicali whore and hisses that she won’t, ‘cause long as her folks think she’s still a virgin, they’ll never stop tryin’ to marry her off…away from Bewelcome, from Clarabelle. So if it ain’t him, it’ll have to be someone, anyone, and right damn quick, too…
Right damn quick, goin’ by the noise sweet Clarabelle’s makin’, face-down in the dirt just over that hill. But it’s hardly Charlie Prince’s business how Lyla’s been fool enough to rope herself at the heart-strings with some Scripture-drunk slut can’t keep her skirts down, after all—not even Ethan Rees’s, come to that.
So he up and leaves her there, crying to herself with her face in her hands, rendered plainer than ever by grief—and later, as the moon’s just begun to dip, Charlie strips himself off hard and fast with the fingers of one hand stuffed far enough to hurt down his throat, to keep himself quiet while he does so. Thinking far less about Lyla’s desperate heat than of those noises Ben Wade pulled from Clarabelle, lodged fast between her legs.
He doesn’t sleep the whole rest of that night and rises up cranky, wishing with all his considerable might that the first person he meets on the road will be somebody he could get away with shootin’.
To Be Continued
