A Horse Called Sunbutt

by Estee

Rating: teen
Tags: Other, Adventure, Princess Celestia, Human, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
Length: 29919

June, 1867: Idaho Territory. An abandoned, wounded traveler comes across what has to be the biggest mare in the world. Both human and equine are searching for something -- and without each other, neither may ever find it. Or survive...

There are many reasons to go into the West. Abandonment of things best left behind is high on the list, right next to the seeking of something important. Something worth any amount of risk or sacrifice.

In June of 1867, along the southern border of the Idaho Territory, an abandoned, wounded traveler, his search and life at risk, is lucky enough to stumble across a decidedly singular horse. One who is also searching for something important, something where no amount of sacrifice or risk could ever be too much.

Man and mare will travel together for a time. And if they're lucky enough to survive the experience, they might just find what they're looking for.

If.

Now with author Patreon, SubscribeStar, and Ko-Fi pages.

Published 2014-03-12 20:10:02 UTC
Last updated 2014-09-08 03:14:44 UTC

Mutual Introductions

There was something about having an arrow in the leg which made a man want to leave it there.

Whips... they only touched the skin (and sometimes, when the so-called discipline had gone on for far too long, what was underneath) for a second, maybe less, and then they were gone -- in a manner of speaking. The feel of the whip lasted for days beyond the actual contact, and part of the length would be embossed into skin and mind forever. A whip was a moment of impact against the body followed by a lifetime of carrying the lash, and never by the handle.

But an arrow... well, that was new.

He didn't know how to deal with an arrow. The head... no portion of it was visibly protruding from the surface of his right thigh: just the shaft. So the entire sharp end was buried within muscle, and had been for some time -- long enough for the bleeding to have stopped and the dry red-brown gunk to form a seal around the wound. So in order to remove it, he would have to break that seal. Which wasn't a bad thing: more bleeding would just help wash the wound clean and without any alcohol to pour on it -- he'd had a single small bottle, strictly medicinal purposes, but one of the men on the stagecoach had snatched it from him before the pack had sacrificed him to the natives...

...well, without alcohol, bleeding-as-cleanse was fine, really. He was used to bleeding and would just hope not to do too much of it. But 'too much of it' was the other lurking problem.

With the arrowhead completely within his leg... could he accurately judge the shape of it based on the penetration? See exactly how the thing had entered and remove it along the smoothest path, preventing more damage? Wiping away some of the gunk would help with that, but... he still wouldn't know what the arrowhead's full shape was like, especially how jagged the edges were: any attempt to remove it could graze some major blood vessel which hadn't been hit on the way in, and then 'too much of it' would turn into a decidedly short-term problem.

He could live with the limp. He couldn't live without his blood. But leaving the arrowhead in place... that was begging for infection, and a man needed two legs to limp with...

...oh, and as long as he was coming up with disasters he could look forward to, there was one more: the chance of a fragile shaft. Pull too hard, break the arrow in such a way as to leave nothing he could grip and an arrowhead buried in his thigh until such time as he could find a doctor to cut it out. More likely a barber. Presuming that didn't kill him. Which still presumed he could last long enough to find a barber when he was lost somewhere in the Idaho Territory under a just-risen sun, forcing himself to stand erect and gaze across seemingly endless grasslands, making a real effort to breathe air which seemed far too thin, not a road or edible plant or animal in sight, nothing but him and waving fronds for what felt like miles around. No signs of passage. Nothing in any direction which said people.

Not that most would have bothered to help him, but looking was in the spirit of the thing.

He regarded the elaborately-feathered tail at the end of the shaft and considered that if he just had a matching one sticking out of his other thigh, he could try to use them for wings.

Possibly lost a little too much blood already.

"Go West, they said," he muttered to any divine entity who might care to listen. "Find your fortune in the new Territory, they said. Go die somewhere where we won't be troubled to haul your body away, they should have said..."

He sighed, took stock of his possessions. One set of clothing, heavily bloodstained on the right leg from mid-thigh down. A pair of boots which had not been stolen by the Indians who had accosted the stagecoach and he would be glad for that if he ever reached anything which could pass for civilization, because two carefully-hollowed heels contained all the money he'd had left after buying that last ticket and it was still with him, for all the good it would probably do his corpse. No weapons of any kind outside of fists, teeth, and feet, with that last category not quite fully functional. A hat: one of the new styles, something he'd taken a shine to upon seeing it in St. Louis. The arguable first truly frivolous purchase of his life, a personal beacon shining towards the West.

So why didn't they take it? Two whole dollars, that hat cost...

They probably just hadn't wanted to see his hair.

Clothing: fine. He was decent, as far as that went. Money, but as much of a place to spend it as he had prospective women to not shock, at least with his lack of nudity. Armaments: not quite. Goals...

...get moving.

He was going to need food. Fresh water. Barring running across any people, both objectives currently meant river. There had to be rivers somewhere around here. Idaho Territory was starting to show promise for gold, everyone knew that. (Not why he'd come.) You couldn't pan for gold without water. So by all reason, the Territory should have plenty of rivers around. Simple thought dictated that if he moved enough in any given direction, he'd reach water. Or at least the body's drive to do something other than wait to find out what the scavenger birds would manage with a sudden cash windfall ordered the same.

And a river also meant people, or at least following it meant an increased chance of same. Potentially someone who could do a better job of getting the arrowhead out than he could. Or, at the minimum, had a knife handy for when the shaft inevitably broke...

...I can wait to die here or I can go see if there's a more interesting death somewhere else.

Yeah, definitely a little low on blood.

He grinned, and the expression was more than a little fatalistic. It was a look he'd learned to conceal at his old -- employment -- because it inevitably made people angry when they realized he knew something was going to kill him and he didn't particularly care if it wound up being them. Death by boss had been the way of the world -- until the world had changed while making the mistake of leaving the people within it exactly the same.

All right. He had his inventory. He had sunlight to move under, although hopefully not too much of it: the morning was cool enough for June, but the month meant that could change in a hurry and sweat had to be added to an excruciatingly long enemies list. With the sun just barely up, he had his compass -- and hadn't someone said all rivers ran towards the ocean, or at least tried to? Out here, that meant they would be moving west. So if he went that way...

...which was realistically still a blind grab, but hey, at least he would be doing something.

He gritted his teeth and began to limp towards a personal West, paying a new kind of toll for the continuing dream. He'd decided to leave the arrowhead in place for a while. He could wait a day, see if he could find someone who would take it out for him. The agonies of even a successful removal would probably slow him down more than the pains from keeping it in the flesh sheath.

It was a beautiful rainbow of feathering, really. And the blood hadn't reached it.

"Go West, they said..."

If he found a stagecoach depot office, he was going to demand a refund.

He pictured the reaction to his demanding anything, and the laughter got him through the next forty steps.

It took him a few seconds to reconcile the horse.

Oh, he'd lost blood before, far too much of it. And when the internal river ran too low in its bed, you could start to see things. He'd been keeping a very close eye on reality just to make sure it stayed that way, all too aware of just how easily a tired, thirsty, and hungry (because now there was that too) mind could conjure illusions beneath a noon sun which was far too determined to remind him of what he'd supposedly left behind in the East. So hallucinating a horse... that would have been easy. Something which indicated an increased chance of people: a farm, a ranch, a rider somewhere nearby.

But he was certain he would have conjured up something with a saddle. Stirrups. Reins.

And while he was at it, something he could have gotten on without using a staircase.

"Jesus..." About one-third prayer, one-third startlement, and the rest was a notation that something more than casual creation might have been involved in making this.

The horse had jerked its head up when it had heard him coming: the softly-exhaled word (which might have needed a leftover fraction for any potential blasphemy) made the ears twitch. It looked more startled than he felt. It was staring at him as if it -- no, she, this was a mare -- had no idea what he was or what she was supposed to do with him. But it wasn't running. Maybe... maybe it was just unfamiliar with him. It could know humans, and there was a chance anything this magnificent was (or had been) the property of --

-- 'property' was a bad word.

Anyway, it could have had a rider once. Or he could be on someone's farmland, or -- and the thought hit him in a rush that made his head swim in a way blood loss never had -- it lived here, and that meant it survived here. He couldn't eat grass -- but they both needed water to live, horses could scent rivers when humans couldn't...

He looked it over. It stared at him. It took about the same amount of time on both ends, but he felt he had more to go over. For starters, it was the biggest damn (and that blasphemy was fully justified) horse he'd ever seen. Possibly the biggest damn horse anyone had ever seen.

At a guess... twenty-one, possibly twenty-two hands high: it would tower over him if he was directly next to it, seemed to loom across the three dozen yards separating them, and he could see no way to get on its back with an injured leg which didn't involve a fully-cooperative horse: any prospective rider who wanted to bust this bronco (and was this a bronco? He didn't know all the breeds) and met resistance would have an interesting story to tell Saint Peter, if a decidedly short one. White, almost blazingly so, coat nearly shimmering under the sunlight -- and that was with the bits of dirt it had already picked up from travel through the grasslands. No way to tell if it was shod from here. A long, classic, beautiful sort of face -- for a horse. Extremely attentive ears. Large eyes staring at him, trying to work out what to do about his presence -- large purple eyes. Something he'd never seen on any horse in the East, but humans could have purple eyes and so it didn't surprise him to see them here.

The mane was -- well, since this was apparently the point where the power which created the mare had decided to knock off for the day, 'a pity' was fair. It was manure-brown (and multiple horrible shades of it), a color which would forever seem filth-encrusted even when perfectly clean, all falling to his viewing side in a cluster of Gordian tangles which Alexander would have given up on. Any attempt to brush it would have resulted in defeated or vanished combs, braiding it with ribbons was tying bows around a compost heap. In total, there was basically nothing wrong with the mane that couldn't be cured by a highly localized and extremely merciful brush fire, and it made him move his gaze along the flank, heading for the tail to see if that was just as bad -- which would incidentally let him spot any brand, proof of an owner...

...huh.

The tail was almost as bad. But it was the hip that caught his attention.

He stared at the yellow splotch. Not spotting, not a smear... almost perfectly circular. Brighter than he would have expected fur to be. It could have been dye painted onto the coat, too regular to be natural... but at least from his current distance, natural was what it almost seemed to be.

No brand.

All right -- the brand could be on the other side. Or this could just be some rancher who feels burning his horses is going too far for marking property and a little dye will do him fine. Which doesn't make sense from a rancher view: it's a lot kinder to the horse, but that dye could be scrubbed out by any thief with a good lye and five minutes to do it. Utah Territory wasn't that far away when the stagecoach got stopped and lye is available. But so far, this horse has no owner --

-- which means she probably isn't tame...

She was still staring at him. She didn't seem to be particularly twitchy: his appearance had surprised her as much as she'd shocked him -- but none of that continuing evaluation came from the center of the perpetual near-panic so many horses existed within. She was -- sizing him up.

He knew she could take him.

Worse: so did she.

"Hey there..." Her ears perked at his softly-pitched voice, and she still did not start. Some experience with humans, or just feeling she had that much control over the situation? For his part, he was talking strictly from the hope that she not only knew about voices, but might have commands she recognized. Orders she would automatically obey...

...he pushed the thought back.

"Are you local?" he gently asked, risking a limping step forward. The horse made no move away from him, simply watched. It didn't look as if any part of the coat had been pressed down by a saddle, at least not recently. Wild? Free roamer on a ranch the size of Charleston? He hadn't seen a single fence...

Well, he could think of one command the horse would almost have to know, presuming the owner spoke English and wasn't twelve feet tall. "Kneel?"

The horse blinked -- and the evaluating look changed to what almost felt like equine outrage, with the single hard snort removing all uncertainty. He saw the right foreleg quickly go up and down, heard the stomp as it contacted the first rock for miles around.

Not good.

"Okay..." he just barely managed, and forced himself to try two more dragging steps through the waist-high grass towards Certain Trampling Death, circling a little to the right as he did so. (It was now mostly about checking the other side for a brand and, if he found one, saying a very sincere prayer that this giant wasn't a runaway.) The mare, knowing exactly who was in charge of the encounter, continued to watch, nostrils now slightly flared. "Sorry about that... I just thought it was a word you might know. I wasn't trying to give you an order," he lied, and the words made him sicker than the pain, "just finding out if you'd respond to one." It didn't understand him, he knew, not possibly beyond a few key words taught by a theoretical owner -- but the tone was important. Gentle, kind, steady, trying not to let the pain break through. Give her something to pay attention to other than his movements. Keep her from worrying too much, from galloping away.

Also, optionally, from killing him. Which would admittedly be an interesting sort of death. Sure, it happened to people out here all the time if you believed some of the stories, but having that demise inflicted by the biggest damn horse in the world...

"So what are you doing out here?" Still gentle. Still blocking the pain. Now doing a pretty good job at excluding the inner visions of hooves crushing his skull.

The mare blinked again, then slowly moved her head: left, then right. She turned a little towards the former as she did so -- but kept nearly all of her focus on him. It was as if she was checking for other threats while making sure the current one (not that he could be such to her) didn't try anything -- except that she was still turning, still moving her head from side to side, searching --

-- she was facing north.

She stared in that direction. Made her first vocal sound, a long nickering whinny which didn't bother going through his ears and was directly heard by his heart. A sound which said loss and need, desperation mixed with despair...

The horse turned back. Faced him, blinked again. Snorted. The nostrils flared a second time, and the lips momentarily pulled back from the teeth.

It was his turn to blink.

Horses had emotions, he knew that, and some of those feelings could be complex ones. They had a language of their own for those who cared to learn the cues. He personally spoke very little of it: there hadn't been much opportunity. But it had felt as if he had been given a message, an almost impossibly clear one. 'I'm looking for something. Something I need. And you are not going to get in my way.'

Was having a lost owner as the object of her quest too much to hope for?

Of course it was. But just then, it was the best hope he had.

"I'm looking, too." The tone didn't seem to assure her. "Honest." Another dragging step. "I'm looking for water. Food, shelter -- help, if I can get it. People -- which..." and blocking so much pain seemed to leave an opening for bitterness "...probably doesn't mean help, but it's my best chance..."

Another step, moving into shorter grass.

A light breeze from the east rustled the fronds, made the feathers move.

Her head dipped. The blinks stopped. Her nostrils went wider than ever.

She was staring at the arrow. Smelling his blood.

And still, she did not start.

"Oh, this?" He waved his right hand towards it in a dismissive manner, gauged the distance badly, brushed the shaft --

-- barely, just barely, cut back the scream. But something did emerge, somewhere between grunt and a snort of his own and the strangled cries he'd heard coming from his own body on those occasions when the whip had seemed to go all the way through his back and snake up to bind his tongue.

Her ears went back and for the first time, so did her stance -- but only a fraction of a step. The stare continued.

"Souvenir," and there was too much gasp in it. "You've probably heard the sayings. Go West. Find your fortune. Meet Indian raiders. Get --" sacrificed "-- thrown off your stagecoach in order to satisfy them. Ride all night with a bag over your head. Get dropped off in the middle of what's probably still the Territory because they've decided no one's coming after them and they don't need a hostage any more. Get one free arrow as payment for your services. They don't really talk up those last ones." More staggering from his end, circling as she watched, getting near the point where he could see her other hip --

-- and still no brand. Just another yellow circle-splotch.

So either not owned or held by someone creative. Pick one.

The second slim option was where a tiny sliver of hope still lay. "Look... I'm not going to hurt you. I just need -- water. And maybe people. You might know where they are. I don't." Inching closer, his leg screaming at him now. Would removing the arrowhead have been so bad, even if it had gone wrong? Wrong might have meant death, but death meant no pain..."I'm not going to try and ride you. I don't even know how I could get on." (Her head tilted slightly to the right, she released a small snort and tossed the ugly mane.) "But if you led me anywhere... anywhere at all..."

Her eyes narrowed, and she turned to regard the north again. Went back to facing him, found him in mid-step. Gave the most dismissive neigh he'd ever heard. And the message was once again clear: 'You are not important.'

His descending foot found the second rock.

The uneven landing sent a cascade of pain shooting up his spine, and the sound was so much closer to a scream this time, a sound which should have sent any wild horse into panic of some kind, triggered gallop or attack, anything other than this angry scrutiny...

...he dropped to his knees, and the impact did trigger a scream. Stared at the ground through the grass, knowing it would be long minutes before he could try to stand again and there was the sound of hoofsteps now, mostly muffled by the dirt but still just distinct enough, the giant mare was moving but those sounds were heading away from him, she had no need to attack something so helpless and had dismissed the lack of problem. Moving north, back to her hunt.

"Sorry..." he gasped, despite there being no real reason to speak any more. "Sorry... just... really needed a friend right now..."

The hoofsteps stopped.

He heard the sharp inhalation. The tiny neigh which followed it, so small a sound for so huge a body. It was an odd noise for a horse to make and it surprised him, focused his attention through the pain and made him wonder what it truly meant. Because to his pain-wracked mind, that sound had a direct human equivalent, the tiny agonized vocalization of someone who had just seen their own actions from the outside and frozen as their very soul questioned what they were doing, and surely that was a feeling no horse could ever have.

And then the hoofsteps were getting closer, he wouldn't be able to stand in time, couldn't run, rolling away would do no good, this monster of a mare could catch him with no effort at all and his death would be interesting indeed but with no one to take any notice of it, there was a giant shadow being cast across him and he saw the unshod hoof, one powerful foreleg right in front of him, all she had to do was rear back and come down again, part of that shadow was dipping and he could feel the hot breath against the back of his head...

...the teeth closed on his shoulder.

Gently.

Just enough to grip, and then she pulled her head and body back up, brought him into a standing position which he just barely managed to maintain, reeling against and clutching at her wide neck. She allowed it.

And when he was steady again, she slowly, carefully lowered her body to the ground, the entire mass gradually descending in front of his shocked gaze. She glanced at him, then seemed to nod towards her broad back. Returned her purple eyes to focusing on him.

"...'friend'?" he asked, feeling more than a little dazed. "Your command word is 'friend'?"

She snorted in a decidedly derisive manner, and her face briefly seemed to go dismissive -- but she nodded to her back again.

Given what was very nearly the shortest distance possible to do so from, he looked her over a second time and didn't find any ambush during the search. Just the biggest damn horse in the world, a beautiful white coat contrasted by hideous mane and tail, that expressive face with its purple eyes, and the circular yellow splotch -- a color which, from this closer perspective, didn't seem to be dye at all: just the natural hue for that portion of the fur. A birthmark of sorts.

"Don't look a gift horse in the mouth..." he muttered.

Her ears went back again, and the sound felt as if it had sprung from confusion.

"It's an expression," he sighed, and did his best to climb on.

She waited until he had gotten twin grips of the ugly mane, fingers woven into tangles almost beyond hope of escape, then stood up with extreme care. Made what seemed to be too much of a show out of sniffing the air. Began trotting north.

Singular Appellations

The horse had working hours.

A day of riding on the huge mare had shown him a few habits which his limited horse experience still insisted qualified as -- odd. All right, lying down to drink: that made perfect sense to him. This was the biggest horse in the world (until proven otherwise) and while everything was in proportion, that still didn't let her head comfortably approach the surface of the river they (she) had found on the lowest dip. Sure, some horses might just lean forward or kneel, but lying down -- that was fair. He'd certainly put his lips against the surface of the rushing stream in order to drink his fill -- upstream, as horse saliva had struck him as less-than-desirable flavoring.

So going prone to drink: sensible.

It was the toiletries which were giving him trouble.

At two points during the ride, both near a few of the scant trees and bushes which occasionally tried to stake out territory in the grasslands, the mare had slowed to a halt and then dropped to the ground, assuming the same posture she'd taken to allow his mounting. And she'd stayed there.

The first time it had happened, he'd assumed something was wrong and rather foolishly asked her what it was. After the idiocy of that struck him, he'd made his first silent guess: something had happened to the unshod hooves, and so he'd have to see what it was. A stone in a crack... that he might be able to deal with, although finding something to pry the pebble out with would take some hunting if the arrow shaft wasn't just the right thickness. Anything else and screaming to the sky for a vet wouldn't produce much in the way of results, but it might make him feel briefly better while doing nothing for her. Pulling the arrow out of his leg to use the head as the prying tool could do more as results went, with one of those being considerably more screaming.

Still, anything he might be able to try required inspection of the potentially-affected areas (and he had no idea how he was going to get at her hooves if she didn't let him: the mare outweighed him by more than he cared to think about and was stronger by more than that), so he'd painfully dismounted -- and she'd stood up and began to trot off.

He'd assumed she was abandoning him. He had called after her as he tried to limp in her wake -- and she'd turned her head. Glared at him. Snorted. And rather delicately stepped behind the little copse of trees, a leaf-and-bark shrouding which wasn't exactly enough to block all of her form, allowing him to see her expression at the same moment the wind changed...

On the second occasion, he'd just gotten off and, out of some misplaced wrong-species sense of courtesy, turned his back.

(And from that point on, found himself rather nonsensically going behind cover so as not to somehow offend the mare, excusing it as fair trade.)

He had no idea how that bit of training had been done, but assumed it had made the ladies of the house fairly happy.

They (she again) had found food: a group of huckleberry bushes. Nowhere near enough for her even if he picked all four clean (and he hand-fed her everything he could), but she occasionally slowed her trot to take in bits of grass along the way and the fruit would keep him for a day. There had been no signs of human habitation or passage, but they hadn't found any dangerous animals looking for a meal of mare and man: call it a no-score win, although he personally thought it would take a seriously deranged or impossibly hungry animal to consider taking this horse on. And in between meals and bathroom breaks, they'd covered ground. A lot of it. Even after he accounted for the extra amount of distance she was covering with those long legs, the mare's trotting pace seemed to be oddly fast. And on the few occasions when grasslands had given way to brief stretches of plains and she'd decided it was safe to break into a gallop without worrying about any unseen dangers lurking in a green sea...

The pain in his leg had faded for a while. The jolting to his spine had taken priority.

Huge. Fast. Healthy. Traveling for miles on what had felt like rationing portions. (He hadn't tried to give her directions: he didn't know where anything was and so any attempt to do anything other than guide her around hazards struck him as pointless, especially since she was doing all the work, hadn't wanted to stay right next to the river, and could presumably find it again anyway: they seldom left hearing distance of it after first sight.) There was every chance he was riding on the strongest horse in the world.

But...

...she was attentive.

If he spoke, remarked on some rare actual feature of the landscape, made human sounds just to hear a human voice in the emptiness, her ears always pivoted. She would often turn just enough to glance back at him. Neighs and nickers offered equine responses to biped commentary.

If his weight started to shift, she shifted right back at him until he was stabilized.

Every hour or so -- his best guess -- she would pause. Turn her head from left to right and back again, inspecting the terrain as she sniffed at the air in great gulps of the thin atmosphere. And then, satisfied (or not) by whatever she had (or hadn't) found, she would continue on her way.

But she had working hours. And as the sun had slowly dipped into the west, her pace had begun dropping to something a little more equine-normal. Then it had gone below that. And when the last of the sunlight had departed, replaced by a waxing (and oddly dim) moon, she had slowly stepped up to a small island of open dirt in the middle of the grass, a place which had been a former campsite: there was a fire pit ring of stones waiting in the center. And then she had settled into the soil and refused to move another step.

The mare was trained -- spectacularly so. Not just the best-trained horse he'd ever seen, but the best he'd ever heard of. Possibly the best anyone could ever dream of. And that could easily mean trouble -- because someone had trained her.

No brand, and he'd verified the yellow patches on her hips as being normal fur. No shoes, no saddle, no reins -- nothing which would indicate human ownership. But the signs were unmistakable. Someone had taught this incredible animal. A someone who hadn't been anywhere in the vicinity when he'd encountered her.

The odds were very good that this horse had been stolen. (He couldn't really picture any mare this well-trained as running away on her own.) She could have easily escaped her kidnappers, using their first mistake as her cue. Riding this mare against her will -- well, that would have been a mistake, and potentially a spectacular one which hopefully had a few witnesses for a death that interesting. After that... wandering free, perhaps trying to work her way back to her master -- owner -- human. But... stolen. And he had no proof that he owned her. It left him open to accusation. All someone had to do was call him the thief and he would have very few ways of proving differently, especially ones which would be listened to. What day was she stolen on? Well, I was four stops back then: would you care to buy the stagecoach ticket and ride with me so we can verify my alibi together? Of course not, because investigation was so much more work than guilt.

If the wrong person saw them... if the wrong words were said and found an eager audience which had been hopeful for any excuse...

There were phantom pains in his neck for a while, which also took his mind off his leg.

But there were still no people about. No true need to worry about that until some form of civilization appeared (although having a workable strategy for it wouldn't hurt, if any such plan could even exist). And she'd decided to stop for the night -- a decision his aching back, buttocks, both thighs (trying to squeeze a back that wide), and weary body were ready to agree with. So he dismounted and inspected the fire pit by scant moonlight, hoping for a small miracle. One he didn't receive.

"No flint that I can see," he told her. "No discarded matches, either." Red or white. Either way, he would have risked the phosphorous. "Don't give me any looks -- pretty much everything I brought with me either rode off with the Indians or the stagecoach, and you're not supposed to secure a firestarter for emergencies. And we're short on sticks. Even if I use one and get some tinder together... twirling with your hands hardly ever works, and I don't have any real string to use."

He glanced over his shoulder. Sure enough, she was staring at him in an attentive sort of way. No real confusion at his words: more of a 'So get to the point.'

"But we need a fire," he continued. "I don't know what roams through the grass at night, but I'd rather not find out -- and it gives any people we might be lucky enough to have nearby something extra to see. This spot's big enough that I'm not going to worry about everything around us going up from a stray ember. It just means we -- I have to start one. And right now, my best option is looking for some old dead grass to use as a starter, followed by --" and he sighed "-- banging some rocks together and hoping something sparks..." Which were odds just about as bad as the ones of his ever having run across her in the first place.

Well, one miracle in a day didn't mean you weren't allowed two.

He searched the area by touch, found enough old stalks to give him some hope of tinder material and carefully arranged it around the bits of wood he'd scavenged throughout the day, filling pockets and hat with the stuff as a just-in-case -- then carefully picked up two random rocks and gave them a close inspection. Neither of them looked like flint.

As if I'd be able to tell what flint was outside a store anyway.

He shrugged, then held them next to his little starter pile and brought them together.

And there was a spark.

But it was a strange sort of spark. Instead of a flying crackle of high-speed red-and-yellow energy, it was a tiny point of light, floating down from the point of contact and hissing into the dead grass, where it created a tiny curl of smoke...

He blinked, partially turned to face the mare as if she would somehow have a reason for the oddity at hoof -- and she was not looking at him. She was staring over his shoulder, gaze fixed on the abandoned fire pit and nothing else. Her eyes refused to blink, her jaw seemed set with determination and for the first time since meeting her, he picked up a scent of sweat from her coat.

I didn't cool her down enough after traveling all day, it's catching up to her, it's like not starting to feel exhausted until you leave the fields and you're finally allowed to be tired without paying for it...

"Never seen a fire being started before?" He frowned at the rocks. "Maybe I haven't either. Not with these, anyway. Flint doesn't spark like that... so these aren't flint? I never heard about another rock that would do it, but..." He shrugged. "Okay, this is me not complaining about getting lucky." He turned back to face the small pit. "Let's try this again."

Another strike. Another one of those strange sparks. He got one or two for each ramming together of the stones, and slammed them against each other all the faster for it while he heard the breathing of his tired companion accelerate. And the curls continued to rise, developed glowing red edges which spread to the wood...

His miracle quota might not be full just yet.

He wondered how many more he was going to need.

The fire had to be kept small: he didn't have enough fuel for anything else and despite what he'd told the horse -- told the horse, his mother had always said he was a little too attached to the sound of his own voice for his own good -- he was still worried about winding up in the middle of a miles-wide blaze. But it provided light, and warmth against the encroaching June night which was losing heat a little too fast for his liking. The fire was an extra piece of company.

The mare, resting a few feet behind him while nibbling at the surrounding grass, occasionally turned to passively watch the wood burn. No fear of the flame -- but given the rest of her training, he hadn't expected any.

"You need a name." She blinked, turned to face him. "I know -- you already have one." Whatever her caretaker had granted. "But it's not like I have any idea what it is. If I'm going to keep talking to you, I can't just call you horse or mare or Giant White Bareback Pain --" and was caught by the odd look in her eyes. "-- okay, not that last. But you should at least have a name to borrow for a while until you can get back to your real one."

She whinnied softly, then tilted her head up and looked at the celestial wheel of the stars, gaze steady, ears relaxed, posture fully alert.

He followed her visual trajectory. "Pretty," he commented, then got back to the issue at hand. "A name..." Throwing 'giant' into it seemed somehow unfair. 'Bareback Pain' was accurate, but not her fault. 'Violet' for her eyes... that arguably worked, but something about it didn't feel right. If he was going to go for a physical feature...

Two yellow circle-splotches in her coat, one on each hip.

He grinned. "Sunbutt."

Up until that moment, he'd had no idea a horse could move its head that fast.

Her eyes wrenched away from the stars, her body twisted as her ears went all the way back, the muzzle came forward as the neck arched towards him, nose going directly for his chest --

-- and she easily, almost casually knocked him onto his back.

There was a snort. It had a somewhat disgruntled note to it. It was followed by the sound of movement -- and then nearly all of her considerable bulk was standing over him, with his body well between her legs and under the barrel with plenty of room to spare. His face, however, was beneath her gaze. She had held back from the complete overshadowing just enough to stare down at him, purple eyes half-narrowed.

"...is it something I said?" he asked both stars and mare: the former provided no answer, the latter pulled back her lips a little. "Come on, Sunbutt, maybe it's a name which would offend a delicate lady if there were any out here, and you might be a lady, but delicate..."

The resulting snort nearly put out the fire. And then she backed away from him and settled back into her spot near the grass border, her entire posture openly displaying the equine equivalent of a total snit.

He sat back up, looked at her for a while as her coat seemed to glow in the firelight. She refused to meet his eyes.

The stars moved. They tended to do that.

Finally, she tilted her head towards him, jerked it up and down once, made a snuffling sound.

"Sorry?" No, this level of Equine wasn't in his education, let alone what had happened a few minutes before.

She repeated the gesture, then added a lean-forward which had him scooting back until he was almost in the fire -- but she only poked his shoulder with her nuzzle.

He had no idea what any of it meant. But talking to the horse was better than the silence of the grasslands, and so he imagined her side of the conversation as something which had been on his mind for a long time anyway. "Oh -- my name?" And was surprised to find himself feeling embarrassed about it. "I'm -- kind of between names right now."

She stared at him, and he imagined her next whinny to have a question mark in it.

"Well... I had a name. But I didn't pick it." (Any irony about her not having picked the one he'd just handed out didn't reach him. After all, she was just a horse.) "And my parents didn't even get to give it to me. That's the usual way for most people, I know -- but not for mine. Not -- where I'm from. And I got sick of my name. I got sick of the way people said it, and the reasons, and -- the way they sounded when it came out of their mouths. So when I decided to come out here, I decided that when I reached the West -- I'd throw it away. Pick something new. Because a name isn't just something a person gives you, it's -- something you kind of have to feel, I guess. Like you need to have the name in your heart before you can get it in your head, and -- I'm talking to a horse. I'm going over this with a horse, I'm having a deep-down begging-for-a-beating talk with a horse..."

She closed her eyes, softly whinnied.

He sighed.

"Because there's no one else to talk to," he quietly finished. "So -- might as well, because there's no one here to call it strange, either. It's just that -- my old name was never really mine, and I thought I could just -- figure one out. And I was heading into Idaho Territory to start with, so even if I haven't gotten exactly where I wanted to go, I'm sort of in the place where I have to start thinking about it. It can be something I come up with, or something another person calls me which I actually want to hear... just as long as I get the choice... I know you don't understand any of this, all right? But -- at least you listen." He managed a smile. "You're a good listener, you know that?"

She seemed to nod, which was a fine imaginary contribution to the discussion and didn't put too much pressure on him to be witty.

Another sigh, and he looked down at the arrow. "I'm not sure how to sleep with this," he admitted. If he moved too much, jammed the shaft -- he was best off sleeping in a sitting position, but what was there to sit against? "I got knocked out just fine with it, but... you're good with words, but I hope you can handle screaming. Because this needs to come out. I wanted to give it a day in case we found someone who could do it better than me. I can give it a few more hours after sunrise, but I've already risked a lot by stalling and I can't chance much more. If we can't get to a homestead or town or anything by noon, then the first river stop we make after that, I've got to pull it. No choice."

Another equine nod, and he decided that for purposes of the non-discussion, she had a worried look.

"So that's the goal," he told her. "People by noon -- or I play barber on myself. And that's going to get loud..."

A soft neigh -- and then she got up, moved away from the grass, settled down next to him -- or rather, where he'd been, as he'd scrambled away from her moving body as another just-in-case.

He wondered what the equine version of a snicker was. And if that last sound had been it.

"Sunbutt?"

It could have been a yawn, something he hadn't known horses did. It could have been a sigh. And then she shifted a little more until her broad side was against his back.

In time, they both fell asleep that way, watched only by dimmed moon and disinterested stars.

Relocated Infuriations

The world changes. People don't.

The news reached them before those officially carrying it did. Rumors always had ways of jumping between fields, with a great deal of careful effort going into keeping what few lines of communication existed open. But what had passed down those lines had always been rumors and oh, how all that crystallized desperation had flown down the rows. They're winning. They're losing. They are a mile or two away and whatever you thought they would do, it's going to be so much worse. Rebel: this is the time. No, side with the familiar: the enemy is coming. But...

...those had been rumors.

This was news. And somehow, everyone had known the difference. Everyone.

The reactions were... varied.

If he listens closely, he can hear some of the ongoing ones.

Several have gone into the abandoned house. (The family fled. No one seems to have seen them leave or has any idea where they headed, much less exactly when. He would have given much for a chance at last words, and it ran away with them.) The practical are scavenging. They are searching for valuables which are relatively small, fairly portable, and -- the important part -- can be easily hidden away. They will take what they can, secure it in spots hoped to be overlooked, and then return later when the mass outbreak of what's not quite insanity dies down a bit. A new life requires new funds, and a hastily-abandoned trinket or two could buy those first crucial months.

Most of the angry are in the house as well. They have been waiting to lash out for so very many years, longing for the chance to strike against anything in a way which could bring punishment for things where no amount of vengeance could ever do more than set up a future generation of revenge to come -- and now there is no one to strike. And so their rage is exerted against furniture, plates, lamps and toys and anything which might make an interesting noise when it dies. They are not happy with the practical. Not at all. Some noises indicate a conflict of philosophies in progress.

The celebratory have carved out a place in the fields. They are dancing, shouting, letting the sheer wonder of the moment suffuse them while giving very little thought to what might be coming next. They feel there will only be a single moment like this, and so the future can wait its turn. They sing their joy into the firelight and try not to look at the shadows cast by a looming clock.

And the broken cower in their huts, confused eyes shut in a final line of defense against a world they no longer understand, and wait for someone who will tell them what to do.

The practical, the angry, the celebratory, and the broken. He can hear all of them if he tries. But he is standing with none. And in these first moments of a new world, he does not know what it makes him.

Some to the house, others to the fields, those lost in all ways but breath hide in the lie they called home. And he...

...went to the toolshed.

He is standing in front of it now, right hand outstretched towards the door handle. Not quite making contact. Unable to grip.

He has never been inside before. The things within always came to him. Generally in quantity.

It was a joke, the sort where no one could laugh because of who had originally found it funny. Toolshed: the place where you keep the things which make work flow just as smoothly as exposed blood. In reality, it's a little house, not much higher in quality than the huts, only a tiny amount larger and truly raised only by the idea that in theory, this place could be left behind at will by what's not even remotely its owner. Wood planks and ugly leaning stovepipe, a few glass panes which are the pride of the resident, some in every wall and he scrubs them, just about the only work they see him do. He wants the ability to see what's going on outside at all times, will not trust them to clean the exterior in case they broke something (the thought has not crossed minds so much as set up residence) and certainly would never allow them within for unsupervised work on that surface, lest the threat of breakage be added to that of something going missing.

Although some did wind up inside. Those were typically pushed through the doorway. Some screamed before they entered, continued their ignored pleas throughout the night until their voices finally shattered. Many of them left as the broken.

But not him. He didn't qualify, at least for that.

He used those panes, looked inside from every possible angle. This too has been abandoned. And yet he cannot go inside --

-- the hell he can't.

His hand closes on the handle. The door opens, and he steps inside.

And there they are.

He ignores the shoddy bed, set too low to the ground for comfortable morning exit and nowhere near truly large enough for two. Pays no real attention to the poorly-molded stove which must leak heat from every near-cracked surface, a stove set far too close to the wall, waiting for a chance to burn a little too strongly and cook everything within and without. (Part of him notes that it's still radiating a good deal of warmth, but he doesn't pay much attention to the thought.) Doesn't really bother with the pile of dirt-encrusted clothing thrown across an unsteady table or the filthy dishes or all the other little indicators which would tell a less focused mind that most of the improvements between these living conditions and his own are cosmetic ones, because the true difference dividing former occupant and those outside is also cosmetic and thus assigned far too much importance.

What he's paying attention to is the tools.

They are on a long table, one of noticeably higher quality. They are mounted on hooks and brackets along a wall. The wall next to the bed. Some are set low enough to prospectively grip from a mostly-prone position, but only for the one on top.

In this dirty little one-room house which barely has any floor to it, where leftover food is left to openly rot, clothing only cleaned (never by the former occupant) when the joints might no longer bend, where the bloodstains on the bedding are displayed as badges of personal honor -- the tools are polished. They are oiled. They are displayed in the same way with which the man of the family shows his hunting trophies: with pride.

He takes a step forward. His right hand reaches out again. And that is the moment when he realizes that this is but a dream, that he is only reliving what was and cannot change a second of it. Not what came before, and not what is coming next. And there is a flicker of something in his heart, something both exhilaration and horror, for he does not want to.

His hand reaches out --

-- there is something in it.

There was nothing there before. Not yet.

He slowly brings his hand up, regards the object resting on his palm.

It's a toy soldier. Not the flat cutout of tin which was dismissed as being too low-quality for the boy of the family all those years ago. Breadth to go with height and width. Lead, from the weight of it, just like all the finer pieces conducting their wars in the special place put aside for such battles, conflicts which never showed the blood. He knows about toy soldiers. He has held more than a few, moved several and always, always lost. (Except for the time he both won and lost.) He knows uniforms and garrisons and every possible strategy which will end in deliberate disaster. At twelve, he could lose a war faster than any West Point graduate, with decidedly more casualties thrown away for less glory and no chance of promotion. He can determine nationality, rank, assignment, and chance of survival (pretty much none) on a casual glance. Useless skills.

But he doesn't/does know this one.

Doesn't: the uniform is completely unfamiliar. For starters, it's gold, and the weight also suggests a tiny chance of that being real. The torso is armored, fully encased in the close-fitting metal. There is a helmet with a strange center crest to it. The legs are protected, with the arms left fully free to move -- oddly so: the armor stops dead just before the shoulders, without even the extension of spaulders to shield vulnerable joints. It's a strange lack in a protective configuration otherwise intended towards the unfashionable idea of having the rank-and-file live through a fight. As if the designer didn't know what to do with arms.

Does: the face under the brim of the helmet is his own.

"I thought you would relate to this."

The voice is female. It's a little bit deep and slightly too high in volume. There's a heat in it which has nothing to do with the stove (which was too hot, why hadn't he seen it was too hot?) accompanied by a chill no winter has ever brought him, a banishment of all things warm which teaches him about snow and glacier and frostbite in a single second before extending his extensive education on the subject of death. And that is the least of what's wrong with it. There is something else in that voice, something he can't identify on a conscious level yet, and it makes him want to run --

-- but all he can do is turn and face her. Because she wants him to.

The woman is darkly elegant. The finest gown, one reserved for the kind of parties which even the family could barely find invitations to. The edges of it drape the floor in shades of frost, and the ice crystals are slowly spreading outwards from where she stands. Eyes of moonless night, pupils barely visible within irises. Skin to match his own. Features which should be beautiful and aren't: there's a harshness to her which slices through perfect lines and provides them with edges meant to cut.

Her hair is long and dark and flowing. It flows on its own. It reaches for him and never quite gets there.

"You have to listen," she tells/orders him. "You have to understand. Whatever you think is happening here -- the truth is in your hand. You know what soldiers are for. Generals go to war -- but generals seldom die. Pawns are sacrificed so that queens survive --" and the smile is sudden, bearing the snideness of a private joke being enjoyed in the total security that no one else will understand the punchline "-- not that there are any queens involved here..."

She laughs. There is something buried inside that laugh. Another sound, and he realizes it's been there all along, a constant undercurrent to her words, an undertow trying to drag his attention in, he can't quite make it out, he can't move his feet, no part of him will respond to the need, the urge, the screaming in his head to run.

"...but it's the principle of the thing, really," she continues. "She will sacrifice you in a heartbeat if she thinks it'll get her what she wants -- and as far as she's concerned, what she wants is right. That war, the recent one -- how many soldiers thought they were fighting for what was right? Pretty much all of the ones from your part of the homeland, I'm sure. They went into every battle convinced they were doing exactly what was necessary for the right to prevail, that every broken body, lost limb, and surrendered heartbeat was worth it because they knew they were fighting for the right -- and aren't you glad that the right lost?"

Another laugh, both merrier and darker. He can almost make out what's within it. One more could do it, if he can even stand to hear another.

No more. Let me speak, let me move, let me run...

"She thinks she's right. And she's not," comes the voice. (The hair is getting closer to him now, one elegant arm is starting to come up and forward, a hand radiating the mist of deep cold reaching towards his left cheek.) "But you still have time. You don't have to be part of this war -- certainly not on the losing side. You could just leave her right now. Walk away --" another smile, but no laugh "-- all right, so there's a problem there. But leave her and you will walk. I can promise that. She can't. She's so weak here, so laughably weak, even if she's trying to play tricks with timing --"

She stops. All of her stops. The hair halts its movement, the motionless hand held still within air gone to a new kind of frost. She might have even stopped breathing, except that he's not sure she ever was.

And then she shrugs. "Or you could side with the winner," she tells him, and the soldier in his hand becomes lighter as the armor takes on new hues, dense gold shifting to soft silver. "And then you might not even have to fight at all. But if you did... you would win. And you would live. Again, something she can't promise. Something you should be thinking about. Because there's a crucial difference between all those little toy wars you used to lose and what's happening here. When one of your old soldiers went down -- why, you just pushed it over, waited for that particular defeat to wrap up, and then -- look! A miracle! You picked it up again! Every wound healed! Fragile soul back in the metal shell! And it was all ready to die just as many times as necessary until the fun was over!"

She laughs.

Part of him hears what are very nearly her last words. They are "That won't happen here."

But the toolshed is vibrating, pulsing, rippling in waves of fear and he can move now, he turns, just barely spotting the shock in her face before he starts to run and the final thing is a scream of "WAIT!", but he is moving, he can move and

he heard it

the thing inside the voice

was another voice

a young woman

screaming within words

"letmeoutletmeoutletmeoutletmeoutletmeoutletmeout"

the sound of nightmare

He would have jerked all the way upright. Would have gone from seated to standing and then possibly running if his body allowed it. But he couldn't. Because there was a partially curled-up horse resting the chin of her massive head on his right leg, just below the arrow, and her coat once again seemed to glisten in the just-risen sun. Her purple eyes, which had been squeezed shut in what almost appeared to be deep concentration, briefly pried open. The closer one regarded him. And then she went right back to using him for a makeshift pillow.

She had a very heavy head.

"Damn it, Sunbutt..." Blasphemy once again justified. How long would it take for that leg to get any circulation back? And if her head had shifted during her own sleep, impacted the arrow... "Thanks. Really. On top of having that dream, I'm going to be trying to get on you with a foot made out of wood. Which just might wind up being practice if I've left this arrow in too long..."

...and that was a possible explanation, although it was one which made everything that much worse.

Those equine eyes partially opened, blinked at him, closed again -- then opened all the way. Her head lifted, turned until she was positioned to stare at him directly. The nicker seemed to have a note of worry in it.

"Fever dream?" he wondered aloud, and brought the back of his right hand up to check his forehead. Sweat, not that he'd been expecting anything else after that... but he didn't seem to be running any hotter than usual. A careful prodding of the injured leg failed to locate extra-swollen flesh, and he pulled down his pants just enough to discover a total absence of inflammation lines spreading from the wound (while figuring that wasn't enough exposure to somehow offend the mare). "Okay, maybe not... but Jesus --" prayer this time "-- what was that about?"

She whinnied this time, and whatever element of worry he was (falsely?) perceiving within the sound seemed to be echoed in her face.

"Just a bad dream," he told himself as much as her. "A weird bad dream..." It would fade: he hardly ever remembered a dream for more than an hour or so after waking -- and as such, it was time to start actively dismissing the thing, if only to accelerate the process. "Nothing to worry about." He briefly wondered if horses dreamed, then felt grateful that this one hadn't experienced anything which would have made her jolt out of sleep. Her head right next to the arrow... "And I'm not a pillow, okay? Not while this thing is still in place. And that's the agenda for today. We get up, head back to the river, grab a drink and maybe some breakfast for both of us if we're extra-lucky, then it's either people by noon or I'm going to have a really interesting experience. Ready to go?" Followed by, because it seemed to be the word that worked, "Friend?"

She continued to regard him for a few seconds, time during which he couldn't make his imagination stop seeing concern -- but then she shifted her body, straightened out and assumed the pre-mount position. It took three tries before he could get on, tingling foot interfering all the way. The mare stood up, and the journey north resumed.

He checked the sun again -- a sun which shone down upon them and practically nothing else. There were thick, dark clouds filling the sky in every direction, and he heard the first crack of thunder in the distance only a split-second after seeing the blue-white streak cross the sky. Thunderstorms, likely harsh ones. Back in his former part of the East, an early-morning blow like this would have been unusual, but not completely out of the question. For the Territory -- who knew?

They were under the last remaining clear patch. At some point, that was going to change. The two of them could expect to get very wet, which might help a little with wound-washing and could even make it slightly easier to try brushing her mane, assuming he could spot anything approaching a brush.

Brushing her mane. As if he was taking care of her. Like she was his horse. Another thought which could so easily get him in trouble.

Still, it couldn't hurt for now, other than from the explosive splintering death of any defeated comb.

They traveled, and it seemed as if his luck was holding beyond all reasonable expectations, for the wind was blowing at exactly the right speed and direction to match Sunbutt's pace, keeping them under the clear patch at all times. Rain surrounding them, lightning striking the grasslands (and hopefully not igniting any unused tinder), thunder interrupting far too many words -- but through the grace of an oddly attentive Providence, they remained dry.

The dream did not fade.

Fresh water. Discovered fruit (still her) and nibbled grass (just her). Well-trained toiletries. Moving forward under the June sun, regularly checking on the ascent with a deep dread he had normally reserved for the knowledge that a quota was about to come up short and no amount of desperate labor could push away the inevitable. The ticking clock counting down towards a fresh form of agony, and this one all the worse because he would be doing it to himself --

-- actually, that sort of felt like it would beat the other option...

"Could be worse," he said, and got what was becoming a very familiar sound back, one that seemed to request more words, an equine 'Go on.' "Well, I can think of a lot worse places they could have shot me. Heart, eye... I'm not calling it mercy, Sunbutt. Maybe they were going for the slow death. Let me limp around out here until I fell over on my own. Or maybe it was just payment for services rendered. Thanks for being our hostage, we won't kill you, but you're going to need something to remember us by. The funny thing is that they thought any cavalry would have come to rescue me in the first place..." The fatalistic grin materialized in acknowledgment of the dark humor within the next sentence. "It's better odds that every stagecoach from that point on would have made sure to carry just the right extra temporary passenger. It's the Toll Of The West: throw out the door and go!" Which triggered an equally tombstone-filled laugh. "Probably not a paying position, mind, but if you can limp back to the depot on your own, I'm sure they'll take you on for a second run. I could apply for that if I wanted to. I'm a man with job experience. Everyone else has to line up behind me. And for all my knowledge of what the job takes, my time spent mastering it, I'd need extra compensation. So -- two arrows?"

No amount of injury would allow him to convince himself that the noise she made was any form of snicker. Basic equine not-funny, maybe...

"You need a sense of humor," he told her: she tossed her head and then rotated her ears forward, as if ignoring him. "Trust me, I've got worse than this waiting to come out." Another check of the sun, which was still visible through their roaming safety zone. "Getting close to noon now..." Back to surveying the landscape.

River. Grass.

Road.

The speed of his body's turn nearly sent him off her back, but she shifted at him again and once he was stabilized, they both stared at the path.

It wasn't much of a road, really. Practically none of them were out here: cobblestones were far too much to expect, the full smoothing-down of dirt from thousands of passages was a few thousand travelers short, and removal of any moderate trouble spot rocks was generally left behind for the next person to worry about. But it was a road. Wide enough for a stagecoach and then some, with furrows indicating where one had gone through. And that wasn't all: there were footprints in the dirt. Shoes. He had no Western lore-based way of telling exactly how old they were, but it had stormed in this area a little while before they'd reached it and the fact that the markings had been imprinted into fresh mud was a good sign.

"Well, that's it," he grinned, and the surge of joy was sincere. "If someone's walking down the side of this, then either they're just as lost as we are or there's something within walking distance. We officially have a chance, Sunbutt." Possibly a chance to be accused of horse thievery, but that still left her okay and potentially on the way back to her home. "Can I talk you into following the road? It's more or less going north, so that's on your way, right?"

She looked at it -- then stepped into the mud and began squelching along, following the oddly-pointed toe of the footprints.

They were getting close to people. He had to be just about out of miracles, had probably already used up a lifetime's worth, but now everything ahead was starting to fall under semi-reasonable expectations. A homestead, possibly several. Some chance for a town. Alcohol to use as disinfectant. Possibly a barber, maybe even a doctor. Bath: a hot one. Help...

...and then he heard the singing.

It wasn't in English. There was a strange lilt to the foreign words, although it was hard to make out when the sounds were being produced by the single most off-key voice he'd heard in his life. But it was joyous, dedicated and, rather unfortunately, extremely loud. It also carried, and traveled with them at the same pace as their clear patch. Sunbutt's ears were pressed tight against her skull in what seemed to be a desperate attempt to substitute for sound-blocking hands -- not that they would have been much of an improvement, because both of his had instinctively come up and they were doing nothing.

But it was still one of the best sounds to ever reach his ears.

"We're okay," he whispered, paying no real attention to the 'we'. "We're actually going to be okay..."

The mare accelerated, moving towards the noise, went around two curves and one outright bend necessitated by a huge sight-blocking boulder which no one had cared to move --

-- and there she was.

Bright red curls sticking out in all directions from underneath a ridiculously fancy hat, one which had bows, ribbons, tiers, layers, and possibly natural-growing fruit. Hands gripped onto her dark green skirt, holding it just clear of the mud splashes and giving him a look at equally overdone boots. Very slightly chubby: even from behind, with no real view of her face, she gave off the impression of someone who had just physically crossed into full adulthood while forgetting to leave the last few pounds of puppy fat at the border. And she was completely unaware of his presence, totally locked within her song as she half-strode, half-skipped down the road.

For sheer welcomeness of presence, she was the single most beautiful woman he hadn't quite entirely seen.

"Miss?" No notice, not of his voice or the impacts of hootsteps into the mud as Sunbutt grew closer. It was quite possible that she couldn't hear him over her song, or that her ears had learned to shut down as a self-defense mechanism. "Pardon?" And still no attention was paid, with the change to what he was now starting to spot as a chorus pure coincidence.

Sunbutt softly snorted, then picked up her pace just enough to get directly behind the woman, who still hadn't registered any sonic sign of their presence.

On the other hand, it was a lot harder to ignore a horse muzzle nudging against the back.

The woman -- no, girl, or standing on that absolute border, he could see the youth in her pretty round-cheeked face now -- turned. Large blue eyes stared at the giant mare. Slowly moved up to the rider.

He tried out his best disarming smile. "I'm sorry to bother you, but as you can see, I'm a little hurt here, and I was wondering if you knew where I could find --"

She gasped, a huge intake of breath which threatened to rupture any inadequate corset from within.

And then he was looking at her back again as she sprinted down the road, skirts held higher than ever, enough to let him get the most momentary glimpse of leg before she vanished around the next bend.

His right hand slowly came up, covered his eyes with his thumb under the brim of the fashionable hat.

"I," he muttered, "make a lousy first impression."

He sighed. All right. Foreign words in the song. Possibly an immigrant who didn't speak a single word of English, and -- well, if she was from some part of Europe, it was possible that he was the very first --

-- no, none of that was making him feel any better about the experience, but the attempt at logic-based soothing had been worth a shot.

Sunbutt snorted, slowly shook her head, glanced back at him.

"Well," he told the mare, "best-case, she's got to be running to something, right? So --" presuming she wasn't rallying any potential townspeople for another kind of greeting, which felt like a really dismal presumption just then "-- we might as well follow."

Another one of those almost-nods, and she went back to her trot, following what were now considerably deeper footprints. Minutes passed. The road twisted here and there, slanted up for a while as the air struggled to find ways by which it could become even thinner and succeeded admirably. Then they crested the rise --

-- he shouted. He couldn't help it, and multiple heads in the little town below turned towards the sound.

It wasn't much of a town. It barely qualified for street. Virtually every building in the valley could be described with a single word, and that term was 'incomplete'. All the lumber was fresh, lacking a single sign of true weathering, and the majority of the buildings didn't have enough of the stuff yet. Typically, the first floor would be more or less finished, at least towards the front: some sort-of-fully enclosed rooms, curtains hung where glass would eventually wind up. Doors were pretty much in place. Porches, somewhat less so. Go higher and find open sides, total lacks of second ceilings, poorly-propped false fronts showing where a third level would never go. Several men were hammering and sawing in the wet exposed areas, trying to get some extra work in before the storm returned, and many of them had turned upon hearing the shout.

There was a long mud-shielding-in-theory run of planks in front of those structures-in-progress which currently only allowed for interesting games of hopscotch, assuming any players could leap ten-foot gaps. Most of the people in the barely-street were ignoring it, choosing to take on the mud instead. Women lifted skirts, men splashed about (with the courteous trying to avoid the women while doing so). A number of them were staring at him as well, and they were too far away to have any chance at reading their expressions. But there was no sign of the girl, either visually or in a group stance which would say they'd been expecting him.

No wind-blown string of hanging bloody rags in front of any building, so there might not be any barber -- at least, not one who was currently enjoying a productive day of work. But a large side-hanging sign reading SALOON told him getting alcohol wouldn't be a problem, and there were people...

Sunbutt glanced back at him and for once, it was an equine expression he felt he knew. To him, it was the first time she'd shown any true horse skittishness. She was okay with him now. Whoever had trained her also was in her good graces. But there were a lot of strangers down there, and the mare took a breath deep enough to shift his legs before starting her trot into the valley.

He was grinning. He couldn't help that either. He'd made it. Sacrificed, abandoned, left to die, needing a full string of miracles -- but miracles had been granted. And there was even a local coming up the slope towards him, a burly man with the clean-shaven appearance of someone who took far too much time with a razor every day and sacrificed still more hours to the proper sharpening of the abused tool, heading up with forceful steps to find out what was going on because certainly that kind of pace was just hurrying him along to find out what was the matter with this stranger and provide help quickly, it certainly wasn't the march of an angry man who had seen something hated and was out to stop it before the invasion could fully reach the town...

But he didn't have a fever. He was only reasonably low on blood. And there were limits to what he could talk himself into believing.

Sunbutt pulled up, her nose about a yard away from the man whose clothes were somehow too clean. The tiny dark eyes ignored her. Their owner was fully focused on her rider.

Furious words spoken in an accent he had so hoped to leave behind: "What are you doing here, boy?"

Go West. Find your fortune. Seek a life in the unexplored, the unsettled, the new. Carve out a fresh path where no tracks have been laid and make them lead where you most want to go.

Or... go West, because you can't stand what's happening in the East and you want to see if you can make yourself comfortable somewhere else. Go West and carve out a new riverbed to keep the hate flowing, because there are dams on your property and you can't knock them down with so many fresh eyes watching.

Go West because the world has changed. And you haven't.

Why did I ever think I'd be the only one who would come here?

His mother had always told him that he was a little too attached to the sound of his own voice...

...but now he was allowed to speak. And if everything ahead was just like this... if no help was available at all... why, then there was nothing left to do but make sure his death would be especially interesting.

He looked around, making a show of it. Checked part of the path behind him, the bits of road off to the sides (but never taking his eyes completely off the unwelcome piece of home). Visibly found nothing, then turned back and shrugged. "Sorry," he lied, "but... who are you talking to?"

The little eyes widened, at least as far as they could, and the clean-shaven face made it easy to see the skin flushing with blood. "...what..." Soft fury, the weight of disbelief holding down volume. "...what did you say...?"

"'Boy'," he told the other man, noticing that none of the other townspeople were approaching. "I'm twenty-three. So either they grow up slow out here or you were speaking to someone else. Is it that first one? You know, I heard that Arizona Territory was supposed to be where you went if you had consumption -- something about the air making it easier to live a while longer. Sounded kind of special to me. But if Idaho is where you can head if you want to age slower and still be thought of as a boy at twenty-three... why, this place should be more packed than New York City. News still spreading?"

The man blinked. His face took on a familiar expression, one which couldn't be missed from the lofty position on Sunbutt's back: that of someone who was desperately waiting for the world to correct itself and if that didn't happen, why, then someone was just going to have to show that world how it was supposed to act.

"I want you," the man hissed, "to look behind me. What do you see?" And without waiting for an answer. "I'll tell you what you're seeing: nothing that looks like you, boy. Just pure, clean, white faces, all free of original sin. There's only one of you here -- maybe just one in the whole Territory. You're alone. Singular. A rarity." His face twisted into an amused snarl as he repeated the word, deliberately drawing it out. "Rahr-it-tee. You are a stain in a sea of clean skin and if I scrub you out right now, not a single human being here will do anything but thank me --"

He should have died when the Indians took him. Fallen to the grass without ever having stumbled across Sunbutt. There was still a chance he was on the way to death from raging infection. And as for the times before that... well, put it all together and it could feel awfully freeing, knowing that something unstoppable was coming and the best thing you could do was enjoy the last bits...

So he cut the man off.

"-- got a gun?"

Another blink. The man's left hand snaked towards his jacket. "Maybe I do."

He nodded. "Okay. So here's the next question. Can you reach it before the biggest horse in the world kicks you ass-over-teakettle down the road so all those clean white faces can watch you roll by like a greased-up baseball no one fielded in time?"

Somewhere towards the back of his mind, a solitary thought noted that he'd just used the word 'ass' in front of a white man and made a tiny checkmark on an extremely dusty list.

It was a bluff: it couldn't have been anything else. He didn't know the command word which would make Sunbutt attack a human, and there was a good chance that word didn't even exist. It was the last thing he was ever going to say before the man shot him, bold last words answered by an extremely final rebuttal. No treatment in a town which was probably filled with people just like this one, where every cheer at the fatal shot would have that familiar accent attached, a horrible choice for a last thing to ever hear. And there was no way he could have gotten the mare turned around to race out of the valley before a gun went off, little chance to avoid a bullet at this kind of close range (although fortunately too close for any chance of bad aim wounding the horse). All in all, he was just trying to make things interesting.

Except that -- Sunbutt then made things even more interesting.

She snorted, and the man's greasy black slicked-down hair was disturbed by the sheer force of the gust. Her left foreleg stomped against the ground at the exact moment a burst of thunder came from the clouds behind them. Her ears shifted, the tension in her muscles changed, and she gave off every sign of not being a particularly happy horse, one who not only knew exactly what she wasn't happy with, but perceived a ready and simple means of permanently fixing the problem.

The man took a step back. Realized that step had been witnessed, by both those below and the two in front of him, those which the slope put above him. And this expression was also familiar: 'I was always going to hate you. I was always going to do everything I could to hurt you. But now you've gone and given me an extra excuse...'

That face put fear into his heart. But not for himself: there was very little he could have done for his own protection and this was a familiar kind of death, something with no unknown quantity to dread. He was afraid for what could happen to Sunbutt after it happened to him. His mouth was risking more than one life again, something he'd forgotten until it was far too late.

The man recovered, at least physically. Stared up at him, and the hate grew steadily stronger with every extra degree of angle.

"You can call me Sheriff," the man said. "Everyone here does. Keep that in mind." Two steps backwards, rotated, paced down the trail, arms swaying well away from his body. There were no initial motions which indicated reaching in to draw a gun, and none emerged. He simply worked his way through the crowd and went into one of the more complete buildings on the left, leaving a trail of mud across one of the most finished sections of boardwalk.

Sheriff. Of course. Too many miracles, and now you've got to start balancing things out in the other direction.

He wondered how far he could get before the mob was officially rounded up. If Sunbutt was willing to cooperate, that figure was probably centered on 'pretty damn' with a chance for 'are you kidding?' and a head start no one could match. But if every other place he could reach in the Territory was exactly like this...

And now there were two more people coming up the slope.

One was the girl, the edges of her skirt splattered in mud, that almost-impossible hat slightly askew. She was rapidly jabbering to her companion, who was a reasonably tall, thin man balding somewhat from the front, brown hair receding in a smooth wave which was slightly balanced by an extra degree of fall to the back, one which said the already-quashed hopes of reaching a barber would have had none to locate anyway. The man strode easily, even given the close-fitting suit which seemed as if it should have virtually locked his knees on the uphill, keeping the pace while calmly answering the girl in that same strange lilting language as she half-skipped, half-bounced at his side.

"Well," the thin man dryly called ahead, "you're the only one around here who fits her description: male, Negro, riding the biggest horse ever. A man with an arrow shaft sticking out of his leg, one which I'm presuming is still attached to the actual arrowhead -- and if so, that puts you firmly in my jurisdiction. Follow me down, if you're willing to chance it after Sheriff's well-carried greeting, and I'll see what I can do about taking it out before the leg falls off on its own."

It could have been a trick, so very easily: a lure to get him out of sight before anything happened. But a town which had someone willing to shoot him in the open arguably had little need for that deception, the girl was wearing a relieved smile of such innocence that he simply couldn't see it as being faked --

-- and there was a chance he wasn't entirely out of miracles yet. A tiny one, admittedly, but wasn't that still worth chasing?

Without thinking about it (at least not then), with no immediate conscious notice that he'd done so until the word had escaped, "Sunbutt?"

The mare nickered and moved forward, which substituted for advice.

And in that moment, he had no choice but to go with her.

Author's Note

Historical Notes:

I'm putting 'ass over teakettle' here about thirty-two years before it was first recorded as an expression, but it's not as if Maledicta was doing a full linguistic survey at the time.

The traveling circus known as the Cincinnati Red Stockings is two years away: baseball was well established and about to go play-for-very-little-pay.

'Consumption' is an old name for tuberculosis.

Establishing Locations

The thin man was washing his hands with whiskey.

It was a slow process. He dribbled a little bit of the amber fluid onto his palms, rubbed it in, held his hands high to let the residue evaporate away. The stench of the stuff drifted towards the ceiling and threatened to corrode planks which still retained some faint hint of pine and weren't going to for much longer. Repeated the process, and repeated it, and then repeated it again for good measure while the girl watched with fascination and the future patient waited.

The girl's attentions were noticed first, and a steady stream of those foreign words came from the thin man. The girl's reply was considerably faster, along with being somewhat more insistent. The thin man seemed to verbally put his foot down. The girl actually did: a single frustrated stomp which made the hat go even more askew.

Four quiet syllables came back.

The girl's eyes widened. Frustration took over her features -- but then she shrugged, straightened her hat, smiled, and marched out of the room.

The thin man shrugged, then turned to face one of the other arrivals in his workplace.

"She's never seen an arrow removed before," came the calm words. "She wanted to watch. I told her it was something a decent young woman shouldn't have to see until she absolutely had to, she argued that decency and education weren't mutually exclusive..." A sigh. "Actually, she had a point. Several of them. But I'd rather not subject her to the sight just yet. If certain people think I'm training her as a nurse on top of everything else..." More dribbles of whiskey landed on his fingers, soaked under oft-bitten nails.

"What language was that?" he asked, mostly for lack of anything else to say while waiting for the process to finish.

"Irish Gaelic," with a shrug. "Rose doesn't speak much English yet. Her family is trying to run a mine... with the exception of her. If you ever have the twin misfortunes of both meeting and being able to understand her father..." He briefly looked as if he wanted to spit on something, settled for sprinkling additional rotgut. "Well, the heart of it is that she's apparently the worst miner in the history of mining and she's supposed to be earning her keep, but if she does that underground, the whole thing will collapse on everyone's head just because she steps into it. So she works in the saloon instead. Which doesn't make her father any happier -- not that anything could -- but the dollars she brings back at least keep his temper from exploding more than it usually would. I'm still trying to talk her into securing some of it for herself, especially since I'm just about the only person in town who can speak with her at all."

A question seemed to present itself, and he let it attempt to distract him from what was lurking ahead. "How do you work in a saloon when you can't speak English?" (The attempt failed miserably.)

The thin man snorted. "Because she's attractive and skips most of the time instead of walking, which leads to bouncing, which makes men follow her into the saloon. Because among the words she has very quickly picked up are 'shot' and 'whiskey' and 'another', which is just about all you need in that job. Because she's stronger than she looks and can kick someone off her when the hands get too close. Because somehow, in spite of what she grew up with and goes back to every night, she's happy... and when some people get close to that kind of happy, they either drink in celebration of it or drink more in the false hopes of catching up."

More whiskey rubbing.

"I know how this looks," the thin man went on, "but my stove isn't due until sometime tomorrow. I've had to borrow heat whenever I want to boil water, and I don't trust what comes out of the wells without it... seen too many men with stomach cramps and worse. Take it as warning: boil everything you drink as long as you're here. It keeps the incidents down. Your other option is living on alcohol. And you can do that -- just not for long. In my opinion, washing is just about the only thing it's good for."

He nodded. That didn't seem to make the future go away either.

The thin man dipped long-fingered hands into a pocket, removed a tiny book and stub of pencil. "Now, before we begin -- I'm going to need some basics."

"Basic -- what?"

"Information. Case history," came the calm reply.

"I got shot." That seemed to sum it up nicely.

The snort which came from behind him was of far superior quality.

The thin man narrowed light blue eyes. "Incidentally... does your horse always stick her head through the window when you're indoors?"

He turned to look at Sunbutt, whose head occupied pretty much all of the open space where glass might eventually be, along with substituting nicely for the displaced curtains. He wasn't entirely sure what position the rest of her body was in to allow the poke-in inspection, but presumed she was fairly comfortable -- although an awkward posture would account for the look of deep concentration on her face.

What little sunlight got past the top of her head landed firmly on his wound. The warmth was oddly soothing.

"Horse?" he said with a light mirth which didn't do anything for the upcoming situation either. "Why, that's a pony! You should see her when she gets her -- full... growth..."

The thin man hadn't blinked during the entire attempt to produce the stillborn corpse of a joke, which was admittedly one of the better responses he usually got.

"Right," the thin man said. "We may get back to that." The book was flipped open. "First: do you know when you were shot?"

He thought back, tried to track the date. He'd never had much use for calendars before the world had changed, not for more than tracking major events of the year or marking the anniversaries on which -- things had happened, and keeping accurate track of time during long stretches of travel simply served to drag the process out all the more. But he knew when he'd gotten on that last stagecoach. And given that, when he'd been tossed off it.

"Either very late at night on the twelfth or just barely into the thirteenth," he replied. "I passed out right after, and I don't know exactly how long I was down for, but I'm sure I woke up the next morning."

The thin man nodded, jotted it down. "Good. So... it is now..." He frowned, put book and pencil down, patted his pockets. "...there we go..." A stem-winding pocket watch came out, one with a case so tarnished that there was no way to tell if the original metal had been silver, brass, or tin. The lid was opened. "...ten in the -- oh, for crying out loud, this blasted thing..." His left hand smacked the casing several times. "...if I ever get back to Waltham, I'm going to have a few words for the manufacturers, and they won't approve of a single..." The stem was twisted this way and that. "...what time is it..." The angry glare temporarily moved away from the watch casing, coming to a momentary stop on Sunbutt's head before diverting to the long, low table which was being used as a dreading perch. "Would you mind moving your pony for a moment? I need to get a line of sight on the sun."

He kept the sigh internal. Well, it could work... "Sunbutt, clear out for a second?"

She snorted once, then pulled back.

The human blinks were simultaneous.

"Obedient pony you've got there," the thin man said.

"Sometimes," he replied as hedge against the inevitable moment when Sunbutt didn't listen.

"All right," the thin man went on, craning head and neck out the window, then reeling himself back in (with Sunbutt's head once again occupying the vacated spot). "Let's call it --" and the next word came out as a curse "-- roughly one in the afternoon. So we can fairly say that arrow's been in there for about a day and a half. It's June fourteenth, if you were wondering: you didn't sleep the clock 'round after you were hit. And you're in the Idaho Territory, just a short distance away from some of the strangest terrain ever found on this confused Earth..." He smacked the watch a few more times, and the fourth blow produced a single tick -- followed by a steady stream of more just like it. "Interchangeable parts," he muttered. "None of which work." More notes were taken. "I'll need to cut away part of that pants leg -- get a larger hole around the wound."

"As long as you don't have to cut the leg away," and he couldn't make it sound like a joke.

The thin man sighed. "No promises," came the simple reply. He rummaged through the instruments on the small table behind him, came back with a pair of scissors. "A day and a half... you've pretty much traded odds of infection for certainty." Knelt down to start snipping. "If we're lucky, we can catch the rot before it moves too deep. I've seen men live through worse and keep the limb. But part of it is going to depend on what the Indians did with the arrow."

He'd known it could be that bad. He'd guessed he had a good chance at worse -- and the removal alone could still trigger bleed-out, the fears of which had kept him from trying the process himself and thus setting his currently-two feet on the road to a decidedly common sort of death. Given that, it seemed that he needed to say some things while he still had the time to do so.

If the thin man gave him the chance. "But I'm pretty sure it isn't that far along," he went on, inspecting the flesh under the widening hole. "You're not running a fever. Skin reddening and death rivers... harder to spot on you, but I'm not getting any signs of either and there's no real swelling. There's a good chance we've caught it early."

"Look..." he took a deep breath, trying not to let the hope go deeper than the wound, "...before you take this thing out and any words I've got go rude... thanks for seeing me."

The light blue eyes went up, met his brown ones. "I'm a doctor," the thin man said in a matter-of-fact way, a quality which applied to the words which followed, "and you're a human being."

He blinked. It was all he seemed to be capable of.

"I... thank you."

The doctor shrugged and went back to snipping. "Which means we should be properly introduced," he said. "Jason Turner. The 'Doctor' is real and legal: you can look me up at Harvard if you get that far East again. And you are...?"

Blinking didn't seem to be a particularly helpful activity.

His mind reeled, searched wildly about for anything which would serve. Given any choice, he was never using his old one again. Titles belonging to the dead needed to be buried with them. He was aware of a host of more-or-less generic names which might suffice, but couldn't seem to remember what any of them were. His gaze fell on several of the instruments and rejected them immediately because he had no idea what any of the things were called and 'I am Mister Twisted Piece Of Steel' sounded idiotic, especially with the 'mister' attached. His desperate memory darted back, looked for anything which would suffice, maybe even something he'd already been called...

...and landed on exactly the wrong target.

It couldn't be taken back. It couldn't be stopped. It could only be spoken, and he froze with shock at the single word which emerged from his lips.

"Rarity." Rahr-it-tee.

Dr. Turner's head tilted up again. He had a clear view of the elegantly receding hairline.

An extremely flat "Really."

"...yes?" It wasn't exactly a tone which suggested total confidence in his own declaration.

The free hand snaked back towards the instrument table. "Are you running from something which I should know about, Rarity?"

Nothing anyone knows about. And that knowledge gave a needed firmness to the next word. "No."

Five heartbeats. Ten. Fifteen, all coming so quickly...

Dr. Turner shrugged. "Fine," he said, and the left arm came forward again. The circle of cut fabric was removed: he began cleaning the area around the wound. Additional quantities of whiskey were involved, and Sunbutt pulled back slightly at the smell. "And what brings you into the West, Rarity?"

"A stagecoach."

This time, the doctor sighed, and his gaze didn't come up at all. "If I was the enemy," he softly said, "you wouldn't be in what's eventually supposed to be my office. You would be on the road to the next eruption of structures from the soil, hoping someone there would consent to see you -- and 'see you' is meant in just about every way possible, Rarity. I'm not the enemy -- but treating someone as if they might be one is among the best ways to make one. Stick with the list you already have and don't try to write anything new down until you have proof."

Except that the doctor could deliberately mispull the arrow, make sure to hit as many blood vessels as possible and then step back with a smile, watching the last moments while knowing the vital work had been done in restoring a sea of clean white faces...

...and I could say that about everyone. Every time. For the rest of my life.

Which wasn't going to be very long unless he trusted someone.

He sighed. The trickle of sound turned into a river channel of apology. "I'm just trying to -- leave things behind. That's all."

Dr. Turner nodded. "Many out here can say the same. But they do tend to follow... and some of us bring them along." He frowned at the injured leg. To himself, "Not even a faint radius around the wound..." More scrubbing, as if trying to get rid of anything which would be obscuring the evidence. "I did."

"Brought things along?" Self-distraction.

Another nod. "I study wounds," the doctor said. "Infections. How they spread. Means we might have of stopping them -- even things which come off snake oil wagons that might work, because even a total fool can stumble onto something which works, if only by accident. During the war... I saw bullet wounds. Thousands of them. Even a few arrows here and there. But I didn't see enough. Not any number which would let me figure out how we're supposed to cure the results every time. So with all the tales and a nice collection of Beadle's to my name --" he gestured to a shelf filled with thin salmon-hued, well-read, flimsy, familiar books "-- I thought the single best source of new wounds would be in the West. Well -- it was that or find another war. And there's always another war, but it's been my hard experience that there's also always someone on the other side who feels the best way to maximize casualties is by shooting the doctor. I'm more vital out here, at least until the next wagon comes through and the people decide they can trade sensible medical knowledge for a single bottle stinking of camphor which will cure all their ills after one swig. And keep them from ever having any again after three. That's what brings me here." Which brought them to the inevitable. "And you?"

A partial truth was better than none. "Seeking my fortune -- same as a lot of people."

"Silver? Because that's why this town -- well, I can't quite properly call it that yet, but it's the only word I have -- exists. We've got lodes and veins of the stuff all over the area. It was only discovered fairly recently, and now people are scrambling in, building... "

"No," and it was still the truth. Along with being a secret, one he hated giving up -- but something which had been secret only to him. There were those in the Territory who surely knew, and he doubted the doctor was susceptible to the fever. "I heard once that --"

"-- it's covered with gems!" the guest laughed. "You wouldn't believe what some of the explorers are bringing back. Everything but diamonds, and I'm not ruling those out until the entire Territory is covered. Things you'd swear only came out of Africa... right here in American territory. Take a step and trip over a ruby, swing your foot and kick an emerald into the sky. Once people figure out just how rich the ground is up there, it'll make California look like a dress rehearsal. Forget gold and silver -- although the Territory has plenty of those too -- hitch your wagon to the gems, man! Go after what most won't bother with! Any man can pan for gold and we already proved that virtually every man will! But with a little more knowledge, you can bring back the real treasures!"

The man of the house laughed. "Frank, I've heard this from you before. One scheme this week, another the next. You and your brother have found ways to get rich quick so many times, you should own the Carolinas outright. Why is this one any different?"

"The gems are there," the mustached guest insisted, smoothing out the bushy red flow. "The last I heard, Fred was still scouting the best deposits out, but he should be on his way back now. Think about what's happened over the last few years. Remember when the banks stopped giving out payments in silver? The government was taking that metal out of coins before that. They're basically saying silver isn't money any more. What happens to those who hoarded it, when it can't be traded for goods? What if the same thing happens to gold? But gems... those still have value. Gems could back the next currency. We've been able to trust in gems since we were tossed from the Garden. Put your trust in gems... and that faith will be returned in wealth."

"Except that we're happy here," the woman of the house said. "Moving to the West... what would we do there? What could we even bring? We'd have to manage our estate from a distance, months just to send a single order, and to bring the children... we couldn't even bring our slaves along, could we? Not even the servants. Is that true, of the Territory? Are their rules... the wrong ones?"

"It probably falls under the damnable -- sorry, son -- Northwest Ordinance," the guest admitted. "It's just about as far North and West as you'd want to get. But you, Clem... you could go with me. Fred could help your wife manage the estate once he gets back: you know how good he is with numbers. Two men out in the wild, setting their families up for life -- and all the generations to come."

"If you ever get around to starting a family in the first place," the man of the house noted with a laugh.

The son of the family, who had just been apologized to for a slip of language, glanced across the table, safely ignored by the adults. Pulled a face, one which showed that he had some doubts about all of this. Silent agreement, equally unnoticed, went back the other way.

"True, true... but it's so much easier to attract the right woman with one of these..."

The guest reached into his pocket. Glory came out.

They all stared. All of them, including him, for such a slip in etiquette was almost permissible given the sight displaying facets under candlelight.

It was half the size of the guest's fist, a deeper and brighter red than the luxuriant mustache. It was roughly the shape of a human heart, or at least the heart he'd seen drawn in some of the books neither of them was supposed to look at. It sent glints of fire around the sitting room, turned the house into the core of the most beautiful inferno imaginable.

"Fred sent this ahead," the guest quietly said.

The ruby said the rest. It said everything, and continued to do so until the guest noticed him staring at it.

"Another drink, boy," the guest said, and he had to go and fetch it. The gem had been pocketed again by the time he returned.

The guest argued with the man of the house for a time and the latter was tempted, that was obvious. But it was leaving family behind, it was giving control of the estate over to another (and the guest insisted that be his brother once that worthy returned), it was taking such a chance... but there was temptation there, something he could understand completely. He longed to go and find those gems. To go anywhere.

But he would be on the estate for the rest of his life. Unless he slipped, and put himself in the fields.

Or the grave.

But the man of the house, who could leave, was tempted this time. And he promised to think about it. They could all tell it was a real promise, unlike most of the others he'd given that guest and his brother over the years, men who always seemed to come by with a means of getting richer, or at least of getting their bellies full after the last one hadn't quite worked out.

The man of the house thought about it, and kept thinking about it for two weeks, which was when the war began.

The one who had also been in the sitting room that night, noticed only as a source for acquiring drinks or momentary confidences, never stopped.

Doctor Turner gave him a long look.

"Well," came the admission, "you'd definitely be in the minority. Yes... the Territory has shown some real promise for gems. I've even seen a couple come through here, although Sheriff can't be bothered with them and the finders just wind up leaving again. Sapphires. Good ones. But since they're not to Sheriff's taste..."

Part of that speech came across as encouragement. The rest arrived as worry. "Your Sheriff decides what can be sold here?"

And that got a laugh -- a bitter one. "He's not the sheriff, Rarity -- not in a way that comes with official law enforcement powers attached. We don't have one of those, or a jail -- an official one, anyway -- or anything to do with keeping this place running in good legal order with statute-mandated consequences for those who get out of line. We're too new: the town doesn't even have a name yet. We're supposedly on some form of marshal’s circuit and I'm sure one will get around to us eventually... but until then, the man who holds the power is the man who distributes the money. Which is Sheriff -- who just happens to run the assay office. The person in charge of telling you how much your silver is worth is the man who gets to run whatever degree of town we've got. The man very few want to offend even when quite a number are offended by him. And he has no interest in gems because he doesn't know how to evaluate them, and he's not exactly a man interested in learning new things." He inspected the area around the wound, which seemed to be as clean as it was going to get. "You're sure on those dates?"

"Yes."

Which got him a frown. "All right... I'm going to get my hands drunk again, and then we'll take this thing out and see what we're up against."

The wince was automatic, with the little intake of breath from Sunbutt adding coincidental emphasis. "Do you -- have anything you could give me first?"

"Such as?"

"Laudanum? Morphine?" He'd never had painkillers: just fervent wishes for them and given the occasion, this seemed like the best possible time to actually try the real thing out.

"You're basically asking for opium."

He hadn't known that, but the extra option was welcome. "Do you have any of them?"

Doctor Turner straightened up. Stared down at him.

"Have? Yes. Use? Seldom. I used enough of all three during the war -- more than enough to see what happens to people who get them too often. Today, you might need it. In a week, you won't -- and you'll still want it. What I'm going to do will hurt. But it's pain you can survive. If I use those drugs, you may not get through what comes after. The man I'm speaking with now might not exist. Just a hollow-eyed ghost whose only interest is in asking that same question again and again and again --"

He took a deep, shuddering breath. "-- is there -- anything else?"

"Lots of things," the doctor told him. "All available off the finest snake oil wagons in the Territory. Those present three options. They do nothing, they get you so drunk that you don't care about their having done nothing, or the not caring lasts somewhat longer because you're dead. And I will not get you drunk because we need to speak about what comes after the arrow is removed. Intelligently. Anything else?"

His memory, which hadn't exactly been helping him up through that point, tried going through its much shorter list of collected Beadles and came up with "...a bullet to bite on?"

"How fond are you of your teeth?"

Sunbutt's breathing was getting faster, and it was in perfect harmony with his own. Sympathetic panic. "Wood?"

Doctor Turner nodded. "That I'm willing to do. Soft wood: you'll leave impressions, but you won't break your teeth or abandon them. Now, with your permission, I am going to apply some snake oil to the wound after I remove the arrow. Two-F brand. It claims to kill tooth worms, which would be interesting if any such thing existed. But it does seem to kill a large number of other things, and I'm hoping infections are one of them. With your consent...?"

Now there was a question no one had ever asked him, and the sheer novelty of it kept him from answering for a few seconds. (That and the fear.) "Go -- go ahead." He could have wished for some of the homemade salve his mother had put together: it had always seemed to do the job, but...

The doctor gave him the wood. He placed it between his teeth, closed his eyes, listened to the sound of splashing whiskey. Tried to concentrate on the smell of it, on his own breathing, on Sunbutt's, on the surprising warmth of the sunlight on his leg. A leg he might not have for much longer. He'd been trying not to think about that, at least not all the time, but this was the moment when there was no way to ignore it, the fact that he could be on the verge of losing limb or life...

He could feel Sunbutt watching him. Wondered what expression was on the mare's face. What those expressions meant at all. Staring through the window the whole time. Watching. Keeping an eye on him.

He hadn't tried to tie her up in front of the doctor's office: no rope to do it with and she could have uprooted any hitching post with the most casual effort, along with anything it was attached to. He'd heard hoofsteps (barely: there was a lot of mud) as he was led in and wished he'd gotten a chance to say goodbye -- then found her head occupying pretty much all of the empty windowframe.

Had she figured out the building had a back? Stuck her nose in everywhere until she'd picked up his scent, startling a good number of residents along the way?

Why was she still here? Why was she watching at all? Wanting to make sure everything came out all right before she left? Had she somehow taken him on as her new -- partner?

Would she stay?

My horse...

...no. That felt wrong. He didn't own her. He couldn't.

Warm sun. He could focus on that if nothing else, couldn't he? And he was good at pain. Next to death, it was arguably his subject of greatest expertise. He had experience. When it came to pain, practically every man in the world had to line up behind him, although given any choice, he would gladly wave them around to the front.

Think about the sun...

It was warm. Comfortingly so. The heat radiated through his leg, seemed to massage it from within.

The doctor's hands were on his thigh. "Odd..."

He risked removing the wood for a moment. "What?" Not a word you wanted to hear from your doctor.

"Just... something about the light. I think I've released a few too many whiskey fumes in here."

He kept his eyes shut. He was curious -- but the instant he tried to see what was going on would likely be the one he got to see something else entirely. "As long as you're not drunk."

And he got away with that. "I'd have to pour out another two flasks. Put that back in and count backwards from twenty."

He swallowed, followed what wasn't quite an order.

Zero hit.

So did the pain.

But it was a distant pain. It was almost as if he was watching it happen to someone else: the aches of empathy, the desperate wish that he could do something to make it stop... but none of it was being directly experienced by him. It was far away and all he could do was witness it while wishing the person suffering the best of fortune...

...the arrow came free.

Reality caught up and, insulted by how he'd been ignoring it, speared him in the thigh.

A chemical hiss hit his nostrils, and he nearly bit through the wood.

"That was the Two-F," Doctor Turner told him -- but that voice seemed more distant than the pain initially had. Distracted. "Remove the wood, please." It both was and was not a request, which took some major tone work. "We need to talk."

It was bad news: the relative lack of pain had been the result of something dying inside... He took the wood out, felt the dents he had left behind, opened his eyes.

The wound was bleeding sluggishly, with a strange white fizz around the edges and a sharp pain at the surface accompanied by dull ache deeper within. Doctor Turner was holding the intact arrow. Staring at the large brown head, which was shedding small flakes and revealing gray beneath. Then at him.

The doctor took a slow breath.

"I would deeply appreciate it," the thin man said, "if you would explain to me, in great detail, why you aren't dead."

"It was just a thigh wound," he replied, confused. "If it didn't hit anything major --"

"-- I assumed it was a small arrowhead, which hadn't gone too far in." Doctor Turner cut him off. The voice was steady, unreasonably calm, the sound of a man trying to talk himself through something he didn't believe. "If we were lucky, something fire-tempered shortly before it went into you, which seems to help your odds. But this went deep. This is nearly three inches of arrowhead. And do you see the brown?"

"Yes --"

"-- that is what we call night soil. Feces, most likely human. I have other words, but I'm not completely certain Rose isn't lurking within hearing range. A very few among the local Indian tribes -- the ones who have taken great and sometimes understandable offense to our presence -- have taken to rubbing their arrowheads with the stuff. It carries infection like the impeachment committee is reportedly carrying President Johnson: with great fervor and a determination to do the job as many times as necessary until it brings its target down. It is a slow, painful death. Whoever shot you bore no love for Americans, Rarity. They wanted to know you would suffer. It is a sign of ultimate contempt. At best, I would be trying to fight the infection and very likely losing. In most circumstances, I would be trying to figure out how to help you survive the amputation of your leg, and that removal would be your only chance. Even so, the cutting might kill you by itself -- or the infection which hadn't been stopped would do the job a few days later. More than ninety times out of a hundred, your death sentence would have already been pronounced and we would simply be waiting for the trap door to open. You understand?"

He wasn't particularly capable of going pale. He gave it his best shot anyway. "I'm pretty sure I know what you mean." But the doctor was speaking as if none of those more-than-ninety-times belonged to him...

Slowly, "There was no surface swelling. No death rivers. And when I removed the arrow, no pus came out of your wound. None. There is not the slightest discharge of infection. What I could see of the tissue itself is, allowing for the penetration, as healthy as could be expected and healing quickly. As far as I can tell, the wound is completely free of all infection. The most damaging thing present may be the Two-F. That leg will heal. It will hurt, and you will favor it for a time, but you'll be moving normally inside a month. You understand that as well?"

His heart soared. "Yes!" It almost came out as a shout. He was going to be okay! Miracle after miracle... that suddenly-attentive Providence so determined to make up for all those years...

"You have no right to be that healthy," Doctor Turner quietly continued. "You should be well on your way to death -- a death I could do very little to stop. And you. are. not. So I would appreciate it very much -- as much as I have ever appreciated anything in my life -- if you would explain to me why you are not only still alive, but likely to remain so."

His overjoyed spirit went with what seemed like the most likely explanation. "God?" One who had finally noticed what had been going on below and was scrambling in all directions to arrange apologies.

Silence filled the room and nearly shoved Sunbutt's head out the window.

"God," Doctor Turner repeated.

Grinning, "Why not?"

Behind him, Sunbutt made a sound, one seemingly caught evenly between whinny, relief, and mildly exasperated sigh.

The doctor folded his arms. Stared.

This silence was complete enough to let him hear the ticking from the doctor's pocket, along with the moment when it stopped.

"I think your watch --"

"-- I need your complete medical history."

"...what?"

"Every time you've been injured. Every wound, every scar. Each illness. Anything that's ever happened to you and the results. With nothing left out."

He was starting to worry. "Look, even if it wasn't a miracle, maybe there just wasn't enough of that night soil on the arrowhead --"

"-- starting from your first memories, through the present. You and I are going to spend a lot of time talking. A lot of time, Rarity. Because maybe you are the recipient of a miracle -- or maybe you're someone whose body simply doesn't get infected from wounds. And if that's the case..."

And now worry was heading for panic. "Look -- I should leave town. I can pay you, I told you that on the way in here. But with your Sheriff around, this isn't the best place for a long-term stay, and I have to find a place where I can make some money and replace my prospecting equipment: I lost a lot in that robbery, including my rock guides and I don't even know if I can find any replacements without heading back to St. Louis --"

"-- pay?" A laugh, hard and sharp and only slightly hollow. "I'll pay you! I will give you money every day to simply stay in town, talk to me about your life, and let me watch while that wound heals! Another doctor might try to keep it open and turn you into the Alexis St. Martin or even Phineas Gage of muscle wounds: feel lucky you rode into this town, because I am going to study you from the outside while you collect a handsome salary from it! You and I are going to get to know each other very well, Rarity, and that knowledge might just wind up saving millions of lives!"

Panic was introduced to desperation: the couple began a courtship. "Look, I want to help other people..." or at least explain to the doctor that he couldn't, miracles were miracles and -- well, there was his mother's homemade salve, but that surely hadn't made him immune. "...but if I stay here..."

"With me," the thin man replied. "The only doctor in town. And the only thing the locals fear as much as offending the man who evaluates their wealth is losing access to the one who puts them back together after they show too much of it off in the wrong place. I can give you protection from Sheriff simply because I'm the one doing it. You will have a safe place to heal, and you will leave here intact with enough money to go back East, purchase everything a second time, and return here with enough left over to have someone else prospect for you. You may be the recipient of a miracle -- but I intend to find out if it's one which can be duplicated. You owe that to humanity, Rarity... and you know it. Give me at least a week. Perhaps two. You'll want that for healing anyway. And if I find something, perhaps we'll both head East... to make the world that much better."

He didn't want to talk about his life. He had come out here to leave it all behind, start over. And now this man wanted to bring it all back. In the name of science. And that was before taking out the chance of being in a new town with no law, where the man whom no one wanted to offend hated him.

Except that... the doctor was right.

It was a miracle: he was (almost) sure of that. And miracles couldn't be made to happen on demand. But if there was any chance of the contrary...

Humanity included a lot of people who weren't necessarily very human. Who might not deserve such a gift.

But he wasn't the one to judge, at least not from this distance. And if he was truly (somehow) in a position to give so very much...

Besides, he really needed the money.

"All right," he assented. "A week. Maybe two."

Doctor Turner smiled. "Welcome to town, then," he said. "I can put you up here. It's best if you stay at my residence, and not just for monitoring. I can also get you some intact clothing as part of your first payment. I should do that quickly -- clothes sell fast when we get them. The locals come back from prospecting dirty and want to look their best when they meet the saloon girls, then decide it's quicker to buy a new outfit than try cleaning the old one. You may even get a few offers for that rather appealing hat."

His right hand went halfway up, paused before it could defensively clutch at the brim. "I'll keep that in mind."

"Settle in," Doctor Turner offered. "I'll head out after I bandage your leg and see what I can get. You and I may make medical history, Rarity. A doctor never wishes people injured... and yet I was still almost at the point of wishing for violence. We don't get a lot of trouble in this town, I had few wounds to study and treat -- and then you ride in. I just might call that a miracle -- in time." The doctor picked up clean linens. "Might as well take out the rest of the pants leg..." The remainder of that fabric went: the wound was wrapped. "How's the pain?"

"Tolerable." Surprisingly so, and he'd been through much worse.

"Good. I really don't want to use any of my supplies on you if I don't have to. Nothing personal: the stuff can do some real damage. Something I can't seem to explain to all the people in town who keep asking me for it every night."

The doctor had said he didn't get many wounded... "You have a lot of war veterans in town?" Those whose injuries had never truly healed, and not just those to the flesh.

A head shake. "Some. But that's not it. There's a rumor... well, it's like tooth worms: things which were disproved years ago, but if someone speaks quickly and with the right patter, fools will still buy into it, and this one's causing some problems. I have people asking for the stuff, demanding it, a few were trying to steal it..."

"I don't understand."

"Which is my fault, because I haven't explained it yet," Doctor Turner said. "The rumor says the opiates create a dreamless sleep. And there are people around here who would give anything for that."

He knew what was going to be said next. He couldn't stop it. He glanced back at Sunbutt and saw her eyes widened with what seemed to be an echo of the fear which had just filled his own heart. And for one horrible moment, he wished the mare had carried him to a different town entirely, somewhere the next words wouldn't be spoken, a place where he could dismiss the rising dread as nothing more than a moment of false belief and get back to creating his life anew.

"Most of the locals who come to me are trying to find some kind of cure for nightmares."

Author's Note

Historical notes:

Beadle's was the original line of dime store novels which taught people all the things they probably shouldn't have believed about the West.

At this point in 1867, an attempt to impeach Andrew Johnson had failed. The next one would get quite a bit further.

Assay offices evaluate the quality of precious metals and were vital to Western mining communities.

'Bite the bullet' is believed to originate around the 1700s, when bullets were largely lead and soft enough to deform. However, technology advances and biting into pure lead still isn't the best idea.

The banking silver crisis took place in 1857. The U.S. started watering down the currency a few years before that.

Most disinfectants were unknown at this point, and pretty much none were considered safe for humans. Sulfa drugs and the antibiotics are decades away. Similarity, the average painkiller didn't work and the ones which did weren't all that advisable

Tooth worms have been disproved until the moment someone decides to believe in them again. Actual physicians had pretty much discarded the idea by the 1860s.

'Snake oil' is the generic term for any scam remedy sold by someone who's going to get out of town before you can try it. Still available on the Internet today, only now with disclaimers. (HeadOn apply directly to your purse.)

Alexis St. Martin suffered an abdominal wound which, even after healing, left doctors with open access to his stomach: it was used for determining digestion rates. You can look up Phineas Gage for yourself, but be warned: it's not a pretty story.

Exploring Permutations

Rahr-it-tee.

He felt like an idiot.

He was shaving. Doctor Turner had been gone for some time on his quest for whatever the replacement wardrobe was going to be, and had left a few things behind for the new guest to use. A portion of bread. Some salt pork, with heavy emphasis on the 'salt'. More berries. And a straight razor, because it seemed that as there were patients who went to barbers when they needed medical treatment, others decided the best cure for their lengthening hair and beards was to seek out the attention of a physician. His host had seen enough of those who felt the occupations were fundamentally interchangeable to keep a few supplies on hand just in the name of getting them out the door a little more quietly.

So he had a little mirror, one of moderate quality: it only presented a few distortions for the part of his face which wasn't being cleared and, at the lower edge, offered a tilt that gave the reflection two extra chins. There was a straight-edge razor which had been stropped and sharpened and had flecks of dried blood on the ivory handle: he hadn't asked whose. He had Sunbutt still watching him through where the window would eventually be. And he had a hot, rising flush of stupidity suffusing every area the blade was scraping across, but no nick would allow any of it to gush forth.

"Rarity..." he muttered.

Sunbutt whinnied slightly, and it felt like a questioning sound again.

With the stress of the doctor's own question departed, names were starting to march through his head. "John Smith. Ulysses Lee... there's a name you can meet in the middle. I could have said anything, Sunbutt, anything with two halves and he would have bought it... but I said Rarity. One name. Just one, and not even a real name at that, one no one's ever heard before, something no one is going to believe. It's like hanging a Wanted poster on every door in town. Someone calling himself Rarity's got to have something to hide..."

Another slow scrape. Dr. Turner had found someone to heat water for him, but the stuff had cooled quickly: the scant length of stubble wasn't as soft as it should have been.

The speech got him a soft snort, one which seemed to suggest that anyone who'd recently seen 'Sunbutt' as an appropriate appellation didn't have much of a complaint coming.

"I'm stuck with it now, though," he sighed, not quite managing to perceive any lurking karma. "At least it's not for long. A week or two." He turned to face the horse. "And you'll only have to hear it for a little while. Once he gets back --"

The front door was opening. He slowly moved the blade away from his face. If Sheriff had decided to pay some level of visit, at least he'd have a weapon --

-- Doctor Turner strode back in, a bundle of fabric tucked under his arm. It was a very visible bundle. There were many ways in which it could not have been more visible. It would have stood out on a moonlight night, within the deepest mine shaft, and possibly could have been spotted from the moon, where it would serve as the bullseye for a target. It could do the same for much closer entities, some of whom might have been able to aim with their eyes closed simply because the blazing nature of the thing would sear through the lids.

"Your clothing," the thin man told him, putting the bundle down on a chair. "We were lucky, actually... not only did that look as if it would fit you, but it was the last thing in stock. Everything else sold out after the last major cash-in, and the next delivery isn't due until -- well, it's due sometime after my stove, and that's the most I can say for it." There was a light grumble of irritation at the lack of discernible schedule. "I'll step out of the room if you want to try it on --"

"-- it's white." Blazing white. Almost a hot white. The white only seen when all colors had annihilated each other.

"...yes," Dr. Turner eventually agreed. "That's why they were the last pieces in stock. No dye, no different threads used. Possibly sun-bleached or fell into the shipment before they could be properly finished. They're what was available and I was happy to get them. And they are in fact white. Your point?"

No proper streets. Muddy roads. Splatters everywhere. "How am I supposed to keep that clean?"

"Very carefully," the thin man suggested with a small smile. "Is that your priority?"

"I'm supposed to --" be presentable... He took a slow breath. "It's just -- white."

This produced a tiny nod. "And it will continue to be white for some time, which we can measure as the period until you get it outside. Rarity, it's all there was. You're shorter and somewhat more muscular than I am. There are men in town with your approximate build, but given the difficulty in getting replacement pieces, I'd have trouble talking any of them into a loan. It's the first part of your payment, it's something none of the ladies should complain about, it goes rather nicely with your hat, and it's -- white. Of course, if you choose not to take it, you have the option of begging in the very muddy street, although I'm not sure what you'll be wearing while doing so: remember, roughly half of your pants are gone." A small head tilt to the left, and the long hair at the back shifted with it. "This is the best I could do."

"I understand." he heard himself say, getting his own words past the echoes, the ones which said that if he was going to stay in the house, he had to be clean, he had to present the proper image, there was nothing she could do with the base material but by God it would be polished. "It's... just..."

"White?"

There was a long moment where the only sounds he could hear were Sunbutt's steady breathing and his own embarrassed heart trying to hide deeper within his chest.

"I... don't sound grateful, do I?"

"You sound," the doctor carefully told him, "like a man who's had a hard couple of days, who's focusing a little too much on the small things so he won't have to look at the ones just finished or anything which lurks ahead. The last words many battlefield patients spoke before their surgery was to wonder about the exact location of their gun and hope the barrel had been cleaned. I'm not offended, Rarity. And it certainly is white -- for now. I'll be surprised if it isn't brown by the end of the day. Are you going to try it on?"

He nodded, which was just about all he could manage beyond the "Thank you."

"It's your payment," calmly came back. "The first part of it. I'll just step out..."

He tried it on. It was a little tight around the thighs, but would stretch in time. The sleeves were pretty much exact. The back... also tight, and he had doubts about whether there would be any stretch there, knew there was no material he could release from extra folds. He had skill with needle and thread, had needed to keep his own clothes in some level of repair: there had been nights when his mother had been too tired for any attempt and he'd tried to give whatever help he could, along with a time when everything he'd worn had to be orderly and perfect and clean. He'd been obsessive about that, out of hard necessity...

It's just white and it's just dirt.

It was also going to be 'just laundry'. And lots of it.

He put the hat back on. After a moment, he picked up the arrow and stuck the shaft behind the band, letting the rainbow-feathered tail stick out at the back. "Ready," he called out.

Dr. Turner came back in. "Dashing," he commented. "A man about town, or at least about street. Is there anything else we need to do before we can consider you settled in for the duration?"

He nodded, silently glanced back towards Sunbutt. Purple eyes quietly regarded brown, and he had no idea what the expression behind them was, much less the thought.

"I understand," the doctor said. "All right... let's go take care of that. After we settle one more thing." He went to a drawer, opened it, and more metal came out. Very familiar metal, with a shape any Beadles reader was supposed to know by heart...

"That's a Colt -- isn't it?" The barrel faced away from him, and he'd seen that the exposed chambers were empty before it had exited the drawer.

A nod. "Much as your companion is a pony. A simple name which completely underestimates the damage it can do. I'll assume you've never used one."

He shook his head. There was a word for a slave who was seen in possession of a gun, and it was only spoken in the past tense.

"Fortunately, no one else has to know that." A holster was removed. "I want you wearing this. Openly. I don't want you firing it. I'll show you how to load it and keep it from going off when you don't want it to, but I'd rather not have you pointing it at anyone. But as you've noted, Sheriff doesn't like you, he has his allies -- and I'd prefer him to have some worry about the consequences of not liking you too loudly. Don't look as if you're looking to start a fight. Do try to seem as if you're willing to end one."

"Can I even -- carry that?"

"Why wouldn't you be able to?"

"There's supposed to be laws..."

"Yes, I suppose there are. All over the South. Being repealed at top speed while the old guard waits for someone to turn their back so they can bring them back even faster. But this is the West, and true laws are rather hard to come by. The Beadles aren't fully accurate: you'll learn that quickly, if you're lucky. Law doesn't come from a gun. But it makes people think twice before imposing their own on you. Now: this is a six-shot percussion revolver. Union issue. Try not to quick-draw it or someone will have to dig it out of the mud."

He was hesitant -- but the doctor had a point. And so he paid attention to the lesson, donned the weapon, and then the thin man led the way. After a long moment of slow breaths, deep focus, and desperate hope that he wouldn't be asked to introduce himself too often, Rarity followed him out.

[/hr]

Sunbutt trotted around to the front of the building on her own and, after that, simply followed them down the lone street, with no reins in use. She was getting some attention, as Rarity would have reasonably expected the biggest damn horse in the world to fetch -- but he was getting some of his own. Sheriff had been right about one thing: there were no others around who looked like him, with dark skin under the (currently) bright white, and far too many eyes seemed to be registering the unexpected fresh addition to the local population. He was also having some trouble adjusting to movement post-arrow: the limp drew its own portion of stares.

"I can cut you a cane," Doctor Turner offered. "But if you don't get used to moving with one quickly, the changed pattern can do some damage of its own."

Two men went past them, moving quickly. A third trailed at a short distance, almost bent double under the weight of a heavy back-slung sack. Rarity managed to avoid the first bits of mud splash towards the cuffs. "What do you think I should do?"

More quietly, "It's also a backup weapon, I recognize the realities of the situation, Rarity, and I suggest you keep them in mind as well. I can protect you -- but I hardly mind a bit of extra help."

"I'll think about it." Wasn't the gun tempting fate enough, especially after that oddly-attentive Providence had granted so much bounty as to create a vacuum of ill fortune in his life's bell jar -- one which might rush to fill with the slightest opening?

"Your choice."

There was a fair-haired woman in front of one of the more completed homes, one where the walkway of planks was almost intact. She was arranging flowers in little tubes mounted to the front of the doorway. Or she had been: she had halted all activity in favor of staring at them.

Just at Rarity, really.

He hesitated in the middle of the street, looked at the wide green eyes, saw the little tremble of the lips, had no idea how to deal with either -- except for the idea which came from those salmon-hued books.

His right hand came up to the brim of the fashionable hat, tilted it slightly as he smiled at her. "Afternoon, Miss."

She screamed. Most of the other travelers on that lone street turned towards the sound. None did anything else, and the majority of them reacted to the sound with open boredom.

It took several seconds before the echo of the slamming door faded away.

The town's inhabitants went back to their travels. Rarity continued to stare at the faintly-vibrating wood.

"I --"

"-- that one," the doctor calmly interjected, "you shouldn't take personally. 'Hysteria' gets used too much as a catch-all diagnosis for female complaints -- which means it's too easy to overlook the real cases. Until they start screaming in front of you. She doesn't deal well with anything new or different, that one."

There were little splashing sounds approaching from the back, too light for Sunbutt's hooves to have created. Small steps, almost drowned out by the hammering and sawing all around them, along with the distant thunder from the storm which still refused to close in.

"So it wasn't me?"

"Actually, it was. But she would react that way to any number of things. Loud noises, unexpected visitors, violations of hygiene, and Sam, if you try to rope that horse, I will be having words with your father."

And from behind them, an awestruck, dazzled, and extremely sincere "Wow..."

They both turned, one a little more slowly than the other.

The boy was young: ten or eleven. He was dressed fairly well, if in clothes which had discarded any nodding acquaintance with the mud for a full-blown partnership. The dark hair tended to stand up straight in the middle, and he was dragging a very short lasso behind him in a way that picked up extra mud with every step, the only thing the rope would ever pick up at all: loop too small, honda ready to slip at any moment. It suggested a rather lax tail, one which only existed to track extra mess into his home.

He was not standing near Sunbutt. He was almost directly behind Rarity. The dark eyes were wide, stared up with fascination mixed into curiosity and a desperate need to know...

The voice had been pure American.

The boy was pure Indian.

"Wow!" he repeated. "Look at you!" This also seemed to be directed towards Rarity. "Where are you from? Do they have more like you back there? Are you from another Territory, or a state, or a country? Do you have a tribe somewhere, or a people, or --"

This went on for a while. It seemed as if there was very little which could stop it. Sunbutt took a careful step back, looked down at the little source of word flow, then twisted her ears away from the rushing river.

"-- and does your skin do anything special? Can you tan? How about your hair, what's that like? Please, could you take off your hat, I really want to see --"

"-- Sam," Doctor Turner tried to break in. "Do you consider this polite behavior?"

The boy didn't care. "...and what happened to your leg? Was it a gunshot? Do you get in a lot of gunfights? How fast can you draw? How about lassos?" A pause, just barely long enough to register as one. "I have a lasso."

"I see that," Rarity said.

Dr. Turner closed his eyes. A rather distant mutter of "Oh, now you've done it..." made it in just before the verbal race hit the next lap.

Several travelers had stopped to watch and listen. Entertainment was entertainment, especially when it was also free.

"Do you want to see me use it?" Sam eagerly asked. "I'm getting really good! -- well, I can throw it some of the time, and it actually landed on something once, plus there was a time when -- well, Miss Daisy doesn't talk to me any more, not that she ever did, but she sort of screams a little more now if she sees me coming, but I'm getting really good at hiding." He puffed out what little chest he possessed, which didn't mean much. "Do you want to see me hide?"

"Yes," Dr. Turner tightly said. "Please. Sam, we're a little busy at the moment. If you could --" he swallowed "-- perhaps drop by later... much later... three weeks from now might be a good time..."

This was ignored. "What's your name?"

He opened his mouth. Tried to make the word come out on purpose. Nothing emerged.

"Do you have a name?" the boy inquired, the excitement audibly mounting. "A man with no name? Does no one have a name where you come from --"

"-- this," came the steady interruption, "is Rarity, Sam. He will be staying with me for a week or two. We are working on a medical project together."

A slow exhale of "Rarity...", and the dark eyes became even wider. "And this is --" a slow turn was followed by a long stare very far up "-- your horse?"

"Actually," Dr. Turner dryly said, "it's his pony. I'm told that we should really see her when she gets her full growth."

The boy briefly stopped breathing. His head tilted even further back until he was staring all the way into the gap where clouds refused to arrive, his attempt to imagine full growth reaching into the sky.

"Actually," Rarity hastily said, "she's --"

"-- where are you going? Can I come with you? I'll show you my lasso! And my hiding! I can even lasso out from where I'm hiding, or --"

It was the second foreign language of the day. It was being spoken at an extremely high rate. It was angry, carrying a fierceness which overwhelmed everything in its path and made everyone else on the street clear space for it. And it was being produced by --

-- what is she?

Tiny. Five feet tall, perhaps a little less, and some of what height she did claim could have been mud built up on the bottom of her shoes. Thin cotton dress. An extremely slender build which somehow impacted the mud with five times her actual (and minimal) weight. Darting, angry dark eyes narrowed in fury -- eyes which still would have been narrow without it. Black hair, straight and reflecting sunlight off a sheen he'd never seen before, ribbons wound into it, one pink trailing end mixing into the short bangs which fell across her forehead. A face he could only see as pretty, largely because he'd never seen another one like it. And skin tinged with yellow.

She marched up to Sam, going right past Sunbutt as if the horse wasn't worthy of her notice. Seized him by the right ear. Pulled, hard.

He yelped. More of the same language came from his own mouth, spoken with a desperation which would have been recognizable in any land, a need to make her understand that he hadn't been doing anything wrong and all impressions to the contrary were mere illusion, one which would be dispelled at the instant she let go of his ear.

She was having none of it. Words flowed faster, become more liquid as they blended into each other from both directions, threatened to saturate the mud into a sea of misunderstanding. And when she grew tired of the denials, which only took three seeming years, she pulled on his ear again and began to drag him away, brown-caked lasso leaving a final trail of resistance in her wake.

The boy momentarily paused in his struggles, waved. "I'll see you later, Rarity!"

She dragged him across a half-finished section of walkway. Another door slammed.

The play had ended. The audience, in lieu of applause, simply began to disperse.

Rarity waited for the balcony seats to get back into their hammering before he risked a word. "He..."

"Shoshoni tribe, as I understand it. Although I doubt he remembers anything other than the name."

Which didn't quite answer his question, so he risked a second try. "She..."

"Chinese."

He blinked.

"That's what..."

"Yes, that's what a Chinese girl looks like. Or at least what that one looks like. Not quite the stories they repeat in the South, is it?"

He hadn't seen any fangs. "And... they...?"

"Siblings." The doctor smiled, and the nature of that expression made Rarity wonder what his own was. Softly, "Yes, the supposed sea of clean white faces had some jetsam in it well before you arrived, Rarity. Sheriff's not happy about them, but you'd hardly expect him to be, would you?"

His vocabulary seemed to be dropping by the moment. "How...?"

"I don't know the full story. Well, I suppose I could learn it, but her English is uncertain and she's rather on the shy side, at least in those rare moments when she isn't yelling at her brother. From what I've been able to pick out of Sam's longer babblings, the bulk of the family used to be railway workers on the Central Pacific line, but they were among those who had trouble with the Irish. Things settled down there, as I understand it -- for most. Crocker and Stockbridge told the older workers that it was labor alongside the Celestials or --"

Sunbutt neighed, long and low and shocked. They both turned, looked at her -- but she was staring back towards where the slightly-built girl and enthusiastic boy had gone. After a moment, she turned to look at the doctor, neighed again, stomped her left forehoof once.

"...Rarity?" This calm was forced. "If you know how to calm her down, this would be a very good time..."

He looked up, tried to read the purple eyes. He still wasn't sure how. But it didn't feel like equine stress or panic...

"I think... maybe you said a word she knows," Rarity proposed. "A command or something..."

"Labor?" There was no reaction. "Crocker? Stockbridge?" The large purple eyes stared down at them both, ears rotated forward, waiting... "No, not any of those..."

Rarity searched his memory. The process didn't have to go any further than the front hallway. "You said something about 'Celestials'?"

And from above, a soft whinny.

Doctor Turner stared at her. "Yes," he admitted. "It's what some of the workers called the Chinese. For their spiritual beliefs. In the case of that family, they also believed they shouldn't be paid eight dollars less than the Irish and charged for their board on top of it, so they eventually left and worked their way up here over the course of two years. Sam was picked up somewhere along the way..." A slow regard of Sunbutt's face. "Are you a railway horse? You certainly have the strength to haul --" a long moment of silence "-- I am talking to a horse."

There was a lot of that going around. Rarity sighed. "Maybe we'd just better get going again. Before anything else happens."

"Well, the livery stable is that next building, so we don't have much distance for another encounter to take place in --"

"-- we're not going there."

A blink. "Oh?"

[/hr]

It took a major effort to climb out on the other end of the valley, and he was wishing for the cane long before reaching the halfway mark. But in time, they crested the rise, dipped a little, left casual sight of the town again.

He turned back to face Sunbutt. She stared down at him, eyes calm.

"She's not your horse," the doctor calmly said. "I realized that back in town, when you said you got here on the stagecoach. And you'd never be able to steal her... I doubt any rustler could and live. But she's not wild. A runaway or a stray would be my guess."

Rarity nodded, still looking at Sunbutt. "We ran into each other. It might have been the biggest piece of luck in my life. She was heading north, and she -- took me with her for a while. She got me to where I could be helped. I owe her my life..." He closed his eyes. "...and that means I can't keep hers. I don't own her. I don't have any right..."

His right hand reached up, ran fingers through the ugly mane. They tangled.

"So what are you going to do?" A gentle question.

"Let her go. She'll keep heading north and -- I guess she'll find what she's looking for. Her owner, her ranch... whatever she's been searching for, it's up there somewhere." He wondered whose hunt would come to an end first, along with whose had any true chance to succeed at all.

"You could keep her in town for a few days," Dr. Turner suggested. "We might be so fortunate as to have some kind of law come through. She's certainly distinctive, with her size and the birthmarks and those eyes... if she was reported stolen or missing, the news might reach the entire Territory in time."

Rarity's own eyes opened, and he turned to face the doctor. "What about her eyes?"

"The purple. I'm hardly an expect on breeds, but I've never seen that color on a horse. Taken as a whole, no one is going to mistake her for any other runaway."

"I don't know if she's running from or to." It was a truth. "Just that if she's running... she's the one who made the decision to run. She might have an owner looking for her -- or that could be what she had to leave."

His left hand joined the tangle. Sunbutt closed her eyes, lowered her head to make it easier for him.

"If her owner comes through and blames you..." Dr. Turner noted. "Most of the town has seen her. They're not going to forget her. One accusation -- it would be easier if his property was present to return."

Property.

The word made the decision.

He worked his fingers free, stretched up, touched her face without thought: she allowed it. "Get out of here."

She didn't move.

He wondered if he could smack her flank without getting kicked to the other end of the valley. "Go, Sunbutt! We're done! You saved me -- now go do whatever you had to do before I got in the way. North's that way -- just trot out and... find whatever you're looking for. Good luck..."

More staring. The huge head tilted down to regard him more closely. Turned towards the valley. Back to the north.

"Thank you," Rarity whispered. "Thank you... for the second chance. Just get out of here before you're the one who needs the miracles. Just..."

When had he last cried? It was a question which barely needed asking. He had the date memorized. Location, hour, the number of hands on his shoulders pulling him back, and the exact count of the whip lashes which flayed his skin once it was over. But those had been the last tears, at least for anything not produced by pain searing across the nerves, and those didn't count. Not for this.

When was he going to weep next? Not in front of another man. And not in front of the horse.

"Walk away." Dr. Turner, and the words were gentle. "We go into the valley -- she heads towards the forsaken land. Once we're out of sight... just walk away, Rarity, and she'll go back to her road."

He forced a nod, briefly squeezed his eyes shut tightly enough to force back what had nearly escaped. Turned, crested the rise, and limped down into the valley, the doctor staying close in case he stumbled.

It took eight mutual steps for the quartet of footprints to double.

The snout prodded his shoulder.

He didn't look back. "Go."

Again.

"I said --" and that was about to be an order, wasn't it? "Get out of here. Before anything happens, before anyone comes -- you're free, Sunbutt..."

She got in front of them. Stared at him for a while. There was a soft whinny, and two tail flicks, and a little stomp of the right forehoof. A tiny head shake, which did no favors for the ugly mane, and enough of a turn to give her a long look at the town below. She glanced up at the sun, at the clouds ringing the valley, took a deep breath...

...and then she led them down.

Rarity looked at the slow-swishing tail as its owner picked out the trail, and found no words.

Dr. Turner had a few. "It looks like you've got a horse."

Which triggered his own. "No."

"What would you call it?"

"A friend."

[/hr]

It took some time to negotiate the fees at the livery stable. At first, Rarity suspected he was being overcharged because of -- well, everything: after all, there was a sign at the front of the place listing the charges, and the other suspicion was that the owner thought he was incapable of reading it. He'd been on the verge of having to control his words when Dr. Turner had spotted the other looming storm and stepped in.

As it turned out, the overcharge had a reason, and it was named Sunbutt. Livery fees included food, and he was asking the proprietor to put up and feed the biggest horse in the world. Normal hay and oat allotments clearly weren't going to do it. It still took some time to get down to the actual amount which would be required as opposed to the ridiculously profitable one, and they left a grumbling watchdog in their wake -- along with a not-particularly-happy horse, who had been something less than content with the idea of being penned up for the night.

Rarity had tried speaking to her, under no illusion that the actual words would do any good. The tone hadn't helped any either. But the doctor didn't have any appropriate shelter behind his building. Tying her up outside with no roof and the rain still lurking about was just cruel, both to Sunbutt and any thief who might make the mistake of trying to rustle an exposed target. It was the livery stable or the road, and she'd already refused the road.

After a while, she calmed down. Not all the way: she was still clearly discontent about the process, to the point where the caretaker refused to lead her into his largest stall himself. Rarity had managed to coax her in -- eventually -- and she'd glared at him as the door was shut. But she'd stayed inside, and if she'd wanted to leave -- well, there was a considerable amount of door, but there was even more horse. The other mares and stallions within had seemed to recognize that fact: all eight of them had stared at her as she'd gone by. Several had retreated to the back of their own stalls. Two had tried to approach. When the humans had left, one horse had still been locked onto her with something which could only be interpreted as equine awe.

She was sheltered for the night. The bipeds were still trying to work out their own accommodations.

"I can take the floor," Doctor Turner said. "Your leg will gain no favors from your sleeping on the floor. Not that my bed is much better, but I'm certain there's nothing crawling on it and I can't say the same thing about the floorboards."

"We could both take the bed, if it's big enough." He was used to sleeping with a group.

"No, we could not." Just a little emphasis on the last word. "I have enough spare blankets for a personal nest. You're not putting me out --"

"-- I'm knocking you out of your own bed."

"I am trying to keep the subject of my study in the closest thing to ideal healing conditions as this setting can manage."

The street traffic had diminished somewhat. The days were long, the work hours available nearing their maximum -- but at the same time, there was summer heat coming, and some had chosen to hide from it. (At least one of the youngest might have been lassoed to a chair, although the mud might make it easy to slip away.) Some of what remained tipped their hats to the doctor, or openly greeted him. No one seemed to know what to make of Rarity, and none had chanced finding out through speaking with him.

"We're not going to start tonight," Doctor Turner continued. "Not with the medical review of your full case history. You need a decent meal and some rest in a bed. You'll be stronger in the morning, and then we can begin. But I want you to start thinking about everything you can tell me. Any single incident could hold the key we -- where are you going?"

"In there. Just for a minute."

Silence, and it was a surprising one -- but it was also brief. "I'll wait for you."

He went inside.

The church wasn't much, really. There were a few seats in multiple configurations, along with some scattered hymnals. Nothing indicated a specific denomination of faith because at this point in the town's development, no one could be excluded -- if only for the sake of the begged-for donations which would allow the place to be finished. There was no altar, no cross other than the one atop the building, no bell, and only about half a ceiling, which admittedly allowed the prayers to reach their target with a little less interference. And at the moment, there was no priest of any kind in evidence. He had the place to himself.

He didn't kneel: getting back up would have been a problem. Instead, he just braced his hands on the back of the lone pew and looked up at the still-clear sky, listened to a burst of thunder in the distance, and tried to think of what to say.

He'd never been particularly religious. Oh, some had been, trying to use their faith as a shield against the pains, as comfort which said that all the suffering on Earth would be compensated in the after. And while he'd said a name or two and chorused on a prayer here and there, his belief hadn't been all that strong. Keeping faith in a higher power who supposedly cared about what happened to you was difficult when the level immediately above yours had just split the skin again. It had sometimes seemed as if faith had been given to the slaves as a tool for keeping them quiet. Why complain about what's happening now? The reward is coming later... unless the owners were rewarded by having slaves in a personal and well-served Heaven. As below, so above, and there had been times when he'd wondered if thunder was nothing more than the crack of a godly whip. If so, the afterlife was well-run, and sunset clouds were the only ones which showed true colors. After all, the Bible had rules for slavery: he'd been shown that once. It was just one of many excuses which had been used for keeping things the right way: God approved. And a deity which looked upon the fields with favor was one which didn't deserve worship.

He'd told his mother that once, some time after the worst day of all. She'd said he could go to Hell for that. He'd asked for proof that the fields weren't it.

Or... it had occurred to him, after the Emancipation, that it could be a case of as above, so below. Perhaps there was a god for the Negros, and a god for the whites, and the former had been enslaved right up until the moment the document had been signed and the force of that final letter echoed into the beyond. There might be a god rubbing at wrists which still felt the weight of chains, looking down at those he'd been unable to help, desperate to make up for lost time. He had no idea how the white god felt about that, or if there was one of those for Southerners, another for the North, and they still weren't quite talking to each other.

It might be possible that whatever had dictated those rules for slaves had changed its divine mind. Or the rules were the same, and humans had sinned by declaring them illegal. Maybe... and this was the one which hadn't gotten him a beating, at least not immediately -- all there had ever been were slave owners who'd lived thousands of years ago and never wanted anyone to question the practice, and so they'd claimed it had the ultimate approval, writing every bit of that lie down.

But he'd been the recipient of miracles. At the very least, it felt as if some kind of Providence had been responsible for them -- and that meant he had to say something, even if this technically wasn't the proper time....

"I know it's Friday."

That didn't seem to be enough.

"I checked. And... I begged you. I don't know how much you heard. I begged you over and over and... we're free now. That's what they tell us, anyway. Free to be... slaves in a different way. Some are back on the fields, working for wages they can't live on, can't escape from. I saw so many get treated as if nothing had changed. But the chance is there... isn't it? To be something else?"

There was a moment, staring into the shaft of sunlight, feeling the smooth wood under his palms, when he almost expected an answer. None came.

What do I do if her owner shows up? Accuses me of being the thief?

There was no answer for that one either.

Finally, "For what's happened so far... the last couple of days... thank you. But... there's a long way to go yet. If you're trying to make up for what happened before, then we're not done, and..."

His head went down, neck unable to support the weight of memory.

"Keep her safe," he asked. And left.

[/hr]

In his dreams, there is no rain.

The storm crashed into his town at the moment of sunset, torrential downpours soaking all exposed surfaces, making the mud that much worse while pretending to clean some of the rest. But it cannot wash away the true impurity. It cannot clean the skin. Nothing can, and that is the final proof of sins which will never be forgiven. Forgiveness is a commodity, only available in limited supply, and has been granted to the only ones who actually deserve it.

He has forgiveness. He has had it all his life, for he was born into it. Even before she came to him, it had meant nothing he did would ever be considered a sin, and so he acts as he will, knowing he is still forgiven.

But then she appeared. Spoke to him first. And the previous glory of having been chosen for that forgiveness became something so much more...

There are things he does not like about her. The gender... that is an issue, especially when she says things which could almost be taken as orders by lesser men. But she explained it. She is, after all, an angel, and angels are meant to serve. Women serve men: that is the way of the world, the order of the book. God is male. Why should God not be served by women? He accepted that. But when it seems as if he might be serving her in some way... he has to remember that it's all for Him.

She has a way of laughing, one he still is not comfortable with. A habit of making jokes he does not understand, and he hates anything beyond his comprehension, which meant there were times in the early part of her service when he almost hated her. But she has given him gifts, so many gifts of status and control and knowledge of what is to come. She was the one who told him he was the chosen of God. It forgives much. It may forgive her. He feels he could almost do that, at least while the dream continues.

Her voice... he has become used to it, the words within the words, the ones he does not (cannot) listen to. It is natural. For she is the Metatron, the Voice Of God, and so why should she not speak with more than one voice, the echoes of the divine within every syllable? It offends him that a mere female does that speaking, yes, but... she serves.

Her skin is pure. Her hair as well, and the movement seems a small miracle. The eyes...

...he no longer looks at the eyes.

He sleeps through the lightning, for she will not let him wake.

She is thoughtful now. He had told her all about everything that happened on this day, all he saw and was told about, the arrival of more sin in his town, the need to wipe it clean, and she has listened. She is trying to decide how best to serve him.

"His power is a false one," she says. "You knew that the instant you saw him. A power which only comes from the false, and not even his own. Stolen."

He knew that all along, or at least so he can tell himself for the rest of his days, until the end of the world. "Where did he --"

"Oh, not a literal thief, not of the horse," she smiles. "He's stolen something before this, of course. He takes presumptions, starting with the one which says he gets to breathe instead of... well, there's no need to offend you any more with that one, I know. You recognize sin. Even when he tries to cover it with mere clothing, insulting you with its very hue."

In the dream and waking world, his hands curl into ever-tighter fists, fingernails biting into skin. He will not notice the blood until some time after waking.

"No -- he takes his power from the horse," she says, and her hair flows faster. The chill of Heaven's air spreads through the ornate office she has gifted him in dream, the one promised to be his in reality once the war is won. "You knew the mare wasn't natural. The size, the power of the thing... and while he's with her, that power seems to be his. It isn't, of course. It belongs with her. He just -- thinks he can direct it. Another fool who feels he has control over evil, and rides it into your town. A horseman. I hardly have to tell you what that means, do I?"

He takes a deep breath. "It's... starting, isn't it? Everything you've been preparing us for."

A solemn nod, one which makes him ignore the tiny giggle accompanying it, for she is merely happy about the glories to come. "Yes. It's time. The pale horse... and a rider whose very nature lets you know exactly what level of sin this is."

"And at the end of it all..." he exhales.

"Rapture."

She settles back into her chair, looking thoughtful again. He will not take his own, for it is not a throne. Not yet.

Four more visits. Perhaps four and the transition will be complete. The silver gilding has nearly layered the entire seat now, the black opals spread across the legs as the back arches higher...

At the start, it was barely a chair at all. More of a bench.

"He has power of a sort." she finally says. "But it isn't his own, can never be... and he's gone and left it behind, hasn't he?"

He does not understand. He will never admit to it. Understanding will be granted to him, and the comprehension sometimes arriving at the same moment as her words is mere coincidence.

"The stables," she eventually continues, the eyes he cannot meet dancing. "Well. Why don't we try to do this the simple way? Just for the fun of it? Wouldn't a perfect general end a war with only a single casualty, and that within the enemy?"

He is starting to see it, or will as she speaks. But he wishes to hear the ultimate approval of his status yet again, the sanctification. And so he leans forward and eagerly asks "What does God want me to do?"

She smiles. "It's after sunset. She takes her power from heat. You should remember that. Her strength comes from the flames, unlike the promise of stars to come which I was ordered to bring you. She's at her weakest now, and will be until the fire ascends in the sky again. Shall we see just how weak?"

She leans back in her chair, and it almost seems higher than his. Darker. Colder.

"When you wake," she said, "rouse another of yours, send him to the livery..."

He can see it now. And he smiles.

"...and have him shoot the horse."

Author's Note

The Colt company as we know it was founded in 1855 -- following a slightly-less-successful attempt nineteen years earlier.

Yes, vacuum bell jars have been around that long. They were sometimes used for art and clockwork presentation (and preservation): a wealthy household could see one.

The securing knot on a lasso is in fact called a honda. Try not to think about what that means for your car.

'Celestials' as a term for the Asian workers on the Central Pacific Railroad? Absolutely real. They started labor in 1865.

A livery stable (or yard) is basically a hotel for horses, which may include exercise options at full cost. (Western versions also rented their own horses out.) They still exist today, but the rates have gone up.