In which a law officer attempts to learn the truth
Dust. Dirt. Vultures. The shimmering reflections of the sun against inhospitable terrain. An armadillo.
These are all things that have been spotted out of the spyglass today.
What has not been spotted, however, is any sign of a ravine carved through the landscape. Nor are there any sightings of the criminal gang claimed to have taken up residence inside it.
Sophie sighs and lowers the instrument, scanning the region as a whole as her mind chews through her thoughts like tobacco. Her attention focuses on her jacket pocket, again and again, as if the item inside is burning a hole through it.
It’s a letter, written in flowery and graceful handwriting. Ignoring the contents, it looks for all intents and purposes like a love letter. Sophie doesn’t think about that, more focused on what was written. It’s very similar to the last three such letters she had received over the past few months.
They were addressed to her, expressed the intent of the author to turn themself in, and provided a location to do so. Signed at the bottom of each one was the same name. Lenore.
The most recent letter is the reason Sophie is out here, huddled under a rocky overhang and surveying the area. Two lawmen play cards further into the shade. They’re both relatively green, having jumped at the opportunity to accompany her at their first chance. She couldn’t blame them, knowing how her reputation looks to others.
In the time since meeting Lenore, her renown has grown significantly. Wanted posters that hung for months or years were now being taken down and replaced with new faces. It wasn’t a walk in the park, though. The thin scar bisecting her right eyebrow gave proof to that.
Her mind returns again to the letter. Like each one before it, Sophie ventured out to the designated area. Each time, instead of finding a contrite Lenore waiting for her, she was instead met with alarmed faces and gunfire, having stumbled into an outlaw camp or hideout. She might have suspected Lenore of leading her into a trap, but the damnable woman always showed up to assist her in the gunfight.
She would peak over dunes with a rifle or duck around dark corners, together picking off the outlaws one by one. Sometimes they would surrender, sometimes they wouldn’t. It didn’t usually matter to Lenore, the posters said ‘Dead or Alive’ she would say. Sophie preferred to bring them in alive, so they could face justice.
And when the dust settled and all of the living were bound and cuffed, she would slip away. Fly right out of her fingers every time, with a wink and a blown kiss and a “You’re welcome, darling! Until next time!”
Infuriating. Irritating.
Sophie’s head swirled with unanswered questions as she scowled at the lawmen. One took notice, ducking his head as if her glare alone cowed him.
“Something wrong, Marshal?” he asked, confused.
Sophie shook the thoughts out of her head and wiped the grimace from her features. “Nothing, sorry. I’ve got alot on my mind.”
He nodded, seeming to understand despite understanding so little.
“It’s alright. I figure some thoughts are like outlaws, it can take a bit to wrangle them and get the cuffs on them. You’ll get em, ma’am.” He returned to the game as she turned back to the landscape.
As she shifts her stance, she feels the hauntingly familiar weight in her holster. A gift from her brother, the holster was supposed to contain the meticulously polished, gleaming revolver he had made for her. Instead, an elegant magnum of dark metal rested in its place.
Yet another reminder of her.
As the sun reached its zenith, Sophie made her way slowly across the rocky terrain. In the middle of navigating a particularly uneven section, a hand grabbed her from behind and practically threw her into an alcove. The surprised yelp erupting from her throat was muffled by a rough palm.
Actually, as Sophie’s eyes try in vain to adjust to the sunlight beating down into her face, she realizes that the hand clamped over her mouth is alarmingly soft. Black curls come into view forming a partial silhouette, of a very familiar shape.
“You buffoon!” The woman hisses quietly at her, pausing to stand up slightly and cast a wary look around them. “I told you to approach from the South, sneakily! Why in the heavens are you ambling carelessly over from the East! You were nearly spotted!”
Sophie’s eyes adjust as the voice confirms her thoughts. Lenore.
“Sorry!” She said as best as she could through the hand.
“Shhh!” The hand was withdrawn.
“Sorry.. I thought I was coming from the South. You didn’t tell me exactly where this hideout was.”
“I specifically instructed you to start from the riverside.”
“And I figured, with how your directions usually go, that it’d be dropping me into some sort of trap! So yes, I chose to approach a different way this time!”
The other woman had the audacity to look offended.
“Don’t you trust me?”
Sophie adjusted her jacket, having opted for function over form for their last few encounters. A traditional duster with a vest underneath. She could have passed for any other marshal in the outfit, save for her obviously more feminine shape.
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
Lenore’s scowl was replaced with a smile. But it wasn’t the usual one that she would toss Sophie’s way. It wasn’t smug and devilish and teasing. This one was, for the span of a few seconds, entirely genuine.
“Come along, quietly please. Somewhere we can speak more freely.” Together they left the nook and made their way diagonally across the rocks. Lenore was much more adept at traversing the rocks than she was, practically skipping across some with ease. Like a mountain goat.
After a few minutes, she led them to a small makeshift campsite not unlike her own. Leaned against a rock was a set of worn saddlebags, insides somewhat spilled out around it. It was remarkably normal looking for how the outlaw usually carried herself. Another intriguing peak into the woman Lenore is under her facade.
She’s gotten a few other such glances in the past, despite the other woman’s best efforts. Each one revealing in their own way. Sophie watches as Lenore bends down to tend the fire for a moment, her thoughts pulled by memories.
The second time they met, it was far from intentional. Sophie had been tracking a gang of outlaws who had been raiding passing caravans for a few weeks. Unfortunately, they caught wind of her and managed to catch her by surprise one evening. They took her to their cave hideout and tossed her into a homemade cell. It was the only one they made, and it already had an occupant before she arrived.
Who would she find in that place but Lenore, bruised and disheveled but full of spirit. They talked, details were guarded but candid moments occurred from both sides. Over the course of the night and following day, they plotted and planned and enacted a successful escape. They were able to retrieve most of their confiscated belongings and made for the cave exit. To their dismay, the gang were waiting just outside. Bullets flew and several outlaws dropped. When the air rang quiet, two remained. They were both of them opportunists, commonly referred to as cowards, who had deemed to not join the prior gunfight. As such, they still had ammo loaded.
Staring down the barrel of the rifle, the women waited as the other outlaw approached with rope to tie them up again. Well, to tie Sophie up. They could get a ransom for her, as a law person. Lenore, on the other hand, would surely be shot. The gun remained zoned in on her, as the bigger threat. Sophie had caught a stray shot in her right shoulder, leaving her arm bloody and out of commission.
As the outlaw reached her, Sophie threw her head forward and crashed their skulls together. In the moment following, she hastily grabbed the revolver in his holster and tossed it to Lenore. When retrieving their things earlier, her own gun was missing. Now, it arced through the air until being snatched by Lenore. The rifleman, having been focused on Lenore, swiveled toward the tussle in shock. Seeing the gun thrown, his sights rushed to return to the black-haired woman.
As the sun started to set, Iustitia per crepusculum sang twice in quick succession. It had a promise to keep, after all, justice by twilight.
As they prepared to depart, Sophie straightened her back and addressed the other woman.
“In recognition of your service to the US Marshals, namely your assistance in freeing me and settling this, I am making the incredibly foolish decision of letting you go for now. If you choose not to turn yourself in, we can call it ‘giving you a head start.’”
Lenore glances down at her hastily bandaged arm and smirks, profusely thanking the honorable and handsome law-woman for her kindness and grace.
It wasn’t until Sophie was nearly back to town that she discovered her gun was missing, this time replaced by Lenore’s own. She had swapped them, likely thinking herself cute and clever.
It had raised a few questions when she returned to town, but most assumed she took it from one of the outlaws as a trophy. Now, the black steel was synonymous with her notoriety.
Mind swimming back to the present, she took stock of some of the items she could see. There was a dented flask, having taken a shot meant for Lenore as she ran along a ridgeline and gave Sophie cover fire with a rifle.
Sticking out of the bags was Lenore’s own spyglass. Normally, it would be collapsed inside and neatly packed. But since one of their encounters, it was stuck open. Lenore had, in desperation, used it as a club to incapacitate another outlaw. Bent at an angle, she told Sophie not to worry, she would get a new one. A closer look revealed that it was the same one, having been straightened as much as possible against a flat surface. It likely worked just fine, but was still too damaged to collapse into a smaller shape.
Why hadn’t she replaced it, like she said she would? Sophie looked over the gathered items again. Now that the thought was nestled in her head, she noticed other details that she had glanced over before. The saddlebags weren’t just worn, they were worn out. Saggy in some places, with straps that had been sewn on by an experienced hand, but were obviously replacements.
The flask, dented, but still usable. Several other items passed under her critical eye, each showing significant wear and tear. Looking between the items and the woman tending the fire, it was as if they belonged in different worlds. This woman had robbed and stolen, having gotten her hands on bags of cash and handfuls of precious jewels and items of note. Where was the money all going, if not toward her own supplies and tools?
Sophie’s mind was a vulture, circling and descending slowly on the truth she sought.
The other woman stood and faced her, wringing her hands in front of her. A far cry from the confident and collected outlaw she’d chased thus far.
“So…” Lenore began, struggling to say more.
“So.” Sophie questioned with her answer.
“I’m sorry, this is terribly difficult. I was never really sure I’d get this far, to be completely honest. And now that it’s here, well…” she shook her head, searching for the right words.
“Are you… are you actually trying to turn yourself in and come clean?”
“Well… yes and no. Yes, I do intend to turn myself in to you, preferably within the next few days. But I would like your help first. And to explain that, I have to explain everything else.”
“Then just start at the beginning, I suppose.”
“Would you believe me if I told you that I actually AM a silver heiress?”
Her only answer being a flat look, Lenore continued.
“Well, I’m not, nor was I ever. But I almost was! Sort of… look. I grew up in a little cattle town on the backside of nowhere, my family had barely a few pennies and a bale of hay to our name for most of my childhood. As I was getting old enough to help with some chores, we had a stroke of good luck.
You see, my father worked in a mine some distance away from town. The mine dried up, to put it simply. The company that owned it was pulling out and everyone was out of the job. My father, however, believed the mine had more to give. He purchased it for next-to-nothing and moved his family out to the site as our new home. The administration building was nowhere near comfortable or large, but it was about the same size of our old home.
For two weeks, he worked alone in the mine. For two weeks, my family had to ration what little food we had since our only source of money was busy underground. For two weeks, he brought nothing but sweat and rock dust up from that forsaken hole.”
Lenore’s voice wavered, emotion bubbling up at the seams.
“Then, miraculously, he came stumbling out of the hole around noon one day. My mother and I were just starting to prepare a threadbare lunch when he burst through the doors. We thought he had gone mad, his mouth was moving but no legible sounds were coming out. Then he holds out his hand to us, palm up, holding a chunk of silver ore the size of my fist.
We were ecstatic, his hard work and perseverance was about to pay off, we’d struck a rich vein of silver. Our lives were about to change for the better.”
Her eyes darken in a way Sophie had never seen before.
“Then, it was all ripped away from us before it really began. Somehow, despite telling NOONE and being as cautious as possible, we were found by a gang of outlaws. Caravan raiders, thieves, murderers. They were looking to turn the mine into their own little hideout.”
The pause that rends the air is as heavy as a horse, Lenore rubs her arms.
“They intended to kill us, get rid of any witnesses, any that knew they were there. My father, the damn fool, tried to bargain with them.”
When Lenore doesn’t immediately continue, Sophie speaks up for the first time since she started her tale.
“Did… did they kill him?”
A laugh, bitter and keening, pierces the air from Lenore’s direction. She throws her hands to the sky.
“No! They took him up on it!” Her voice cracked.
“What did…”
“Let my family go, he said, and I’ll work the mine for you. I’ll be your prisoner, just let them leave. And they did! They shoved us onto our horse and chased us out, never to return.”
Shoulders shaking, she fell to her knees as tears stained her cheeks.
Sophie knelt beside her, unsure of what else to do, and put her hand comfortingly on the other woman’s shoulder. Lenore turned and lunged into her chest, burying her face above Sophie’s badge. Sophie was understandably unprepared for that. She patted her back in what was likely the least comforting way possible.
“That’s the last time I saw my father.”
While she tried to wrangle her emotions, Sophie’s mind raced with the new information. When the sobs quieted and Lenore stopped shaking, she spoke again.
“This hideout in the ravine, it’s not just a ravine is it? It’s a mine. The mine.”
She felt the other woman nod against her chest.
“You’re here for revenge, is that it? And I’m the means to your end.”
The other woman pulled away sharply, scowling up at her with fiery eyes. Her voice was even despite how her chest still seemed to heave.
“You are more than the vessel for my revenge, Sophie. I trust you more than anyone else, outside my own family. I did not ask you here to get retribution, though the thought isn’t unpleasant.”
Her brilliant colored eyes bore into Sophie’s own, breath catching in her throat.
“I asked you here to help me rescue my father.”
“He’s alive?”
Lenore nodded, “If the steady stream of silver ore means anything, it means he’s still down there.”
The pieces clicked into place in Sophie’s head. The rundown tools and supplies, all of the money, it was all going toward tracking down the gang and the mine, gathering information. Still, questions lingered.
“So were all of the other times just a test? Each time you called me so you could ‘turn yourself in’, but instead lead me to another group of criminals? Seeing if you could trust me?”
“Well yes and no.” Lenore had the grace to look embarrassed, taking a step back. “Most of the outlaws I lead you to were part of the original gang that took my father. You could say I was tying up loose ends, while also testing your skill and honor and whatnot. And each one let me get that much closer to the mine.”
“And now we are here.”
“And now we’re here, and you know the truth. I’ve laid it all out for you. Once my father is safe, I fully intend to turn myself over to you, once and for all.”
“If I agree to help you. I could just take you in right now, notify my bosses about the mine and let them sort it out.”
“You could.” Lenore stepped up to her again, raising her arms in front, wrists held together. “You could do it right now.”
The iron handcuffs hanging at her belt suddenly felt very heavy.
“But… I don’t think you will.” Her hands lowered.
Sophie did not respond, her eyes clouded with thoughts.
“I need some time to think about it, is that alright?” She says after an eternity.
Lenore was taken aback, but schooled her features and nodded. “How much time do you need?”
“A day or so.. I think. How long do we have to act?”
“They aren’t exactly going anywhere.”
“I’ll be back.”
She walked out of the campsite without another word.
