“He gotta be inside?” Decker cast baleful eyes at Marshal. The horse stared back, one leg lazily cocked underneath him as he rested next to casks of liquor. Cricket claimed he’d stolen the lawman’s gelding after breaking out of jail the third time he’d been set to hang. Decker didn’t know how much truth there was to his claim, but Marshal certainly had better manners than his new owner.
Cricket tugged the bar rag from Decker’s belt and started rubbing away the sweat from Marshal’s roan hide, the flecks under white hair blending into a creamy sorrel.
“The dang flies are gettin’ to him. I got your own in the barn all tucked in, but Marshal don’t do well with biting things.”
“I don’t do well with horses next to my whiskey.” Cricket’s luck was on his side once again, and Decker was too tired to argue much.
Glancing back towards the single window in the storeroom, Decker caught a glimpse of the flies. They showed no signs of disappearing after a day.
One rattled against the pane of glass.
tap tap taptapta–
Snatching Cricket's hat off his head, Decker swatted it to the floor. The fat body twitched. Buzzed in a circle. Finally stopped.
“You owe me a hat.” Cricket inspected it for disembodied wings and then shoved it back on his head.
Decker swept the fly to the side. “Call it even for the room you’ve been staying in. You know where the hell they came from?”
“There was a rumor you keep dead bodies in your whiskey barrels to help with the flavor, maybe you forgot to change ‘em out.” Cricket smacked the side of one.
Decker stifled a sigh. “If Marshal shits in here, you clean it up.” He watched the boy’s weary, methodical movements as he worked down the withers and across his back, having done it a thousand times.
You’re too quiet, my friend.
“Where’d you go this time? Another stage robbery or you went for the big bank this time?”
“Nah.” Cricket paused to wipe the back of his arm across his nose. “Went home to see my momma.”
Decker witnessed it a hundred times. Cricket would pack his bags, trot out of town, hat cocked jauntily across his eyes and then return, tall tales forgotten and a curl to his shoulders he’d remedy with the bottle.
Each time Cricket went home to see his mother—he didn’t. He never said why he couldn’t go home, and Decker never asked. Some things were meant to stay unspoken between two men.
“When was the last time?” Decker asked quietly.
Cricket shrugged and worked the rag down over Marshal’s haunches. “Few years I reckon. I send what I can every month toher and my sisters, but I…just can’t go back yet. It’s my momma. She knows I’ll come home when I’m ready, and she’ll be waitin’.” Cricket’s voice was tight, and he cleared his throat, slipping back into his easy, shit-stirring drawl. “And yours? You never talk about ‘em.”
Not to you, hardly to Safine, not to anyone.
“They’re back home. India,” he said. Kalikata wasn’t home anymore, not like Ender’s Ridge. Yet he ached for old familiarity, for a touch of the love they’d shown to him once. “I don’t think I’ll ever go back,” he said softly.
Decker’s thumb thoughtfully grazed along his scarred hands, recalling the absence of sunburn and faintly remembering how the strong sun used to warm his skin. A hundred years later he could never forget the feeling of laying in a freshly plowed field in the sweltering sun before Amma called him in for supper, and they were human, and together, and happy. It was a lifetime ago, and just as dead as he was.
“Sure she would like to see you back, Cricket,” he said. “You don’t have forever to run from them.”
But Decker did.
Decker couldn’t run from his past when he could barely stand, and so he left Safine and Willa in charge of the saloon as he yanked his hat over his eyes and covered his face with a bandana to brave the storm of flies to McKinney’s Mercantile.
Blood from dubious sources was never his first choice, but there were few other options since he’d sent the vaquero on his way days ago. Corpse blood often made him sick, and even if it didn’t, it only shaved the edge off his hunger.
McKinney stood on a stool as he polished the inside windows to a shine so passers-by could see shelves stacked with teetering piles of dry goods, bolts of fabric, tins of tobacco, and cases crammed with any weaponry a soul could want.
“Decker!” He tucked the rag into his apron, faded green eyes crinkling at the corners as he grinned. “We received some of the latest shoes from out East. Be sure to let Safine know before the ladies at the dance hall get wind of them.”
He managed a smile. “Of course.”
McKinney climbed down, his crown of mousey-red hair just reaching Decker’s belt as he craned his neck. His thick brogue took on a sympathetic tone. “I know you aren’t here about boots, lad. You look terrible.”