2 Chapter 2 - In Which A Good Deed Is Punished

Lozen hated the colonizers towns. Even without the brutes drifting through them like flies through a carcass, they would still be ugly places to go. Some were sinking into mud so thick it could cement a man in place, others were little more than a few graves covered by a tarp, and the worst had been erected in the middle of nowhere.

However, all of them had the same collections of old wood painted with poison with the most desperate, despicable people filling the establishments. Work camps brought brothels, brothels brought trading post, and trading post brought more "lawmen" with gun from the east, all conjugating around a few dingy structures sticking out from the wilderness like a bent nail. They were crooked and stale, refusing to be breath any worthwhile life in the areas they inhabited and spoiling the earth below them with blood and garbage.

She could have fit an entire village where they settled with room to spare to care for the herds, but instead they were used for indulgence and luxury. Vital wells and grazing land were claimed from the rest of the people and the only thing offered up in return were drunken barbarians shooting everything in sight.

However, the worst of the worst she had grown accustomed to were the ones that had been brought up not in the middle of a luscious forest or grassland, but in the middle of the many desolate wastelands rotting the "frontier" as they put it. Someone found that gold and despite having no clear use, people came flocking from the east to try and find even scraps of the material. Then, the towns were risen in the middle of nothing but sand and dirt.

On one hand, she was glad they weren't wasting any useful land, but in the other, the towns were always too lucrative to pass by. If she wanted something important or needed to get to anywhere, she always had to march across miles of dirt and heat to reach one of the nowhere towns.

Her horse always died halfway through the journey, forcing her to walk the rest of the way even for days on end. Sand and dust stuck to and irritated her skin to the point where blisters were preferable. Everything itched and burned, the back of her throat shriveled like a prune with not even her saliva revitalizing it, and every single joint in her body had become so dry and exhausted she could barely feel them at all. Maybe an hour ago they were painful, but by the time she came marching into town, they had started to die. Her shoulders ached as the weight of her pack cut into them and every breath she sucked in only served to pull more moisture from her neck, but by some miracle she managed to keep moving. Every step cut in the soles of her feet worse than salted dagger, but she took them nonetheless and tried to stay focused on the store fronts around her.

They were all clearly labelled saloon or otherwise and made navigating the sun soaked speck of a settlement much easier, though no by much. Dust stuck to every surface it could, obscuring every word painted onto the walls and dirtied the windows until she couldn't see what was inside them. Chairs seated numerous people just in front of the doors and windows, but she knew better than to approach them.

She readjusted the handkerchief covering her face and the gate she had scavenged off a corpse everytime she made eye contact with one of them. People this far out didn't have a problem with wandering women as long as she kept her head down, but Apache weren't taken too kindly in most places. She hated that fact more than most as well as when she was forced to use their over complicated tongue and wear their impracticality garbs. The cloth stuck to the sweat on her skin and directed the heat and want to make landfall in her limbs, making Lozen wonder if it would have been better to walk through the desert naked. Though on the other hand, all of it kept her out of the towns folks attention so she couldn't complain to hard. She just tried to stay focused on what she needed to do and not let anyone dwell on her for long.

Eventually she found herself passing alongside an establishment with one massive words plastered over it's front. Saloon. The rotting heart of places like this with gin and vomit spilling from it like blood from a wound. It was a disgusting place to have to go, even when the drunks and thugs had all passed by, but one she always found herself returning to no matter what the hell she had to go through in them. The hotels always demanded she showed them her face, but the local bars let anyone rent out a room so long as you had either the cash to pay or something worth having. Luckily this time she had spent the past two days dragging about twenty-five pounds of such across the desert.

She sucked in a small breath of air as she prepared for whatever confrontation she would undoubtedly have to go through and then darted off to her left with her eyes focusing in on the saloon swinging doors. Her hands felt like they would snap as they pushed again the swinging doors, but she forgot all about that by the time they came swinging shut behind her.

It wasn't as crowded as she expected which was saying a lot because she only anticipated coyotes and maybe one drifting soul to be inside. The place itself was relatively decent, round tables laid on every corner of the space with cushioned seats surrounding them. A small staircase rose up to the ceiling in the center of the back wall and covering the left wall was a long bar like setup that lacked a functioning bar. The shelves behind it were empty apart from maybe three or fours half empty bottles and the counter had only three stools seated in front of it with a four lying in a pile of what had once been it's legs. Behind the counter was a well dressed man, or as well dressed as one could get in these parts, and appeared to be one of the...She always forgot what they were called.

The eastern folk called them "colored", an epithet she had heard hollered at many people like that many times along with a few other choice words even she wasn't comfortable saying. Though what caught her attention most where the unit seated customers in the entire place.

She heard they before she say, catching their hollering from just outside the door and seeing now that there were the last folk she hoped to run into. The ruffians wearing dark, thick articles of clothing she only ever remembered being used to conceal something dangerous. Each of them were topped off with a hat similar to her own, ones worn by everyone from the lawmen to the degenerates and clutched in each of their hands was a duo of cards. One of them was shouting obscenities while the others cackled at him and slammed fist and such onto the table in expression of their enjoyment.

Lozen had seen men like them before, empty mugs placed in front of them and yellowed teeth on full display as they flash those devilish smiles, but this was the first time she had heard maybe five of them creating such a ruckus. It was almost impressive if it wasn't so concerning. The laughing ones were often the people who thought they could get away with anything. Whether or not they were correct didn't matter. Someone always died before the authorities showed up, but if she kept her head down, they were typically harmless.

She readjusted her hat and started slowly making her way towards the bar. None of them noticed her by the time she slid herself down into one of the bar stools apart from the bartender who stood himself in front of her seat before she had settled.

"Sorry, Miss. We ain't got much to drown yourself in." He said, jestering to the almost empty bottles behind him and Lozen replied with a small wave of her hand "I ain't here to forget." The tender smirked at that before saying "I've never heard someone put it so dramatically before, but I can't say I'd disagree. I'm assuming you're passing through here?" She replied while readjusting her bandana "Something like that. Does this place have rooms for rent?" The tender replied "Sure. But even I'd recommend not to take them. There's a hotel down the way with much nicer places than ours and have regular cleaning if you know what I mean."

Lozen frowned under her mask as she heard that question and took a quick glance over her shoulder at the brutes behind her. When she was sure none of them were paying attention to her, she slipped a hand into the satchel hanging off her left and gripped one of the many, tiny stones resting at the bottom. "I'm aware, but the problem is, those places prefer to put a face to their clients and usually ask how they get their hands on this."

She answered as she gently placed a glistening pebble barely bigger than a nickel on the table and cupped her hands around it so that only the barkeep could see the treasure. Silver. Raw, lumpy, uncut, and one of the only sources of payment she could get her hands on. Her village hadn't found a proper use for it yet, so she usually just stuffed her pack with as much of the rock as possible before heading off. It helped keep the wrong people off her tail and pay for some of the more lethal devices she had to employ, but sometimes put targets on her back. Especially if people started asking where she got it.

The bartender leaned over to see the shiny pebble, his eyes widening as they caught onto the precious metal and every other inch of him prettifying in place. She hoped it was because he had been keyed into the danger of carrying this rock and wasn't trying to figure out some way to steal it. "Is that what I think it is?" He whispered and she replied "Let's just say there's a reason I can not confirm or deny that." He nodded for a moment before saying "And, pardon my questioning, but where did you get your hands on something like that?" Lozen replied "Mining prospect. So you can understand why I don't want to tell anyone about the where."

The tender shoot her a suspicious look with one of his eyebrows raised before asking "Are you some kinda outlaw?" She replied "Not anymore than you." He took one long look at her before saying "Oh. And I take it this here diddy got found somewhere you don't want people going digging?" Lozen gave him a small nod and was about to ask her first and last question when just about the last voice she hoped to hear came screeching out behind her.

"Hey. Wazz youzzz talkin' 'bout diggin' up ovvvr thur?" One of the drunkards asked, every word slurred almost to the point of unintelligibility, but Lozen caught enough of it for her heart to skip a beat.

She slapped her hands down over the stone out of pure instinct as her heart started picking up it's pace and her mind instantly started racing to try and find some way out of the bar. The brutes were between her and the door, but the windows on the other side of the entrance looked fragile enough for her to break. If she got behind the bar before the shooting started, she'd have a clear shot through the glass and maybe she'd be able to lose them in the town. Her gun had only six shots and there were five of them, so she could only miss-

But she stopped herself before she could start panicking anymore. She knew what to do in these scenarios. Running never helped and fighting was pointless. Just keep your head down and maybe you'll survive.

She glanced up at the bartender who had taken a noticeable step back from her and been silenced with a few slurred words. His Adam's apple bobbed up and down in a noticeable swallow that only served to make Lozen even more worried, but they still had to say something. Drunks rear key enjoyed being ignored. "Nothing much. Just some interesting bones some scholar found down south." She said over her shoulder, but it did nothing to deflect the drunk. "Ohh really? Do you thinks I stupid? Cause I am notzz!!! Izzzz smart! Right boy?" He shouted over towards his friends and to which they all replied with some variation of "No you're not" with one of them crying out "You can't even hold your booze." Nevertheless, the man continued "Sea?! Now whatcha got unner those big old fists?"

Lozen slowly spread her hands apart, making sure her right managed to drag the pebble under it, and was about to say something when another one of the party spoke up "Huh. Boys, I think he might have a point. What're you trying to hide from us, toots?" Shit, she thought. He must have seen her attempt to hide the ingot. Either that or he was bluffing, but Lozen wasn't gonna take that chance. She faced herself forward again before saying "Nothing gentlemen like yourselves should bother yourselves with." It wasn't much of a deflection, but her alarm was still getting the better of her. The sound of a chair being dragged across the ground could be heard, causing her skin to crawl as she rightly anticipated the footsteps to follow. "Appreciate the opinion, darling, but I think I'll take a peak anyways." He said as she smelled his wretched odor waltzing up to the stool on her right.

Her grip around the pebble tightened in an awful reaction she knew would bite her in the neck and low and behold, her guess was correct. "The only question is, are you gonna make it easy or not." He asked and sent Lozen into a quick spiral before she gathered herself again. Fighting and resisting wouldn't help, so she slowly uncurled her hand and pulled it away until the stone was exposed to the man. An unsettling silence fell over the room for what felt like an eternity, but she swore she could hear the sounds of bullets sliding into place as the air froze solid. She felt her trigger finger twitch as she started expecting someone to be dry stupid, drunk, or both, but she was amazed when the next thing that happened wasn't a gunshot.

A hand swiped in front of her and snatched up the chunk of silver. Her eyes followed the hand as it brought the shard up in front of the man who said with the stone being turned in front of his eyes "Wow. What is this? Iron? Platinum?" He paused for a moment before his eyes widened, though only enough to notice, as he realized what it was. Lozen curled her hands into fists, trying to keep them away from the weapon at her side, but was finding it hard to resist. She had gone through this before and knew what came next along with how difficult it was going to be to just take it.

"Hey, boys!! This here's silver!" The man cried out, never once taking his eyes off the metal and one of them cried back "Shut up, Hicks! You're not even that good at lying." This Hicks fellow replied "I'm not lying!" He slipped the ingot into her mouth and bite down on it until what had to be an indent must have occured.

"This is the real deal, boys!! Pay dirt!" The man cried out before suddenly lashing a hand out to grab the wrist of the arm that Lozen had held the stone in. His grip felt like it was crying to crush the bone and caused the blood to stop flowing into her hand, but that was the least of her worries. She gritted her teeth under her bandana from the pain as the man wrenched her hand up off the counter and then spat in his slightly drunken voice "Where'd you find this?! You just some whore who stole it!?" After flinching at the word, Lozen related her prepared answer "No. I just found it near the base of some mountain down south." The man increased his grip around her wrist, making her really want to stab this bastard, but she managed to remain composed enough to not. "Really? Is that right?" He said, his intoxication making this easy, but he still pulled her closer using her arm as leverage until she could smell the booze on his breath. "Then do you got anymore, darling?"

Lozen swallowed and debated for a quick second. These men were greedy drunks and they weren't going to leave her alone until she gave them what they wanted, so she had to swallow the rage one more time. Fighting back only worsened her chances of survival, but it still hurt to have to do so. She ground her teeth together before slowly reaching a hand to pull her satchel down from her shoulder and steadily rested it on the counter in front of her.

She would have just passed the man the bag, but hesitated for only one more instance as she caught the man's face. He was just like the others that had taken what was hers before. Black, oil hair grew out of every inch of their twisted, sickly expression, grim stuck to their skin and accumulated into yellow chunks in their beards, and even the small smiles snapped and wavered as if they were struggling to keep themselves upright. But the worst part, the one that made her remember why she didn't stab them here and now, were the eyes.

They weren't active like the animal she had to hunt or even some of the worst scumbags in the frontier, just empty and hollow like that of a doll pretending to be alive. Even when their owners wasn't drunk, they always seemed to be staring off into the distance at something that would never be in their reach and didn't even acknowledge her existence. It was as if she weren't a person at all, but some roadblock to be trampled over as they went on their way to whatever fortune or fame they thought await them where the sun dipped below the horizon. Like dead men fooling themselves into thinking they were alive. And if they couldn't discern her from the peebles crushed under their horses heels, them what would stop them from grinding her up as well? She didn't even think they would care by the time they would be finished with her. So best just give them what they want and hope you're left with anything at all.

When the second past, she would have pushed the bag over to the "gentleman" without another thought, but before she could, another hand came reaching out to her. It slapped itself down onto the bag, keeping the carrier in place despite her efforts, and pulled hers as well as the hollow soul's attention over towards it's own. The bartender didn't have the erupting expressions or beads of sweat she expected most people to have when stepping in the middle of this situation, but he still seemed alarmed on some level. His eyes darted between her and the man called Hicks with his lower jaw squirming around inside his mouth in a clear nervous tick, but other than that, he seemed rather composed. He didn't shake or squeal, just kept his hand firmly in the bag and after a moment, eyes on her.

"Miss, you don't have to-" The tender tried saying before Hicks roughly tugged at Lozen's arm like she was some mug he happened to be holding and exclaimed "Hey!! Me and the lady were having a conversation and it doesn't need a blacks opinion!!!" He sounded angry and the slight slurs she heard every vowel or so didn't make hearing him any easier. However, the barkeep didn't seem too phased by the brutes outburst and, despite the stupidity, kept every inch of him as still as usual. The drunkard sneered at him for a moment before shooting his free hand down and pulling the four wheeler free from it's holster. Lozen's heart skipped a beat and her eyes widened as she saw the brute point his weapon right at the barkeep's heart with the hammer being pulled back with a click.

She surppressed the urge to reach for her own before saying over to the barkeep without pulling her gaze away from the gun "Stay out of this. Don't be a hero." For a never ending second, no one made a move. To breath, to run, or even to think. They all just stayed right where they were with Lozen's mind racing as it had before. She hadn't seen this before, but she knew how it would end. It was a nice thing the barkeep was trying to do, but no good deed ever went unpunished nor did anything of meaning. All it did was put the wrong person in the ground and make getting to the next sunrise that much harder.

She prayed he was smart enough not to be the brave one and would just sit down before he got himself killed, but the pounding of her heart made it impossible for even herself to hear the plea. So what chance would God have? The fool didn't let go of the bag when the second passed and not for the ones that followed, prompting her to ask again, desperate to get him to stop "I'm not kidding. Just step away." At that, Hicks let out a small chuckle before saying "You should do as the lady says, cotton picker. Hand it on over before I paint your skull all over that wall." She tried pushing it over again, but the tender continued to stand his ground like the fool he was.

He even was stupid enough to open his mouth "Sir, if you're trying to bluff me, I suggest you do a better job than that. I've seen your type before, the kind who've been chase all over the states and have only got nowhere to go. You start firing in here, you'll have ever Pinkerton and lawman in Texas after your hides. So why don't you put that useless thing away before you do something really stupid." That last part was almost numerous to Lozen, but for a moment, she thought the barkeeps bluff might work. He sounded so confident, almost as if he was speaking the truth, but Hicks must have been too drunk to notice.

Without hesitation, the brute let out a small, intoxicated chuckle before a terrible, deafening bang came exploding through the room.

She didn't even have a second to foolishly hope the bartenders words might have made a difference. Just one long moment where hundreds of things assault her vision all at once. Blood exploded against the shelves behind him as the bullet struck the bartender dead in his heart and threw him back away from the counter. She could see a few specks of blood drizzling out of the entry wound as he was tossed back, but it was nothing next to the spray plastered onto the wall.

The shot echoed between the walls as her heart beating froze in place and a small gasp escaped her mouth as the unnamed man crashing into the almost empty rows. One of the half full bottles tumbled down and shattered onto the ground as the man started realizing what was happening to him. His eyes bulged and the hand he had once kept planted on her satchel went up to cover his gaping wound. Blood trickled through the fingers and spread through the shirt around until the hand seemed rather pointless as a means of plugging the hole. Judging from the alarm festering in every inch of him, the keep must have known this, but still he pulled his other arm up to grab onto one of the shelves.

He was trying to keep himself on his feet. It was a heartbreaking thing to see a dead man do because it always made her think there was still some way to save him. She could tend the wound, get a doctor, or anything else that could be used to save him, but then the worst part came. When she realized she still couldn't do anything by watch.

And then the man finally realized he was going to die.

There wasn't any fear or pain in his eyes and there never was. Just emptiness, like the soul had already departed for judgement and the body was slow to react. The fight vanished from him and the last droplets of life in his eyes drained away before his grip on the shelf vanished. He slid down to the floor with a graceless crash and a small trail of blood leading down to where he eventually fell still.

It was all over in maybe five seconds, but every single detail she had gotten used to seeing made it feel like it was still going on and pulled her stomach closer to the ground with ever moment. She stared down as the corpses coughed up its last bloody breath before the last bit of activity was vanished from it's form and the body finally caught up with the soul. It always horrified her how quickly people could go could just die, but was never enough to hold her attention for long. Not after she had seen it so many times. Besides, she had worse things to deal with.

Hicks let out another cackle before saying "Hear that, boys? I think Johnny laws gonna come trodding on in. We best pack up!" The rest of them start laughing along with him as Hicks let the weapon slid into the hostler and the body started resting in a growing pool of blood. She would have joined them since she had no idea how the fool had thought this would end well, but her consciousness weighed her down. Regardless, she wasn't going to stay alive by just being horrified and so she finished sliding the bag over towards the man. "Good girl." He dismissively added before snatching the bag away only to exclaim again as he realized how heavy it was "Sweet god! Gentlemen, clear the table! We're gonna be rich!!!"

Hicks said that last part as he started marching his way back to the table, leaving Lozen to grapple with what remained. She sucked in a deep breath of air like she had so many other times before taking one last look at the body. It was always easier when she was certain they were dead and judging from the lack of movement, lifeless eyes, and growing red stain in his garbs, this one had truly gone off to meet the Lord. She let out a small sigh at the corpse and reached over the counter as she said to the body

"You should've just stayed down. I told you not to be a hero. Look where it got you."

Her hand snuck over the edge of the counter and started feeling around in the cupboards underneath it.

"All you needed to do was just let him have it. This isn't the first time I've had to deal with this sort of thing, anyways. I could have survived, but you just had to be the bigger man. Just be glad it was quick."

She felt something hanging loosely under the counter, a set of keys that felt all too familiar to her which she plucked off the hook they hung in before pulling her hand back up over the counter. The key itself was attached to a small metal plate with the number 06 engraved onto it.

"I guess I'll be staying for the night. Not like anyone's gonna stop me. They're all too busy bleeding over the-" She said, but stopped herself from going any further when she heard the discontent starting to grow in her words. There wasn't any regret over the annoyance, but it still felt wrong to speak ill of the dead. He had tried to help her after all and no matter how foolishly, at least it was an attempt. A frown slowly comforted her lips as she said in what she thought would be a mournful tone "Still.....I appreciate the effort. I don't got many allies out here and even the good men won't come to me. At least you didn't wait to get a badge.....whatever your name was."

Lozen felt her voice get caught in her throat as the words refused to continue coming. They had already wasted enough time on dead, wannabe legends and didn't intend on doing so for another, but she managed to force herself to continue before long. "I'll send someone to bury you when I leave. They'll do you some good. Maybe you'll even get a priest to drop by." A lesser bang came out from the table behind her, but when she glanced around, she saw it was just one of the brutes smashing her hands down onto the table.

She sighed and then stood up from her stool before saying "But I have to get going now.......Thanks I suppose. In your next life, just remember no one builds statues for morons." Her words got clogged in her throat again after she managed to force all that out and when the corpse said nothing in return, Lozen slowly started marching her way towards the stairs with the sound of delighted, inebriated laughter following her every step of the way.