OOM: Oakville, 1888 -- A few good men, or at least some half-decent ones...

[ikissdhimbck]

By the time she reaches Oakville, it's after sunset and she's been riding all day. The last hints of yellow are fading from the sky, giving way to the pregnant dark blue of an endless night. She hitches Beaut to a post outside the first saloon she happens by, noting the livery stable to the south down the broad way. There's a nice hotel across the street.

But, first things first.

The batwing doors swing open as she steps in, all of five feet, tousled hair, and eyes as hard as diamonds. It ain't like it is in one of them Western ‘moo-vees’ — most folk don't pay her any mind.

Most.

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[one_day_ace]

Most may not, but there's a couple who look up from their drinks and cards to cast a gaze across the room, and almost all find their gaze catching when it sweeps over the woman at the door. Ace happens to be one of them.

The cowboy wasn't expecting excitement when he settled himself in for a drink at the bar. In fact he was rather hoping the opposite, looking for some time to himself after a long week of gritting his teeth to keep from talking back against the decisions that were coming down from the big house. But Ace isn't one to look a gift horse in the mouth either, and he lets his eyes rest on the newcomer for a little long than is strictly necessary.

[ikissdhimbck]

She gets a lay of the land, gaze sweeping over every nook and cranny. It's a lively room; full, to no surprise at this hour. There are plenty folk here who could fit the description she was given by the men in Mineral City. The unfortunate thing is this time she doesn't have a name to go by.

She steps up to the bar, waiting for the keep to make his way over.

"Can I help you, ma'am?"

"Could be. Sure wouldn't say no to a whiskey."

She smiles sweetly, tipping her hat back. The tender, a middle-aged man with salt and pepper hair, smiles in return, though the gesture is lost somewhat under the sheer mass of his mustache.

"Whiskey. Comin' right up."

[one_day_ace]

Ace had dropped his eyes back down to his drink when she started across the floor, but now she's close enough that he can hear her, see her just a little out of the corner of his eye. She's about as pretty as a wild rose, there's no denying it -- all long blonde locks and fire in her eyes, a way about her voice that makes him think she's not used to being disobeyed. Pretty as a rose but twice the thorns besides if the way she walks across the floor is any indication, owning each and every piece of floor she steps on. She's interesting, and the funny thing is how he didn't know just how much he wanted interesting until it walked in the saloon door.

[ikissdhimbck]

She steals another glance around the room. Folk are looking, there's no denying that. She's one of a handful of women in the place, and as far as she can tell the only one not spilling out of her corset. She's made no attempt to blend into the shadows, and the longer she stays where she is, propped against the bar without so much as a care in the world on the outside, the more eyes find their way to her.

"I'm also lookin' for a li'l help."

She gathers up the glass the barkeep sets down, fingers immediately moving in that subconscious dance they do when she's trying to charm someone. By the looks of it, she's not doing a half bad job. He leans down, braced on his elbows.

"What kinda help y'need, ma'am? I'll be happy t'do what I can."

"You're very kind. Y'see, I was told by a Mr. Thomas Black that this here's the place I oughta be if I'm lookin' for a few gentlemen of a certain — character. Gentlemen who might be interested in some lucrative work."

"'Lucrative work'?"

"Why, yes. Incredibly lucrative, if y'understand my meanin'."

He does. Curiosity makes way for stunned recognition. He gives her a once-over — less admiring, more appraising — and lifts himself up a smidge. One gruff hand works at the back of his sunburnt neck.

"Don't seem the kind of company a lady like you'd want t'be keepin'."

She smiles quickly.

"Why don't you let me worry 'bout that."

She brings her whiskey to her lips.

"Anyone spring t'mind?"

[one_day_ace]

Ace has been keeping his attention on her without looking up, a familiar old trick from luring stubborn horses. She's a sight more interesting than anything else in here, including the watered-down whiskey he's been nursing this past while, and his interest only grows the more she talks.

It's not that he doesn't like it here. Oakville's been better to him than pretty much anywhere he's been since he left home, the Brokentree Ranch a better job than any he's had before, breeding fine horses being better than most farm-work he'll find anywhere else. But Ace sure isn't stupid and he can read what's coming down the river, how the ranch is going slowly over all to horses and while Ace doesn’t mind that one little bit, would rather get himself tossed off colts and fillies than tramp around trying to herd cattle any day, he does mind that there ain’t so much of a market for what the owner’s turning out. They’re good horses too, solid stock with just enough fine blood in them to make for style with function, but who’s going to buy highbred stock like that when the shaggy little cowponies do the same job and go for cheaper? No, sooner or later he figures the place is going to fold even if the owner does have the cash to keep it for now, and he’ll be drifting on down the line again. And if he’s going to be drifting, he figures, well. Wouldn’t mind drifting after a figure like that.

Especially since it sounds like the job she has in mind isn't exactly the kind he's done before. His blood and breathing quicken as she continues her quiet chat with the bartender, wondering just how he can make this work for him.

[ikissdhimbck]

"Well — sure. Gentleman over there?" He nods to a man even Kate would describe as a ruffian, just by the looks of him. "That's Beau Ford. Most call 'im Dusty. Heard he came down this way from Houston after one of their banks was robbed."

"That so?"

"He ain't a bad tipper when he's into the bourbon. Might wanna steer clear when he's into tequila, though."

"An' which is he in tonight?"

"Bourbon," he says, smiling wryly.

Kate grins, and finishes off her whiskey.

"Thank you kindly. You've been a help, sir."


She leaves more than enough coin for his trouble, and heads over to Mr. Ford's table. The conversation she has with him is quicker than she'd like, and far too like the one she had with Mr. Black.

"You? You want to offer me job?" he laughs, a booming baritone with a Slavic tongue. "Listen! This little girl wants me to help her rob a bank!"

His table — and every table in a ten-foot radius — erupts in laughter. Kate squares her jaw.

"I've already done the legwork, sir. I guarantee you I know what I'm doin'. I only need some bodies — watch the horses, look out, keep folk in check — "

The laughter continues.

"Is okay! She know what she's doing!"

She can feel her temper rising. She almost wishes he was drinking tequila tonight. Then he'd have an excuse for being a pain in the ass, and she'd have something to hit him over the head with. Hands balled into fists at her sides, she lifts her chin in the air. This time her voice rises, loud enough for everyone listening to hear.

"Gentlemen, it's easy money. I've been in once already, an' they trust me there. Don't throw away an opportunity you ain't gonna get again. Woman or no, I'm comin' outta that bank richer, an' every man here laughin' is gonna be wishin' he heard me out when that happens."

"Go on, then! Come back an' shame us!"

The taunt is called from across the room, but the table in front of her cry out their agreement. Mr. Ford fixes her with amber eyes dancing with mirth, the curl of his mouth purposely nasty.

"Yes. Put me in my place."

Kate's gaze flicks from face to face. Laughter, derision, leering, jeering  —  she isn't finding the climate as hospitable as she had hoped. And she's not one to run away, but she knows when to pick her battles. Locking eyes with the man, she nods curtly. Think of it as a deal.

Without further ado, she turns to the doors, ignoring the whistling and catcalling as she goes.

[one_day_ace]

Ace never was one to step into things or stir them up, so he doesn't move from his stool even as the hackles on the back of his neck raise with the raucous laughter. Maybe the man's right and there's no way some little lady barely up to his shoulder could really be coming into a bar and asking seriously about hiring outlaws, but there's a set to her shoulders and that damn walk she's got that's enough to make him want to believe her.

Or maybe he just wants to believe because she's asking for bodies to go out, do something real, like he's heard tales of 'round the fire or seen the posters, do something all fire and glory and he burns for that, for something more than what he's got, for the coin to go where he wants and do what he pleases and a name that makes folks whisper behind their hands when he goes striding past, or maybe just for a life that'll take him away from all this, from all the places he's pretended to call home.

Whatever the reason, he figures he's a good enough judge of character to know that she's serious just from the look of her body, same way he can tell watching the horses out in the long pasture just who's on top and who's not feeling their best, who's in a mood, who's wild and who's calm and who's going to listen well. He knows how to judge horseflesh and people, well, they just ain't all that different.

As she stalks out he slips off his stool and heads after her, head down like he's not even looking at her, not even following.

[ikissdhimbck]

Beaut nickers when she steps off the boardwalk. The mare looks embarrassed. Or maybe that's just her imagination.

Kate lets out the breath she'd been holding, and shakes her head. No dice.

With a low rumble, Beaut drops her head, rubbing her nose against a foreleg.

"Yeah."

Kate strokes Beaut's neck, coming up along her right side.

"Guess you're right."

[one_day_ace]

As Ace steps out he looks around quickly, half-expecting to see the woman already down the street...but she's still right in front of him, and cozying up to her mount at that.

It’s a nice mare, sure enough, clear bay with a touch of white to her and the sleek look of one who’s been doted on. Her eye is large and intelligent, her neck tying in well to her deep chest. The woman's got an eye for horseflesh, he thinks, or whoever it was that bought the mare does. That’s his ticket in.

He heads for his own mount first. Arrow's pawing a little and jingling her bit impatiently; at six years old she's old enough to know better but she's always been a little more highly-strung than the majority of the ranch mounts. He spends a quick moment soothing her and bribing her cooperation with a bit of apple he digs out of his pocket before he moseys on up to the bay and the woman with the blonde hair.

Soft enough that only she'll hear and not quite looking so he could be talking to the horse and could be talking to her,

“You’re a pretty one.”

[ikissdhimbck]

There are coincidences, sure, but when a pair of boots start echoing behind hers it don't matter much which direction they're headed in. Her ears follow the sound even if her eyes don't — or, at least, don't seem to.

She catches glimpses of the stranger in pieces only — his legs, his hands, whatever she can catch around the horses and only when it looks like her eyes are on something else. But when he walks up, voice real gentle, there's no need to keep pretending.

She fixes him with a sharp look. Maybe a little sharper than he deserves, after what she's just been through.

"Excuse me?"

[one_day_ace]

Does he blush? Maybe. A touch of red rises to his cheeks as he thinks for a moment of how those in the bar were treating her, and how he might sound. That's been his curse since birth, he thinks regretfully, fair Irish skin brought down from his father that takes color at the slightest of provocations. As it is he scuffs the toe of a boot in the dirt and glances down out of habit before reaching back to scratch shyly at his neck.

"You got a real nice mare there, ma'am." Could call her miss or missus but he doesn't want to offend and he figures that's gotta be the safest bet. He slides his eyes up and straightens his shoulders a bit when she doesn't immediately start hollering like he's gonna take advantage, looks her in the face and tries not to get lost in the brightness of blue eyes. "Looks like she's taken you a good long way."

He glances behind her at the mare again, letting his own eyes linger on the muscle of her topline and the firm roundness of her haunch, the play of muscle in the mare's shoulder where it draws down to her broad heartgirth. A horse who’s seen distance and loved it, he figures. It's a welcome sight and a relief from the gawky two and three year olds whose potential he struggles to see. Thinking on the mare too much makes him unintentionally bold as he speaks again, not quite looking at the stranger. "Heard you talkin' in there."

[ikissdhimbck]

He's got a young look about him, and he looks younger still when he flushes and scuffs his toe. She softens a bit, the stiff set of her shoulders relaxing ever so slightly. There might even be the tiniest of burgeoning smiles hanging about the corners of her mouth.

She narrows her eyes, glancing from the boy to Beaut and back again. The mare, for her part, cranes her neck around and fixes an eye on him with the walleyed look of a woman wanting to know if his plans are to buy her a meal before he goes on sweeping his gaze over her like that.

"We've come a ways, sure enough," Kate says, smirking gently. "T'the end of all things, an' back again. She's a good mount."

Another soft snort.


"You come on out here t'tell me anythin' in particular? Or are y'just lookin' for another good laugh?"

[one_day_ace]

Ace can't quite shake the feeling that she's laughing at him just a little herself, under those eyes and that smile that ain't quite as friendly as it might seem to be and he straightens his back so he’s not giving in -- not challenging her, not at all, but not backing down either. Or trying not to. Hands in his pockets and he plays with the last bits of apple down at the bottom while he thinks on how to say his words.

"Not lookin' for a laugh, ma'am," he says finally. He meets her eyes and stands his ground, feet planted firm and wide apart like a man (boy?) who's used to having to keep his balance on shifting ground. "Heard you askin' around for a few menfolk to do a job with you. And I ain't exactly the like of Dusty in there, but I do what needs doing and I do it well."

Behind him he can hear hooves in the dirt as Arrow skitters sideways and tugs on her tie, impatient with standing around when she can see her rider just feet away. Damn fool mare's never quite lost the impatience of the little filly who kicked down stalls the second she saw a saddle. He crosses his fingers inside his pockets and prays she'll wait for him just this once. Wouldn't look good, he figures, if the person asking for a job has to bolt mid-conversation to catch a fleeing mare hauling a hitch-rail behind her.

Adds in, after a moment, a little extra prayer that this lady won't ask if he's got experience of the less than savory sort because he might dance around and imply all he can, but he's not entirely sure he can lie straight to a woman's face.

[ikissdhimbck]

She levels her gaze on him. Despite looking stern, there's something akin to relief blooming in the pit of her stomach. Someone took her seriously after all.

Someone clearly young.

Her eyes shift from him to the mare.




"You understand what kinda job it is I'm hirin' for, dontcha?"

Her voice is soft and yet firm, humming real sweet and quiet, echoing like gun blasts. Not unlike the woman herself, fair skin and blonde tresses; when she sets her mouth and looks at you just so, you'd think you'd have a better chance dancing with the devil than weathering her ire.

[one_day_ace]

It's the way she says it. It's the way she looks at him when she says it, and her voice, and the set of her shoulders and the open horizons of her eyes and the way he thinks, just for a moment, that she looks familiar and sees her face outlined on paper fluttering in the wind. If he hadn't believed her in the bar, if there'd been lingering doubt she could do what she said, it's gone now. Like it was never even there.

He swallows hard. The world around them is quiet, or maybe he's just not listening to it.

"Reckon I do."

[ikissdhimbck]

A moment stretches on where she simply watches him.


Her lips twitch.

"What's your name?"

[one_day_ace]

And that at least is solid ground; Ace may be accustomed to keeping his seat through the worst of aerial acrobatics his colts and fillies can throw but that doesn't mean he can't appreciate the steadiness as well. A relieved smile breaks on his face and he reaches up to tip his battered hat.

"John Lehane, ma'am, but most call me Ace." There are many stories behind the nickname but they're for the most part not the kind he’ll tell in polite company. "It's a pleasure." A casual politeness but his mother, rest her soul, brought him up right while she could.

He wonders if she'll introduce herself. He thinks maybe she doesn't need to, that he already knows (fluttering paper and rough ink and a picture that doesn’t look much like her but at the same time, too much) but he wonders just the same.

[ikissdhimbck]

An eyebrow tics.

"Pleasure's all mine, ‘Ace’."

She holds out a hand; doesn't curtsy, doesn't nod. He could take it as an invitation to kiss her knuckles if he likes, but even being home she figures in this moment she's meeting him man-to-man. He's taller, of course. She's fair and petite, not roughed up by years of labor. But that hardly matters when she's the one offering the employment.

She watches him steadily, a touch wary, a mite amused.

"D'you know who I am?"

[one_day_ace]

Ace hesitates for the barest moment before shaking it. Callus rubs on callus and his grasp is firm, strong, offering her silent respect. He can't quite shake the feeling that she's the one running this conversation in every way, like she's seen the outcome already and now she's just toying with him, but there's nothing he can do but go along with her if he wants the job.

Her question catches him a little off-guard. He squints at her for a moment before casting a quick look around, rocks back on his heels and chews his words over in his mouth before he finally speaks.

"They say you only kiss the men you kill." He's watching her from under lowered eyelashes. Never been one to speak in riddles or dance around the truth but somehow he can't bring himself to say the name splashed over the wanted posters out loud. "I reckon if they," a bird-quick jerk of the head towards the saloon, "knew that, they wouldn't be so quick t'look at you the way they did."

He keeps watching her, trying to gauge her reaction.

[ikissdhimbck]

Her mouth moves ever so slightly. Was she preparing to say something? Just taking in a breath? The rest of her face stays neutral, not betraying a hint of the upset that catchphrase causes her.

"That is what they say."

The corners of her mouth bob, smile threadbare and just this side of intimidating.

She's watching him like a hawk now.

"An' what interest does a young man like you have in my kinda work?"

[one_day_ace]

Ace breathes slow and calm, tries his best not to show the way his stomach's twisting and his hands are folded into fists in his pockets. He thinks he knows how gophers feel when they see the shadow gliding over the ground towards them, so far away from the familiar that all they can do is freeze and hold their ground.

It takes him a little longer to answer this question. Maybe he just has to think it over, or maybe he wants to be sure his voice doesn't crack like a child's would.

"With respect, ma'am, I didn't hear you askin' anyone else that."

The desperate need to do something else, something real, something more than chasing cattle and breaking horses, that's one thing. But the need for a place that's not here and a life that's not this, that's his. She's got no call to be asking after it.

[ikissdhimbck]

Arms crossed over her middle, she doesn't relinquish an inch of ground.

"With respect, ain't no one else paid me any mind. Sure as hell didn't recognize me, an' that makes me think you've either been readin' the papers or the wanted signs."

She takes a half-step closer to him, in this moment as tall as a sequoia.

"And, with respect, I jus' wanna be sure you ain't after the bounty on my head."

[one_day_ace]

Seconds pass as long as years, tension between them so thick it feels like a storm coming in over the mountains and turning the air to crackling electricity. The hawk dives, pins the gopher in bright talons. Ace doesn't breathe.

After long moments, he backs down.

He takes a step back and looks away, shoulders hunching suddenly. There's nothing he can say to that, not really. He knows full well no one ought to run away from a decent job and a warm bed for some half-baked idea of glory and fame in outlawing, knows even deeper inside that that's not the only reason but he'll be damned before he'll tell her that. He's lost his chance, maybe.

When he finally looks back to her the cocky set to his expression is gone. He doesn't move towards her.

"I've seen the signs. Read a paper or two." Her story's not a hard one to miss for a boy interested in the sensational. "Fact is, Miss Barlow, I ain't got a lot to my name." His eyes meet her own again, but this time he's not trying to push back. "And there ain't much a bounty can do t'change that, good coin or not."

[ikissdhimbck]

She's testing him out, maybe. Seeing how deep beneath the skin the boy goes. By the looks of it, pretty deep.

That is until he starts talking.

Could be he's just a bad liar, but there's something about the look in his eyes and the stubbornness in his voice. It's not the money that drew him out here, with her. Just like it ain't the money that drives her toward Cuero, and it won't be the money that drives her to the next job, and the next. She holds his eyes for a long time, and it ain't so much uncomfortable anymore because she sees something there she recognizes.

"If you're lookin' for glory, son, this ain't it."

Her voice is quiet, and a touch compassionate.

"If you're lookin' for people t'nod when y'walk down the street, or usher you inside just so's they can talk t'you, this ain't the way t'go. It's a dirty business, an' once y'step into it I can guarantee you a few things. You're gonna be movin' your whole life. You're constantly gonna be lookin' over your shoulder. People'd jus' as soon shoot at you as offer their hand in greetin', an' it ain't always gonna be easy."

Here's where she pauses.

"You're gonna hafta work for me. That means y'move on my say so; that means I'm the boss. An' so long as you're one'a mine, you share in everythin' I've got. The money, the scores, the good an' the bad. You're tied t'me. That don't jus' mean people'll be lookin' for you, it means if you ever have it in your head t'betray me you're gonna feel the full force of my wrath.

"D'you understand what I'm sayin' t'you?"

[one_day_ace]

He does.

He can see it all too easily, like he's watching his life unfold and he can see the way it turns hard, lonely, the way he walks a path where he'll never find a place to call home or someone to settle in with or any kind of respect to his name, a path whose end comes in a bullet and an unmarked grave without anyone to lay down flowers. He sees it clear enough that it makes his heart ache in a way it hasn't for years, where he'll be and how he'll get there.

And he knows he can't go down that road.

Ace lifts his eyes from where they've been resting unfocused on the bay mare. Maybe his voice is a little hoarse when he speaks or maybe it's just a trick of the light breeze, snatching his words away. "Guess I do." The crossroads looms in front of him, one fork for the life that ends bitter and bloody and alone. And the other, well.

"But I'd still like that job, ma'am."

The other fork has this woman in it, and a life he can't see through the twists and turns it'll take, and it's that one he plants his feet firmly on as he waits for her response.