Chapter Text
Kent hoisted the outlaw’s corpse over his shoulder and slowly walked over to his horse. The blood from the gunshot to Anthony Olsen’s head had undoubtedly begun to soak into his coat, a grim reminder that he couldn’t have brought in the outlaw alive like he’d hoped. As much as he’d have liked to provide lawmen with a new source of information on criminal activity, outlaws rarely ever wanted to play nice when a bounty hunter confronted them. And this time, it had garnered fatal results.
The thunder of approaching hooves caught his attention. Kent drew his gun with his free hand and turned to face the stranger.
He saw the flash of the badge of a sheriff’s deputy as the horseman cantered up, and he quickly holstered it again.
“Fuck!” the deputy cursed as he slowed his horse, dismounted and ran up towards him. Kent gave him a puzzled look and lifted the corpse onto his horse’s back. He occupied himself with the process of securing the body to his saddle.
He’d done the deputy a favor, detaining the outlaw for him. Even if it meant Anthony Olsen didn’t have a pulse anymore, it was better than Kent being the one shot in the face while Olsen ran free again, wasn’t it? The repeat home invader had built himself a nasty reputation for being on the dodge.
The lawman apparently disapproved. “Great job, asshole!” he snarled, “What about the leads I coulda gotten from him, huh? More outlaws runnin’ around disturbing the peace, is that what you want?!”
As Kent already knew all too well, some lawmen could be abrasive, but this man already exceeded Kent’s previous standards of just how abrasive they could be. They must have been seriously desperate for lawmen if he was deputized.
Kent casually replied as he tied off a rope, “yes… I just asked a fucking murderer if he’d walk to the nearest sheriff’s office and turn himself in…” blatant sarcasm gone, he scathingly added with a scowl, “that’s not how bounties work, lawman. He led me on a chase, instigated a shootout, and one of us had to drop dead. It was going to be either me or him.”
The deputy glowered back at him. “Since your hands are full with that corpse,” he spat the word with pure disgust, “I suggest you get the hell outta my sight so I can get to work.”
Kent couldn’t stand the deputy and he’d known him for all of half a minute. As much as he hated the idea of backing away in the eyes of such a colossal asshole, he was a lawman and wanted to investigate the scene, and Kent was enough of a professional to respect that. Done securing Olsen’s body, he turned back to his horse and swiftly mounted and rode away, towards the new town he’d be based in for some time.
Immensely irritated by their brief interaction, he hoped that he wouldn’t have to see that deputy again. But he had a sinking feeling that’d be impossible.
The small civilization known as Fort Collins did, in fact, qualify as a town. There were a decent number of blocks of buildings, and well over a thousand residents occupied the homes along the various streets and surrounding ranches.
The hotel room he had wasn’t the worst he’d encountered in his travels, and he settled into the town the same old way. It was just another place to stay as he worked on bounties in the surrounding area. Nothing more, nothing less. The townspeople were largely decent enough, and most harbored the usual superficial politeness he’d experienced through the years.
Though the lawmen observed him wearily and interacted with him brusquely as they tended to, they seemed to have no true grievances with Kent’s presence as he studied and pursued the various bounties available. After all, it lifted a weight of responsibility from their shoulders. All of them, except one.
He learned from one of the other, more friendly deputies, Chris Miller, that he had to have met Deputy Gavin Reed that first day.
Miller, in a conversation with Kent his second morning there, needed only a basic description of the deputy’s actions before he identified him. As he had explained to Kent in his own words, “he’s the only person I know that can manage getting that angry at someone doing their job. Sorry he was your first impression of us… he can be a handful, but I swear he’s tolerable if you get him to respect you at some level.”
There was so much land, but even then, his path still managed to cross with Reed’s on a regular basis. Fate was a bitch sometimes. As much as he disliked it, it was understandable that he’d see Reed around the sheriff’s office. But it was just plain annoying the rest of the time, with those angry murky gray eyes fixed on him while he tried to do his job or just mind his business. Whenever they were near each other, Kent dared the lawman to try and cross him with a steady glare back. Neither of them liked to relent first, but eventually one of them would abruptly turn away and move on, their stare down effectively ended until the next time.
It took Kent a little over a week to finally confront Reed on his attitude. A little over a week too long.
He brought a bounty to the sheriff’s office, alive. A gentleman by the name of Mack Abrams, some four-flusher who’d taken money from several wealthy people with his false remedies for pneumonia. Whilst the reward money wasn’t as much compared to the rarer, more challenging and thrilling bandits and murderers, it was better than nothing. Even if the man had led him on an extensive foot chase through alleys and backyards that forced him to dismount his horse and run and jump more intensely than he had in some time.
Kent was still catching his breath as he dragged the obstinate, handcuffed man back to the sheriff’s department, embittered by the fact his endurance was worse than he’d previously thought. Abrams’ repetitive excuses hadn’t helped his already-thinned patience.
“Aw c’mon mister, they had plenty of money. They ain’t missin’ it.”
Kent desperately wanted to clench his jaw to hold off his rising blood pressure for just a while longer, but he refused to let his expression change. He had no interest in egging the man’s behavior on.
Abrams continued anyway. In an obnoxiously high tone, he whined, “I didn’t do nothin’ wrong! My tonics are well-researched!” When Kent didn’t respond to that, he persisted with, “I think you broke my rib you cocksucker, you tackled me way too hard-”
The excuses finally got to him, and Kent let his temper go. “I don’t give a shit that they were rich! You’re a liar, and if you hadn’t run like a fucking coward when I clearly asked you to stop, I wouldn’t have tackled you,” he snapped. He shoved Abrams forward and quickened their steps to the sheriff’s department. Another block, and he’d be free of such unpleasant company. He could call it a day, take a bath, act like the foot chase hadn’t flared up aches in his knees and joints from overexertion. A rude and unwelcome reminder that he was getting older.
With Abrams thrown in a cell, Sheriff Fowler handed him over the $30 with a gruff nod of acknowledgement. Kent left the building and sighed in relief as he walked down the steps. He mounted his horse for the ride back to the hotel.
As he walked up to the front of the hotel after Mara was stabled for the night, he felt his body begin to relax. He could finally sleep, and in the morning look into a bounty that wasn’t some fraudulent, obnoxious coward.
The front door of the hotel opened, and a man stormed out. Kent realized too late that it was Deputy Reed of all people, and the man walked by him with his usual scowl. He veered from a respectful distance to abruptly crash his shoulder into Kent’s. He continued his stomps down the front steps.
His scattered remains of patience evaporated in an instant, and with a growl Kent whipped around and leapt down the front steps. He grabbed Reed’s shoulder as the man shouted, “HEY!” and turned him around. Kent’s hands flew to the collar of his shirt as he shoved Reed against the wall of the next building over. Reed’s breath was knocked out of him as Kent pinned him in with his forearm.
Reed’s eyes were alight with rage as Kent shouted, nearly in his face, “what the hell’s your problem with me, huh?! Stop being a goddamn asshole and face me like a man if you’ve got an issue with me doing my damn job.”
“I’ll fucking destroy you the second I can,” Reed spat back. He tried to push Kent away, but Kent held his ground.
“The fuck’s your problem, deputy? Tell me that, and I’ll let you go.” Kent interrogated.
“We were doing just fine without you,” Reed coldly declared, “we don’t need some asshole outsider coming here, especially when it’s a flimsy excuse for a bounty hunter that brings in corpses instead of leads. So why don’t you just go back to whatever hellhole you came from and leave the work to the rest of us?”
Kent stepped away quickly and hovered his hand above his holster. He had no reason to trust that Reed wouldn’t try to shoot him. He really didn’t want to get into a duel with a lawman of all people, but dear God, with the way the man was, he felt he might just have to.
To his relief, Reed only stormed away and avoided running into Kent again. He snapped a quick “you better stay the fuck outta my way,” before he cursed under his breath. Kent’s nerves were frayed from both Reed’s treatment towards him and the long, frustrating day. As much as he wanted to ride out the fuel of rage he had and keep shouting at Reed’s godawful assumptions of him, he knew that’d get him nowhere, maybe escalate into a full-on brawl. He doubted any lawmen, even if Reed’s own colleagues weren’t fond of him, would like that, and he valued his career far too much to lose it over one exceedingly rude person.
He let the deputy thunder away, too disgusted with the long day to stand there and stare at his existence for one more moment. He made his way into the hotel as tension overtook him.
The confrontation didn’t lead to anything worse, thankfully. In the following days, Fowler and the deputies didn’t mention anything of it to Kent or treat him any different whenever his paths crossed with theirs. He and Reed interacted less, and Kent was grateful for that. When they did, glaring still ensued, but they only held stares for a brief couple moments before they moved on.
Perhaps that was a result of the confrontation. Or maybe it was because Kent brought in a couple more criminals alive, including the murderer Lynette Waters who allegedly obtained her weapons from a regional gang. He had proved the asshole wrong, at least to some degree, and additionally let Reed get distracted by whatever could be investigated from Waters.
Whatever the cause, Kent was able to bury himself into his work and travels once more with less distraction and disturbance, and he relished in it.