Chapter Text
Fog billows around him, gray and thick and smokey. He’s cold, and his heart is beating fast in his chest. His hands are moving fast and with purpose. Doing something. Working on something.
There’s a wet crack in the air, the sound of someone screaming, a flash of white-hot sensation that his mind loosely registers as pain. His heart beats faster and panic seeps into him like icy water, preventing him from running or acting or speaking.
He can taste copper in his mouth and something in his chest, long and cold and slick with blood, running him through, and he can hear someone scream again, a distant, shrill noise that echoes in his head. He feels the all-encompassing fog thicken further, black and heavy and curling like a snake around him, and then he snaps awake.
Jake’s eyes open to the bright blue midday sky. There isn’t a cloud in sight. He lays on his back for a few moments, gazing up into the endless stretch of blue void above him, and then he sits up and looks around. He’s lying halfway on top of his bedroll, in the middle of a campsite set up atop a ridge overlooking an open, grassy plain. It’s unusually open, exposed, not where Jake would normally ever set up his camp. The fire over to his left is long dead, now a rocky circle set around a pile of ash and charcoal. His belongings—his gun belt, hat, satchel, an unlit lantern, his canteen and his horse’s saddle—were all neatly piled up a few feet away. He can see Haybail grazing several yards away, not a speck of attention given to his newly-conscious rider. He reaches down to check and finds that he doesn’t even have his knife or revolver on him. Not a single piece on him.
Unusual indeed.
Jake reaches over to grab his canteen, popping open the top and taking a swig of dingy, warm water that he grimaces at, and he realizes in a slow, single thought that he has no idea what he’s doing here.
For a moment, he’s convinced he’s just having a lapse in memory, that he drank too much the night before, but this isn’t like getting blackout drunk. There’s no headache and dry mouth to punish him for his bad habits, and he’s definitely not, or reasonably certain that he isn’t, drunk now.
He reaches for his gun belt and satchel next, briefly going through the contents of the latter to make sure everything was still there, and it was. He’d lost nothing but his memory, it seemed. Or… had he?
His brow furrowed as he slipped on his belt and satchel before picking up Haybail’s heavy saddle. He whistles for the mustang to come, and thinks about where he was yesterday. He’d been heading to Valentine, hadn’t he? Reached it, too, he remembered. Couldn’t forget arriving in Valentine, the place was so busy and smelled so miserable. Jake had evidently come at an especially bad time, when the auctioneers and their herds were in. He’d only stopped for supplies, and maybe a drink or two.
The saloon. Jake’s thoughts caught there and he paused where he was tightening the belly strap on the saddle, staring past a spot of dirt on the ground to try and wrack his brain for what exactly he’d been doing at the saloon. Maybe he really had gotten drunk, even though he’d never felt like this before. Something about cards—he’d gotten into a card game. Sat down at the poker table with a couple of local fellows, and….
He shakes his head to rid himself of the frustrating thoughts and the barrier to his recollection. It was weird, but weird things happened sometimes, especially to him. He finishes saddling Haybail and packs away his bedroll and lantern, does a once-over around the campsite to make sure he hadn’t left anything behind, and then he heads towards the road.
It doesn’t take long to get his bearings. Jake knows he’s on the road that leads up to Valentine, the same road he’d taken the day before. He’s maybe the better part of an hour away from town, and he decides to pass through again, just to make sure he hadn’t left anything behind in town. Or, better yet, to make sure that he hadn’t made any mistakes that would bar him from returning to the livestock town anytime soon. He’d stop at the general store, too, afterwards, to stock up, and then he’d be on his way, taking the road west again.
The livestock side of town is as busy as ever, and Jake actively circumvents it when he sees men and dogs herding a flock of muddy sheep across the train tracks.
Nope, not his cup of tea.
The main street is quieter, thankfully. The general store is too, muffling all the sound of wagons and people and horses outside. The shopkeeper is short on words, too. That’s perfectly fine by Jake, of course, who orders the provisions he needs for the journey up ahead, enough at least to last him to Blackwater, and he makes his way back outside.
His next stop is the saloon, where he might as well get a warm bite to eat before he leaves. His stomach is already complaining and he doesn’t particularly want to dig through his pack for another tin of stale biscuits. Jake pushes open the swinging doors and is met with a much quieter saloon than he remembered. Granted, it’s daylight out now, but it was still late in the day and right around dinnertime—an exciting time for a place like this. Still, though, this silence seems different. There’s still a few people here and there, populating the tables and one on the banister, but even the pianist’s music hitches when he enters. He doesn’t miss the suspicious stares, either. There’s a slow, uncertain feeling in his chest as he walks towards the bar like he hasn’t noticed the looks and hushed tones at all.
What did I do? he wonders. Jake genuinely couldn’t remember anything from the night before. Just coming into this same saloon, and sitting for a card game, and then the fog bleeds into his memory and he can’t bring anything else to mind. Maybe he cheated at the game, but cheating at a card game in a town like this wouldn’t bring a reaction as severe as this one, would it?
Still, no one calls him out on anything, so he slips into a stool beside the bar and dug out coins enough to pay for a hot meal and a tip. The server poured him a cup of chalky black coffee and a stew and slid it over. Jake had only reached for the cup when the server spoke up.
“Say,” the man starts, reaching for a glass to absently clean, “you look a little like that fella that rode in yesterday. You know him?”
Jake looks up from the coffee that was still pointedly at his lips. Curiosity conflicted with the clear, Do I look like I want small talk over dinner? expression on his face.
“I’d hope not,” the bartender adds as Jake set the cup down. “What do you mean by that?” he asks, confused. If the bartender had seen him the night before, surely he’d be recognized, and easily—he was cursed with a memorable face. It was possible the man was giving him warning. A threat and a promise disguised as a bartender’s gossip.
“Well. He rode in, but he ain’t rode out,” the bartender continues. “No, sir, I reckon he didn’t, at least. Fellow came in for some card games, and—well, I think he was cheatin’. Our boys seemed to think so, anyway. Got into an argument with ’em.”
Jake’s not looking at the bartender any more, focusing more on the food he’s paid for, but his appetite disappears in an instant. It doesn’t show on his face, but he’s suddenly much more guarded. Wary, especially of those around him. It must have been him, after all. He couldn’t recall any of the details of the games, but it wasn’t unlike him to slip a card here and there, to exercise some good old sleight-of-hand, especially when his luck was going sour. Maybe he did remember an argument. Someone accusing him while he played innocent. He was being threatened, wasn’t he? Or warned, perhaps that he had a bounty on him now for whatever he started the night before, and that someone was reporting him now, or worse.
Jake takes another spoonful of stew but doesn’t put it into his mouth. It’s not in the least bit appetizing any more. “And how’d that go?” he asks simply. He’s got that one, at least: his poker face is unmatched. While sober, anyway, and luckily he still is, this time (although to think about it, he really didn’t remember drinking anything last night…).
The bartender laughs and shakes his head, setting the cup down under the bar. “I ain’t seen who drawn their gun first, but somebody drew… both of ‘em fast, though. Two shots!” The bartender whistles and snaps his finger and Jake looks up. He doesn’t seem threatening or to have even noticed Jake’s discomfort, really, just like he was recounting an exciting but misfortunate tale of the saloon business. “One from both, I would suppose. Only difference is our own man, Mr. McKinney, he shot that stranger in the chest and just got a graze on his arm in return. I reckon that boy was dead before he hit the ground. Deputy come and escorted off Mr. McKinney afterwards, and, well, that was that.”
Jake doesn’t respond for a few seconds. His mouth feels impossibly dry. “Lots of excitement for a place like this,” he says very slowly, testing the waters.
“Why, yes,” the server says. “Alas, bad for business. Not many folks out today… not until tonight, at least. Gotta give folks a day or two after somebody dies in a saloon before they want the drink and the women that badly.”
Jake hums quietly in response, finishing off his coffee and letting the clink of the tin fill the relative silence. He’s probably not going to be able to finish the meal, and he’s still not entirely sure this isn’t some elaborate trick. Fuck, what’s he to do? This could all be nothing but his own paranoia wearing him down, or it could be that the moment he steps out of this saloon, he'll be dogged by lawmen or vigilantes or worse.
“Ahh, but don’t worry about all these fellas,” the bartender suddenly continues in a hushed tone. “They’re all a bit on edge after last night, is all—you look like you could be that man’s brother. Probably think you’re here to avenge ‘em.”
“I’m just passing through, myself,” Jake says, looking up. Does he really not recognize me…?
“Most are these days! Valentine’s just a stop on the road for most.” The server genuinely doesn’t seem like he’s up to anything. He seems in good spirits, grinning and joking, but some people are like that. Jake can’t tell the difference. “Where are you headed off to?”
“Heading south,” Jake lies, just in case. “Southeast, actually.”
“Well, good luck on your travels. You need it, these days.” Jake just nods in response and continues eating. He finishes as best he can, and the saloon gets a little louder, a little less noticing of his existence there. All the better for him, as he prepares to slip out, hopefully with no trouble.
He cannot, however, prevent curiosity from getting the best of him, though. As he stands and pushes the stool back into place with his boot, he asks, “The stranger, did he—did he ever mention where he was headed off to?”
The bartender blinks and looks at him curiously, pondering that for a moment. “Said he was traveling, I think, too. Blackwater, he said—something westerly. Quite a ways he had to go, didn’t he?”
Jake nods, and with that he’s heard enough. He leaves, and no one stops him, not in the saloon nor out. He does see the heavy dent in the wood behind the poker table and the way it is stained red, and as he slips through the doors he raises a gloved hand to his very uninjured chest, taking a breath and steadying himself. The thought of a splitting, terrible pain reaches his imagination, the agony of having his chest cavity pierced and feeling the cold seep into his fingers.
Jake shivers like he’s freezing, goosebumps raised on his arms as he pulls himself into Haybail’s saddle. It’s a warm day, but all he can think about is how cold he feels. Felt. Remembered—imagined. He shakes his head again, to rid himself of the thought.
He leaves town in a hurry, westward to Blackwater.