Chapter Text
Jedediah Smith was no Jesse James, no Billy the Kid, hell, he wasn’t even a Johnny Ringo, but he was damn good at one thing, and that was robbing stagecoaches. He wasn’t rich, keeping the Western lifestyle will do that to you; he wasn’t infamous, because anonymity was safer; and he wasn’t cutthroat, because he didn’t see the need to kill wantonly.
He had pulled the trigger before, mind you. Sometimes the stage driver had a sawed-off shotgun on the bench next to him, and the only option was to be a quicker draw, but Jed tried to avoid that scenario whenever possible. He didn’t like the feeling of killing a man without a justifiable reason and racking up murders would only serve to make his noose tighter in the end.
One burning hot day in July, Jed and three of his accomplices rode out of their little New Mexico town and off in the direction the latest Wells Fargo stagecoach was due from. It was meant to arrive in town today at noon with a full cashbox, but if he had anything to say about it, it would be late and broke.
It wasn’t hard to find the stagecoach; they traveled on a regular schedule, on a regular path, and stood out when the only thing for miles was sand and mesas and saguaro cactuses. The bad news was that it also meant the driver of the stage could see them coming from a long way away, and four men on horses off the beaten path with not a house or heard in sight usually didn’t bode well.
The formula for this type of thing was pretty standard. They rode up to surround the stagecoach, pistols out, and fired some shots into the air to scare the driver into slowing down. If that didn’t work, the shots scared the horse enough that he took off and the driver either lost the horse or let the coach tip over, so Jed won either way. Today’s driver chose the former, yanking hard on the reins in a way that must certainly have been painful to the nervous horses and bringing the stagecoach to a stop.
“Please,” the driver begged, holding up gloved hands and pressing back against the stagecoach. “Take whatever you want, just don’t hurt me,” He was an older man with thinning grey hair, so Jed was surprised to see him cowering in the face of six gun barrels. These men were usually hardened after so long on the job, especially the ones who worked for Wells Fargo. Leaving his men to guard the driver, Jed dismounted, handing his reins off to one of them, and made his way over to the stagecoach. Remembering that there might be passengers inside, he pulled his handkerchief up over his nose, old fashioned bandit style.
Jed pulled open the door of the stagecoach, and before he even had time to process what was going on, a fist connected with his face, and he staggered backwards as a man launched himself out of the coach, taking off across the desert at a breakneck pace. Jed’s head swam and he could feel hot blood dripping from his nose. As he tried to process what had just happened, someone else made a snap decision. A gun went off and the man dropped to the ground several yards away.
Jed wiped the blood from his face, leaving a dark streak against his blue shirt, then drew both pistols and advanced on the man now laying in the sand. The shot clearly hadn’t been a killing blow, because he was curled up on his side, clutching at his thigh and cursing in a foreign language. Jed glanced over at his men, and saw that two had dismounted as well and were following him over.
“Should we finish the job?” Carlos, a tall Mexican national with dark hair that fell unchecked to his shoulders, asked re-holstering his pistol upon seeing that the man didn’t pose much of a threat. He was the only one with a weapon out, so it must have been him who took the shot. “I’d like to live to old age as much as the next man, but we’ve already committed half the crime, and he’s probably just going to bleed out anyway.”
“Sloppy,” the third man, a short redhead called Colin who wore a ridiculously large Stetson hat, huffed. “You should have let me take the shot.”
Carlos cuffed him affectionately on the shoulder. “You’re slow, what with that stupid shotgun”
“That stupid shotgun saved your sorry-”
“Hey,” Jed cut through the banter, eyes fixed on the achingly blue desert sky. It had been an idiotic decision to shoot the man in the first place. They were miles from town, and if he had died wandering in the desert it wouldn’t have been on their hands. He didn’t want to OK murder like this, it seemed horribly cruel to kick a man while he was down, but there were no good alternatives. Before he had a chance to decide, the man spoke up.
“Kill me and you won’t live out the week!” He snapped in, startlingly, a crisp British accent. “My name is Gauis Ocatvius Caesar!”
“And,” Jed turned and squatted down so they were somewhat on a level. “This is the West. You might be a stuck up pretty boy, but Lady Luck treats us all the same on this side of the pond.”
“My uncle is Julius Caesar,” The man, Gauis Ocatvius , tried again, glaring up at Jed. “I am on a state visit!”
“Oh Lord,” Colin groaned, clasping his gloved hands together and shooting Jed a look of panic. “Not the general.”
Ocatvius gave a pained smile. “He gets it.”
Jed sighed, frustrated. “So you’re related to some big shot. Smith and Wesson don’t care. Leave him here. There might be some plausible deniability.”
Ready to be done with the whole matter, he stood and headed back to the stagecoach. The thing they were actually here for, the cashbox, was still in there. Behind him, Colin continued. “He’s chancellor of Italy, Jed. They’ll have our heads for this!”
“English, please. None of that political jargon.” He wasn’t really listening, too busy loading the money into a saddle bag. If he had he would have understood how screwed they really were. There was a hefty sum inside the cashbox, probably a couple hundred dollars. If they could only get away with this one, he would never rob a stage again (that was a lie, but Jed liked to tell it to himself anyway). Satisfied, he turned to face Colin and Carlos again.
“His father is the second most important person in Italy, well third because the Pope is there, but, if we kill him, we will royally screw up US foreign policy. This could even count as an assassination. We are so dead,” The former was still talking, his words infused with significant panic.
Jed’s heart dropped straight out of his chest and settled in his boots as the realization dawned. Of all the stagecoaches they could stick some foreign diplomat in, they just had to pick this one!
“This is the best day of my life!” When Jed turned around, Carlos’s easy smile was gone, replaced by an unsettling wolfish grin. “I’m gonna die a rich man!” Crouching, he pushed Octavius roughly into the sand face-first, yanked his arms back, and began to bind them with the rope.
“Hey! Hold on there, kemosabe!” Jed almost dropped the money in his rush to get to Carlos. “What are you doing!”
“We’re taking a hostage!” He tied off the knot and hauled the Italian roughly to his feet. Octavius gave Jed a murderous glare and spit out a mouthful of sand.
“Oh no we’re not,” The blonde cowboy held up both hands in protest. “The law will be down on us in hours. The only way we can maybe argue this in our favor, ever, is if we just leave him here. Besides, the stage driver knows everything, and we’re not taking him!”
A single shot echoed out across the desert. Jed resisted the urge to scream.
The fourth member of their party, an olive skinned Texan with a wicked scar across his face, came around the side of the stagecoach. He still held a colt pistol in one hand, and was wiping blood off the barrel.
“That take care of the problem?” Lucas tipped his hat jauntily, a stomach turning smile on his lips.
Octavius swore, in English this time, and Jed was inclined to agree with him. This had not gone even a little bit the way he planned, least of all Carlos and Lucas breaking ranks.