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Beaver Creek - The Southern Valley - Colorado - April 18th, 1886
He sat, thinking, on the far slope, of how reliant he had become on his routine. How he liked to keep to it about as much as Kenny liked to smoke and about how it was a rare day that Kenny didn’t start the morning with a cigarette.
In another life he might have taken the habit up for himself and joined his companion in the pre-dawn hours, when the sky was spun with threads of pink and white. In the notes of that rare silence, the grasses would refract to a whitish blue as the world gained warmth again. They would step out to the sound of early morning birdsong and the hiss of Beaver Creek as its waters toiled over one another, tossing up foam to the creekside mud.
They would stand together with their legs crossed or their arms folded on the edge of the precipice, shooting the shit with their eyes turned down at the quilting horizon and the strata of Summer leaves - the town, a far off smudge. Their lilac smoke would twist in knots above them until they simmered into that familiar, inevitable bliss of neither needing, nor wanting, to speak.
But this was no other life, and he did not smoke. Of these things, long hours’ ruminations had made him sure enough to put the desire for either truth altogether from his mind. It was best to grasp at whatever scraps of normalcy were nearest before they blew away. Innermost things, like discipline or routine. Kenny had been a rare scrap, but he’d told himself that he was a lucky find. People were fallible and often transient - unlike the habits he’d since built in the meanwhile.
Routine was to his mind as water was to his mouth and to be without it was to think about it all day, but he knew, at least, that it would always be in his power to take a drink.
Get up. Wash. Put on clothes. Do what needs doing and try not to think too much. Thinking had led to doubting too much, recently. He’d guessed for himself that there was no telling what might come about of hesitation. Not in times such as these, in circumstances such as they were.
For Kenny, the routine was different because Kenny was another sort of beast entirely. Get up and put on clothes. No washing beforehand - nor after - unless he’d had his ear chewed about it. He’d light a cigarette and smoke in the mouth of his tent, where honey-coloured light would catch each blonde hair and make him shimmer as though he were made of gold. Squinting into the light, he would go off with a banal thought or anecdote, like ‘It’s a good day for fishing,’ or, ‘it might rain tomorrow.’ Then, with the thing between his lips and his thumbs hooked into his belt loops, he would grin in such a way that long since was branded into Kyle’s memory, then off he would go, sauntering towards the ledge to look down into the valley with the Springfield in both hands. Kyle knew better than to interrupt him, just as Kenny knew to not disturb his routine.
As he sat amongst his thoughts, he saw that it was dawning on the overlook and the morning had cut its usual turpentine glow against the aspens, stripping them to their pure, bright white. It was here that their camp stood - a slip of makeshift clothesline and the glittering of green-glass bottles, strewn about as plentifully as the blooming wildflowers. Three canvas bivouacs, two wagons and a fire, huddled back into the safety of the trees, visible only to those who knew where to look.
Somewhere behind him, the horses nosed for scarce, dark hairs of grass. Around him, the air, ripe with the smell of stagnant water and muddied ash formed an unpleasant, muggy shroud. The leaves were rubber - orange, black and wet. Like slugs, they curled and dried under the sun as quietly he stood to start the day, his eyes still affixed to that far, black smudge.
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He had never gotten used to these dawn awakenings. If there was one consistent thread in the spool of what had become of his life - it was that morning brought as unforgivingly as death did take. As he lifted a hand to shield his eyes, he couldn’t stifle his grunt of dissatisfaction. It was the understanding that life was now moving through him, just as certainly as he was moving through it, that set his knees into weakness.
Less so than the excitement that he’d felt in days before, there was an unease swelling inside of him. Prickles of cold on the back of his neck, where otherwise his skin was slick with sweat. He thought of his routine and came to kneel before the tin bath. The sun burned a hole in the sky.
At some point, he had been able to carry out this rite indoors by the mid-morning light which had skewed in through the open window. He’d had warm water. Soap . These things were bittersweet memories - best pushed out. He chided himself for straying into doubting territory, as he so often did when he found himself alone. Dull pulses bled along his bones and made them ache. He cupped and brought the water to his face and lips.
Shifting closer to the basin, another handful of water was brought up over the curls of his red hair. Rogue droplets rolled down into the dip of his nape. More still found their way into the runs of his chest, where they traced each gathered scar. Undeterred, he doused and worked his hair methodically - cupping and pouring water once, twice, and three times, until his curls were thoroughly soaked and aptly heavy. He rubbed his face until his cheeks were pink, scrubbed his nails raw, and splashed beneath his arms, trying not to think. Telling himself to try and not think .
Throughout this ritual process, his eyes stayed squeezed shut. Naturally, the washing was cold and unenjoyable, and it had not eluded Kyle that his camp-mates did not bother with it, but he was not like them. He had once been respectable, admired even. Now that he was neither of these things, he had decided, at the very least, that he would be clean, even if it meant he had to bear with the unpleasantness of outdoor washing every morning.
Besides, it was good for his psyche to keep up a routine - the doctor in him told him so - and there were precious moments of blackness behind his eyelids to be had - in the seconds when the rushing water drowned out all sound and thought - that were the closest to unconsciousness that he could grasp outside of sleep.
He grabbed a shirt and mopped his face with it. Longing for those seconds was a dangerous game akin to drinking on an empty stomach. Like a wet dog, he shook his head from left to right, sending droplets flying out in all directions. Willing his wish for sleep to evaporate in all directions. He pulled the button-down over his head and fastened it as he walked towards the firepit.
He crouched and pressed his hands against the cold dirt, posturing himself to lean in close to the base of the campfire, where the scent of earthy aspen had been defiled by black, sweet char. With some rhythmic blowing, the coals smouldered and tiny embers sputtered back to life. They began to gnaw upon the kindling like glowing termites. Above his head, a veil of smoke thickened in its uninterrupted ascension, straight up, into the clear blue.
He folded his legs and splayed his fingers out towards the flames. Rubbing the thrums of a welcome warmth back into them, he set a small steel pot upon the coal from which the scent of coffee began to emanate with a gurgling, simmering sound that lulled him with its promise of something distracting.
He filled a mug and drank prematurely. As expected, it was weak and murky and under-brewed. By no means the finer blends that he preferred, but it was hot. It burnt his tongue, but the heat against his palms was enough to outweigh the sting, and he exhaled a sigh of satisfaction, reclining on his previous spot, where he gazed down over the horizon and let the bitter-smelling steam roll along his senses.
A tired determination steadily burned within him. He took a long and deliberate sip and battled in his mind with its natural state of overthinking. When he heard the familiar rustling of boots behind him, he didn’t turn, but was grateful for the way his every doubt seemed to evaporate.
The gait was a familiar one, and no doubt, the click, spark of a match striking would follow; the sing-song idiom about whatever was most obvious; the whistle between the two front teeth as he appraised the world he lived in to the fullest. There wasn’t likely to be another soul for miles besides one Kenneth McCormick and the two of his rabble siblings - if all had gone to plan.
He sat himself with a woosh, carelessly swinging his legs out over the grassy ledge upon which Kyle had sat and grown pensive.
“Kenny.”
The sandy blonde was now too looking downhill, down into the Southern Valley at the diminished lands below. Kenny scanned along the scrawl of the river and ventured across the golden fields of grass and seed-sized cattle with his eyes. His tanned legs swung freely and without a word he grabbed Kyle’s mug and took a gulp.
Kenny - ever the one to go about with no regard for what was his and what was anyone else’s. It had driven him mad at first. Now he only snorted, and grinning his big, gap-toothed grin, Kenny laughed too, and elbowed him in the side. For a man so scrawny-looking, he could deal a decent blow, Kyle had come to find, and he had to hide his wince, though he knew that it was a fond gesture. No more harmful than a fox kit, biting on its brother’s ear.
He eyed the coffee that sat between them and offered an amused sigh as he threw his legs out over the ledge too, so that their four boots hung together, swinging like pendulums over the outlook. They sank into their shared state of silence, which translated all that needed to be known. The shift of a shoulder, or a look caught out of the corner of either friend’s eye. It was a short-lived joy, though. Dark clouds were rolling in and the quiet was turning heavy.
Kenny’s eyes were the tempest above an eager, angry sea; Kyle’s, the mute hatred of a fallen evergreen for the axes which had come against it. Those he’d trusted. Those whom he had never expected. He absent-mindedly rubbed his chest. As he peered down into the Southern Valley, the licks of anger were raw and catching, but an old ache toiled within him too, as though the fire inside of him had caught on something hollow. He clutched at the ground, tearing at the grass as he stewed in thought. A magpie flew ahead, unseen.
“You’re overthinkin’ it again.”
Kenny’s shoulders slumped. His placid smile fell into a frown that creased his youthful face with premature wrinkles. Resting his forearms on his knees, he craned up his neck to peer into Kyle’s face. He laced his fingers between his calves and let them hang, intertwined. His eyes were unnaturally blue and bright.
“Doc” He nudged him. “Ain’t ya’?”
The rage felt clear, but where it burned hottest, the foundations too were catching and at risk of burning out. Kyle could feel it smouldering behind his eyes - the hate - but no matter how torrid it became, that doubt persisted - that all they had promised to do would die in ashes if it came to that vital moment and the fire wasn’t burning high enough.
A reassuring pressure was laid with the blonde’s hand upon Kyle’s shoulder. Squeezing, it implored a response.
Kyle sighed. “I am.” But no bitterness came from Kenny, who only looked at him and listened.
“But I’ll be able to do it.” He finished. Perhaps too quickly. The back of his neck stabbed with a sudden chill that he put his hand up to.
“If y’ can’t-” Ken said.
“I can .” He searched for Kenny’s eyes and found them. They were bright and determined - brighter than he’d ever seen them.
“ I will .” He said, and slumped into his companion’s side with his eyes closed, longing for just one second of nothing - one more day before today.
He would. Whether he felt ready to or not. Just as certainly as the sun rose; as certainly as he didn’t smoke and never would; as certainly as each morning came and as certainly as there was but one life - he would.
As the tenseness prevailed, the two slipped once more into their shared silence. Without a word, Kenny put his arm around his shoulder and pulled him closer in, and, wordlessly, he accepted this gesture of kindness and perhaps, of something more.