Chapter Text
It’s a shame, three young ladies all alone like that.
Broken down carriages happen all the time. But there ought to be at least one man; women don’t travel alone. Not unless something unfortunate happened. What bad luck for these three. What good luck for him.
The man pulls his carriage over to the side and leans down to look at the three women sitting on battered suitcases, hands in their laps, heads down, all of ‘em looking sorrowful and hopeless.
“You ladies in trouble?” he asks.
The wide-brimmed straw hat on the woman nearest to him makes it hard to get a good look at her. She raises her head, and long, pretty dark curls fall into her face. “Yessir,” the lady says, voice a little huskier than he expected. Sort of low and sexy. It works for her. “The wheel broke.”
“You ain’t got a fella out here t’help you fix the thing?”
“We did,” the second woman pipes up, a tiny blonde with a heart-shaped face covered in freckles. “But he couldn’t put it back, so he went to find help.” She gnaws at her lower lip, those big eyes looking up at him all pitiful. “That was three days ago.”
“He ain’t come back,” the third woman whispers. Little curvier than the other two, sturdier than the freckled one next to her. “I’m gettin’ real worried somethin’s happened.”
The other two women nod. The first, the one whose face he can’t see too good, speaks up again. “How far’s it to the nearest town? Maybe we could try to walk it?”
He gives a mournful shake of his head. “Gotta be at least five miles. Too far for three pretty little ladies to walk. Crawl on up here and I’ll take you.”
The freckled girl tilts her head and gives him a bashful smile. “That’s awful kind a you, mister…?”
“Don’t need no mister. You pretty ladies can just call me Travis.” He hops down from the bench and offers a hand. “Here. Lemme help you up here.”
The three of them fall all over themselves with gratitude, cooing about what a nice man he is, how kind to help out three strangers. And he is. He hardly grabs their asses at all as he helps them in.
“Y’know,” Travis says as he settles back into his seat and snaps the reins, “man I work for’s a real gentleman too. Got a soft spot for young ladies in need. He’s got a place over in Pentagram. Plenty a room. Might even be able to offer some employment if yer in need a work.”
Three young ladies, stranded without a man around to help them. One for every kinda taste too: three different colors, one curvy, one reedy and skinny, one a little stocky. Oh, yessir. The boss’ll be real pleased with these. Travis can see the dollar signs already.
He’s so busy imagining the fat bonus he’ll get for bringing these three in, he doesn't notice the pistol until it’s poking him in the back.
“Oh, I can just bet what kinda employment he’d have for us, pal,” and it sounds like the curly-haired one’s voice, but not, because that is definitely no woman’s voice now. “Now. Go ahead n’pull them ponies over and put yer hands up nice and slow, shit fer brains.”
No way in Hell. If he comes back without this shipment, his boss’ll make him wish he got a bullet in the back from some bandits. Travis’s hand darts for his belt.
Strong arms haul him up, wrestle his own arms behind his back, quick as a rattlesnake and strong as an ox. Travis shouts and struggles, kicks out and makes the horses panic. They take off at a gallop, which is a problem because he can’t exactly steer the wagon with his hands behind his back. The carriage careens wildly, bumping over rocks so fast he’s in danger of flying out of his seat.
“Christ almighty, Millie, what’d you go’n do that for? I had it handled!” Curly hair dives forward, scrambles over the bench and scrabbles for the reins. His wig’s halfway off his head now, and Travis catches sight of a man’s tanned face, one side puckered with scars.
“You woulda wasted a bullet,” Millie replies, and that is a woman’s voice, the curvy one he’d seen. No matter how he thrashes and struggles, she holds him in place like he’s no more trouble than an ornery barn cat.
“We’re about to lose the cargo!” squeaks the freckled one from the back of the cart. Shit, is he a man too?
“I’m on it, Max, keep yer damn bloomers on!” the man with the scarred face snaps. He manages to grab hold of the reins and yanks them back as he wriggles into the seat. The pitching of the cart stops, and soon they’re moving at a steady canter that makes Travis a little less likely to spew his breakfast over the side.
“Lemme go, you crazy sons a bitches!” He shouts.
“Oo, he’s mad!” the woman holding him giggles, and Travis feels like she might as well lop his balls off right now and get it over with.
“The hell’re they feedin’ you, woman?” he spits. “Lemme go!”
“Yeah, yeah, keep on squawkin’. Fire and damnation, that damn wig’s hotter’n a bonfire in July.” The scarred man yanks the wig off his head and uses his hat to fan his face.
“See why you had that hat over yer face. Yer one ugly son of a bitch, ain’t you?” Travis spits.
The man turns his head and smirks at him, lazy and unbearably smug. “Yer mama seemed to think my face was awful purty when she was ridin’ it last night.”
“Why, you filthy pieca—”
“See, you sound just like ‘er when yer daddy pulled ‘er off so he could have a turn.” He throws his head back and howls with laughter at his own joke, a yip like a coyote. Then he calls to the man—probably a man?—in the back, “What we got back there, Max?”
The man whistles. “Good haul here, sir! Gotta be at least three hundred dollars!”
Fresh panic claws at Travis’s gut, and he tries again to break free of the woman. “Keep your damn hands off that money! A centa that goes missin’ and I’m a dead man!”
“Well, hate to tell ya, pardner, but that sure as shit don’t sound like my problem,” the man driving the cart drawls. “That’s what you get for bein’ so careless about pickin’ up strangers on the side a the road. Can’t be too careful these days.”
“I thought you was ladies!”
“You thought you could take us in and make us work for that snake you call a boss. Sorry to say, honey, but we’re already employed,” the woman says.
“This ain’t employment! This’s criminal! I’ll tell the sheriff! All three a you’ll swing for this!”
Another of those wild, crazed coyote laughs. The man’s got a coyote’s rangy grin too, all sharp teeth and crooked lips. “You go right ahead and let him know. Too bad for him he’s gotta catch us ‘fore he can hang us.”
They leave the sucker tied up on the side of the road. If he’s lucky, whoever comes along and finds him will have purer intentions than he did when he pulled over. Not too likely around here, but stranger things have happened.
The stolen wagon pulls up to a cluster of trees, and Blitzo gives the high whistle they use as their signal. “Loony! Come on out, darlin! We gotta good haul this time!”
A woman—and just barely that, a bit of baby fat still lingering in her cheeks, but the hard look in her eyes of somebody who’s seen more than her fair share of trouble—strolls out of the trees with a bored expression and a cigarette between her teeth. “Anybody get shot this time?”
Millie scoffs. “Hell no. That slimy little worm didn’t know what hit him. Not a single bullet from any of us.”
Luna flicks ash on the ground. “I’m jumpin’ for joy,” she mutters.
“Don’t you wanna know how much we got?” Blitz asks. “I told you fucks this was a good tip. Knew that Valentino asshole had money comin’ outta his eyeballs.”
“Maybe not the best enemy to make, though,” Max frets without looking up from the ledger where he’s scribbling down notes on their take.
Blitzo rolls his eyes. “We’ve had bigger, Max, don’t go pissin’ in yer britches yet. Whatever comes after us, it’s nothin’ we can’t handle.”
Millie hops down from the wagon and begins to help Luna gather up their horses. “I sure hope yer right, boss.”
As the train rattles away from the station, Stolas can’t stop himself from wondering if he’s making a grave mistake.
Coming here was supposed to be a new start for their family. And the opportunities are wondrous, to be sure. A railroad stretching across virgin country, bringing civilization and industry and progress to this lawless wilderness.
His father had told him it would be so, and for once, the man was right. His feelings about that boyhood trip across the sea all came back to him now in a dizzying rush.
The excitement and adventure. The heavy weight of responsibility, schooling his face into a properly solemn expression as he listened to his father talk long-term investments and spreading the family legacy to a new world. The knowledge that this was his birthright; he had to get all of it right now because one day, managing this railroad would fall to him.
The power and purpose of this place had been enough to make his young head spin. His future sprawled out all around him, destiny in the shape of vast prairies and a clear blue sky.
And then the terrible truth at the end of it. Returning to find his childhood home empty and ghostly silent. Nothing waiting for him but black mourning clothes, a motherless induction into young adulthood, and the horrible realization that it had all been a lie.
Stolas pushes the pain of that past from his mind and focuses on the present, which has taken the shape of a little girl squirming in his lap. He looks out the window over the green expanse and calms himself by stroking her hair.
And then the land does what it always seems to in this remarkable country: it surprises him. Provides him just what he needs, even when he himself does not realize he needs it. Stolas sucks in a delighted gasp at the herd thundering over the plains like a rolling cloud of copper and bronze. “Oh, my stars! Look out the window! There’s a whole herd of them!”
Via wriggles in his lap to see better and presses her hands to the window, gasping as if he’s shown her the gates of Heaven itself, some miracle opened up to her.
“Horsies!”
Stolas chuckles. “No, not horses, sweetheart. Buffalo.”
“One can hardly blame her for getting confused. We don’t have anything like those beasts back home.” Stella’s lip curls in distaste. “I hear they stink horribly.”
Just like that, Stella pierces the magic with a pin, and it deflates. The words stick irritatingly. Back home. Stella can hardly go three sentences without comparing something to back home, and the comparisons are never favorable. She’s taken every available opportunity to make sure he knows how much she hates the landscape. The weather. The food. The sun.
Most of all, she hates the people. Every difference she notices is an affront to the comfortable world of home, a world where she thrived and blossomed in a way Stolas could never manage.
Stolas does his best to keep his tone light. He doesn’t even clench his teeth. “Oh, I don’t know about that. I think they look rather…majestic.”
She snorts. “Of course you do. You’re already in love with the place, aren’t you? Been chafing to recapture your misspent youth, go back to playacting you’re some intrepid pioneer out to find adventure in the new world.”
Stella knows exactly where to aim her jabs to hurt the most, how to inject that sliver of truth that slices to the bone.
Every hope seems like childish fantasy under her scrutiny. But for a moment, he can almost touch that bright world of possibility from his youth. A boy, even a boy like Stolas, could run free in a place like this. Here, he had not been Stolas Goetia, future Earl of Manadel. People were quick to inform his father that they didn’t have earls in America. In the open plains of the American West, Stolas could be what he never could at home: a boy.
Skinned knees. Dirt upon his cheek. Escaping the blistering heat with a dip in a cool blue-green river. Feeling soft mud between his toes, sloping down as he waded deeper. And just when the first shivers of fear grabbed hold, a pair of dark, laughing eyes. Rough brown fingers with battered knuckles closing around his wrist, tugging him deeper.
“What’re you scared for? Can’t you swim?” Teasing, but never mocking. Laughing, but never at him.
“N-no, actually. I never had much occasion to learn.”
And then another hand clasping his forearm. A crooked grin beaming up at him. “Aw, don’t worry. I can swim enough for both of us. I won’t letcha drown.”
Stolas swallows, a foolish, wistful smile pulling at his mouth at the memory of that day in the river.
“It is to be our home,” he says softly. “Perhaps we ought to make the best of it?”
“Oh, yes. First thing when we arrive, I’ll go and fetch myself a little cotton bonnet and an apron. Perhaps I ought to take up chewing tobacco while I’m at it. Carry around a tin can to spit into, really embrace the local culture.”
“Can we not do this right now?” He forces himself to face her scathing glare, enduring that plunge beneath icy water. “Not—not in front of—” he inclines his chin down to discreetly indicate Via.
“Of course not.” The smile she pastes on her face is as scathing as her glares. “Wouldn’t want to make a scene, dear husband.”
Stolas’s gaze skitters away from her, but there is no relief. The bright interior of the carriage, all polished mahogany trimmed in gleaming bronze, melts away, and the years stretch out before him. The barrage of her insults. The ache of constantly smiling against the onslaught of her snide comments and scathing barbs. An endless monotony of insults and contempt.
And in his lap, face pressed to the glass, his joy and his burden. What a blessing, to have such a bright spot in his life. What an impossible task, to keep the ugly hidden from her perfect, beloved eyes.
A voice cuts through his melancholy, loud and brash and impossible to ignore. “All right, you sons a bitches, listen up good and nobody’s gotta get hurt!”
Up ahead, a woman with wild dark curls and a face hidden under a straw hat stands in the center of the aisle, legs apart like a man, commanding the entire train’s attention. She’s flanked on either side by two other women—one freckled and blonde, the other dark-haired—brandishing pistols.
“Daddy?” Via asks, voice trembling on the precipice of panic. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing, darling, nothing at all,” he whispers, loud as he dares, tucking her behind him. His mind races. She’s still calm, but barely. He has to keep her calm. “It’s… it’s a game they play out here.”
“A game? Why’s that lady shouting?”
The curly-haired woman barks out orders, demanding the passengers “cough up” every bit of valuables. Stolas has no intention of arguing. The only treasure he cares to keep is hidden behind his back, and he will not let them touch her.
“Why, that’s part of the game,” Stolas whispers, voice shaking. “American games are very loud, you know. This one is… well, it’s a form of make believe.”
“I thought grown-ups didn’t play make believe. Mama says—”
“They do sometimes, if it’s for a game. Now just be quiet or we won’t win. That’s part of the rules. You have to be so, so quiet.”
The woman isn’t alone. She and two other women pace down the aisles, pausing at each row of passengers and shoving open bags into their faces. The bags clink as the terrified passengers drop in diamond earrings and gold pocket watches, empty out their wallets, scrambling to remove any bit of value to satisfy the three until they move on to the next row.
A few men, brave or stupid, dare to protest. The muzzle of a gun shoved in their noses is all it takes to silence most of them. Two rows ahead of Stolas, a particularly stubborn gentleman refuses to back down.
“I toldja nobody had to get hurt, but if you wanna do this the hard way, I ain’t opposed to doin’ a little two-step, mister,” the curly-haired woman warns. “Choice’s yours. I already got my dancin’ shoes on.”
The man gulps and hands over his wallet. There’s something familiar in the wild yip of laughter the woman lets out as she takes his money and moves on.
Stolas already has his money in his lap. He gives Stella a pleading expression. “Just give these ladies your jewelry,” he begs.
Stella’s hand flies to the necklace at her throat, and she lets out a scandalized gasp. “This is a family heirloom!”
“I know it is, but please, there’s no sense in—”
“Why don’t you do something, Stolas? How can you just sit there like a coward?”
For a terrible moment, it doesn’t seem like Stella will back down. There is nothing Stolas can say that will persuade her. They’re going to end up shot, and Octavia will—
“It’s alright, mama, it’s a game!” his daughter pipes up from behind his back. “You have to be quiet or we won’t win!”
Stella’s eyes fall to their daughter, and slowly, reluctantly, something within her softens. She begins to unclasp her necklace just as the woman approaches their seat.
Stolas’s hands shake as he puts his valuables in the bag. He’s forgotten all about the puzzle of that oddly familiar laughter until he chances a glance up at the criminal and his breath catches in his throat.
From this angle, he can see the face beneath the straw hat. And he knows that face. Smooth the puckered scars from the right side, soften the hardened edges of time, add the quivering reflection of sunlight on the river, and it is the boy who taught him to swim a world away.
Stolas’s lips part. He is about to say something foolish when those dark eyes meet his. The look there silences him. A spark of recognition that immediately turns to a hard, warning glare. Stolas’s mouth snaps shut, and he must be every bit the coward Stella says because all he can do is hand the money over without a word.