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He looks from the scrap of fabric in his hand up at the sign painted on the wall. Squints, really, sun in his eye and sweat down his forehead. All he can smell is dust, from the ride in.
Rumour goes as rumour does, and he’s tired is what he is, but he’s got a living to make and if his living is someone else’s death, well, that ship sailed a long time ago. He shoves the fabric with ink all bled through into his pocket and hitches up his pants. Gun’s there. Other gun, too, and a third behind him and another in his boot and—well. He’s armed.
There’s noise already which has him hesitating on the step, and he glances over his shoulder to his horse, who looks back without lifting its nose from the trough. Fat lot of help, but his horse is the closest thing to a friend and he wants that support. Wants that body beside him helping him make a decision.
He swat a fly from his face and goes through the door.
If forced to be honest years later he’d admit he didn’t want to fight anyway. Collecting on a bounty is always teeth-tense, adrenaline in his bones leaving him scared long into his dreams. He wanted for a bottle and a meal and a bed, but he was skint to the lint of his pockets and in desperate need of financial relief.
Billy, Billy was going to be his salvation, months of living in luxury.
Goodnight Robicheaux opens the door and steps into a nice enough parlour, white-washed walls and mirrors making everything brighter, and dodges a body come flying.
It’s hard to pick the heart of the chaos, because when one person starts fighting the rest tend to follow, but Goodnight’s not ever avoided fording a river for fear of a few rocks so he wades right in.
The bar’s smashed up but there’s a half-broken glass with a bit of whatever in the bottom, so he picks that up and leans with his back to the wood to watch the violence unfold.
And yeah, there’s his guy. Solid, stubborn, fast. Knives, like the stories told. Asian, like the poster drew. And here, like his contact scrawled on the fabric inking up the inside of his waistcoat pocket.
Goodnight sips his drink from the sharp edge of a broken glass and considers his options. It looks like fighting is likely to get him hurt, unless he pulls a gun on the guy but getting a drop on this one is probably going to end with Goodnight getting hurt, too. Or he’s gotta do it while the guy’s got his back turned, and that’s just not fair.
There’s a standoff between Goodnight’s bounty and a guy shaking where he stands. The bounty’s got a knife in each hand and he’s standing right ready to use them. The other one’s got a gun but doesn’t seem certain which way to hold it.
‘I don’t got no problem with you getting a drink.’ Even his words tremble.
‘You had a problem five minutes ago.’ But he flips a knife around and puts it away home. He jerks his head at the guy who drops his gun in his hurry to leave.
There’s no one left in the bar except Goodnight, now, and the bounty turns his attention to him. Goodnight finishes his drink with care.
‘Got it all out of your system?’ he asks. He’s got that half-lean to him, feigned ease, like he’s not a finger-twitch from pulling his gun on the guy.
‘Depends,’ says the bounty. ‘Who’re you?’
‘Robicheaux.’
‘Billy. But you know that.’
‘I do.’
Billy’s got a knife still, and Goodnight’s got a gun in a holster and a broken glass in hand.
But truth be told he’s tired as shit and it seems the guy only wanted a drink. He leans over the bar and finds an uncracked glass, and a bottle. Billy eyes him suspiciously, so Goodnight pours a generous tipple and shoves the glass down the bar by an arm’s length.
‘Why?’
‘I’m not the sort of guy to stop a man from wetting his lips.’
‘Soak me up and drag me out of here?’
But Goodnight’s already realising he’s changed his mind about that. ‘Let me ask you a few things, first.’
Billy scoffs, but takes the drink and settles with his hip against the bar.
‘These men,’ Goodnight nods at the fallen, ‘they don’t like you for your face?’
‘More than a face,’ Billy says.
‘And the people you killed—’
‘I get real tired of people saying I can’t go places.’ He’s still got the knife.
‘So you kill them.’ He can’t quite help the judgement in his voice.
‘Means they can’t hassle me later.’ Billy finishes the drink. ‘You want my bounty?’
‘I don’t think so.’
Billy stares at him, examines him, and Goodnight holds still to let it happen.
‘You want to hire me?’ Billy asks, incredulous.
‘I want to work with you. I have a… condition. I don’t care for killing, see, and in my line of work—’
‘Something of a failing.’
‘Exactly,’ Goodnight says, with some emotion. Wanted dead or alive tends to mean dead now because who wants the cowardice of getting hanged later instead of a glorious shootout now. ‘Now, way I see it, I can try to incapacitate you without killing you, which would leave me a fair bit injured—’
‘Dead,’ Billy says.
There’s an uncomfortable pause. ‘Right,’ says Goodnight. ‘Dead. Which is, as you can probably appreciate, a non-ideal end to a mediocre day. Or I can kill you, which would be a disappointing end to a mighty fine fight you’ve already fought for the privilege of drinking this here whiskey.’
‘I’m not going quietly.’
‘I’m not asking you to. I’m asking you to join forces with me.’
Billy laughs. It’s muted, like he’s forgotten how to laugh, but there’s the huff of a chuckle and the suggestion of a grin, before it disappears. ‘Sure.’
‘I am. You with your knives. Me with my reputation. And my gun.’ He can shoot it, can even shoot it in the direction of people, putting holes in walls and hats and things, putting the fear of god into them so they’ll bow their heads and submit to their fate at his hands.
‘Why?’
He doesn’t know. He’s lonely, but he’s not going to say that. He wants a friend, and reckons Billy might be a good one, but he’s sure as hell not going to say that.
‘Why, have you got somewhere to be?’ Goodnight says. ‘Anyways, travel with me and most the other folk hunting your hide will step right off.’
‘Protection?’
Goodnight shrugs. It’s a shitty reason but it’s the best one he’s willing to share.
Billy shakes his head. Offers up that laugh again. It’s like he doesn’t know how, like life’s stopped being amusing, and Goodnight knows that feeling.
‘If it means I can get a drink next bar I step into.’
‘I can’t promise that,’ Goodnight says. ‘Bars are where I do my best work.’ And he pours Billy another drink, and this time Billy sits down next to him to have it.