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Sam Chisolm glanced at the man walking silently alongside his horse and gave him a pensive look. You didn’t usually see too many of his kind this far inland. Sam knew their communities tended to be further west, closer to the coast, the vast, surging Pacific the only thing that separated them from their homelands. He wondered how many of them ever dipped their feet into the surf and stared across the sea, imagining that the waves had started on the sands of their own far-off shores, rolling over the deep waters until they finally made it across the ocean to break over their toes in America.
And to think Sam felt out of place sometimes. His people were taken from lands he’d never been, and sometimes in his more ruminative moments Sam could feel where he’d been cut out of that history… almost like a phantom pain. But any echoes of being uprooted were just that: echoes. At least he was born here and people like him were not an unusual sight.
And Red Harvest…well for all he might have stood out these days, he was still born here a thousand times over.
But if this man named Billy Rocks ever felt conspicuous it didn’t show in his manner. He followed just the ghost of a step behind Sam, falling into place so seamlessly that the high sun might have been throwing two shadows behind Sam out onto the baked earth. He and Sam hadn’t said more than two words to each other in as many days, and yet Sam didn’t get the sense that the man was particularly introverted. Maybe it was the way his belt stuck out, the wicked-looking points shifting as easily over the man’s hips as a second skin. Or maybe it was the unselfconscious way he carried himself, somehow conveying stillness and fluidity at the same time. Or maybe it was how Sam had caught him watching the others’ extravagant conversations, the line of his mouth and spark of his eyes suggesting amusement that he might not have been sharing, but didn’t seem to particularly care about hiding.
Sam supposed if the man had anything to say, he probably saved most of his words for Goodnight. And how that particular arrangement had come to pass, Sam would be very curious to know. Although…perhaps it wasn’t that strange of a combination. Goodnight Robicheaux courted poetry in a way that only a man with a name like that could. It stood to reason that if he were to show up with anyone at all, it would be someone as striking as this Billy Rocks. Although also knowing Goodnight’s softer nature, the profound well of humanity that trickled up through him, Sam knew any real partnership of his would have to run much deeper than ‘flair’.
Maybe…Sam took stock of Billy as he padded alongside him, black boots sending the tiniest breaths of dust back over his heels, his chin firmly parallel to the ground…maybe it wasn’t a question of how Goodnight had ended up with Billy, but of how this Billy Rocks had chosen to end up with Goodnight. And Sam was sure it was a matter of ‘chosen’. He might not know this silent member of their team that well yet, but he could already tell that this was a man whose decisions were freely and exclusively his own, sovereign to any outside judgment. Present Billy Rocks with his path set in stone, and he’d probably just reach into his belt for a knife and carve a new destiny right out.
Although Goodnight Robicheaux did have a way of tripping into people’s destinies.
*
Sam looked down at the man huddled in a grey coat and avoiding his eyes.
“Hey c’mon now, they’re gone,” he said, hoisting his rifle back behind his shoulders. The man didn’t look up and Sam felt a surge of irritation.
“Come on,” he said again. “Grey coat, that fleur-de-lis pin you got there…what’s that for, Louisiana? I know I’m not the first black man you’ve ever seen. Ten to one your family had a slew of us either out back with the cotton, in the kitchen with your momma, or changing your diapers since you was born.”
He crouched down next to the man who pulled his coat miserably around his thin shoulders, turning his chin away.
“Hey. Woman with my skin probably been drawing you baths since ‘fore you can remember, and now you can’t even look a black man in the eye?”
The man finally turned to him, revealing a gaunt face. When he finally dragged hunted blue eyes up to Sam’s face, Sam saw he’d misread the man’s body language. It wasn’t fear that had him turning away from Sam…it was shame.
“Well seeing as how you’ve read the pages of my book easily enough,” he croaked out in a voice like a tin of honey that had spent too long on a shelf collecting dust. “Why else do you think I can’t look at you?”
*
“Up ahead,” Billy’s voice cut into Sam’s thoughts.
Sam saw they were approaching the end of the main street. A couple figures were already starting to block the way, their silhouettes never looking away from Sam and Billy’s approach. Good. Then they wouldn’t notice the rest of their team widely swinging around the back ways, slowly boxing them into the town.
“Alright. I see more in the windows. Are those going to be enough for you?” Sam said, nodding to the man’s belt, admittedly impressive, but still with a limited number of knives. Billy nodded slowly as he looked over at Sam, and okay maybe that had been a stupid question. But Sam hadn’t seen the man in action yet.
He didn’t have long to wait.
When the last man had fallen, speeches had been given, and decisions had been made, the seven got to work dragging the bodies out of the street. Faraday had suggested leaving them out, saying the bodies of fallen enemies could be a good way to raise moral. Sam had pointed out all they’d be raising within a couple hours was a stink.
Sam had expected Goodnight to at least smile at that. The man could hitch himself to a joke quicker than anyone Sam knew, happy to let himself be pulled along by the moods and humors of the people around him.
But the way Goodnight was eyeing the bodies that littered the streets, it was like the only faces he could see around him were the ones pointed upwards in death. Sam saw him go over to one of the bodies and take a deep breath. He made an aborted movement towards it and then flinched.
Which was when Billy appeared at his side, as quick and quiet as a breath. He said something to Goodnight, handed him his pistol, and Sam saw Goodnight relax a little as he walked over to stand in the shade, reloading his partner’s gun in swift, sure movements.
A little later Sam walked by Billy, who was impassively retrieving his knives from some of the bodies, wiping off the blades on their clothes and placing them back in his belt to be cleaned more thoroughly later.
“I guess those are enough for you,” Sam commented, nodding at the man’s knives. “Nice silverware.”
Billy snorted. Sam looked at him inquiringly. It hadn’t been that funny. But Billy just shook his head, still wearing a bit of a half-smile.
“Nothing. That’s just what Goody calls it sometimes.”
And then he was leaving Sam with the bodies to walk back over to their friend. Goody.
*
“Call me Goody,” the man named Goodnight Robicheaux was telling Sam as he sat across from him in Sam’s tent, the oil-lamp flickering orange around them. There was shouting and whooping from the other men in the campground around them. How Goodnight Robicheaux had stumbled upon a Union encampment in Maryland was something Sam did not know, but he supposed it was just the man’s bad luck. He’d probably just been trying to get home. Sam wondered if his home was even still standing. Plenty of Union troops had been taking over the plantation houses down South as army bases, and razing the rest to the ground.
“Goody? I’m not sure if that’s better or worse than ‘Goodnight’,” Sam had said.
The man’s lips actually twitched a little as he took the glass of brandy Sam had offered him. He took a sip with shaky hands, wiping a couple droplets out of a sandy beard, wincing as his fingers grazed his bruised face. He did his best to shrug casually.
“You saved my life, I reckon you can call me Goody.”
“Alright, Goody. But I didn’t save your life. That pack wouldn’t have killed you. Worst they’d have done was beat you into next week.”
“That is not the worst people can do to each other,” Goody had said quietly, taking another sip. He looked up at Sam suddenly.
“Why’d you help me anyways? After this war, there’s nobody in the world who’d fault you for leaving a sorry piece of rebel trash there.” Goody drank a little more, lip curling wryly over his glass. “Hell, I wouldn’t have blamed you if you’d joined in.”
Sam raised an eyebrow. “War’s over.”
“Tell that to my jaw,” Goody mumbled. He’d said it mechanically, with the air of someone for whom rejoinders were as much reflex as they were humor. But when Sam had barked out a short, genuine laugh, the line of Goody’s mouth had softened somewhat.
“Tell you what,” Sam said. “It’s late and I’m tired.”
Goody nodded and stood up to go, and Sam looked at him incredulously. It was as though he were actually going to walk right back out into that Union encampment without a second thought, without knowing they’d tear him apart like wolves. Or maybe he did know and just didn’t care.
“I meant I’m going to bed,” Sam said slowly. “Got an extra blanket you can use. Won’t be comfortable but you might as well take it.”
Goodnight was looking at him stunned. “Okay look here, Sam, is it? Nobody and I mean nobody is as noble as all this.”
“You’re Southern, I thought you folks were all about nobility,” Sam commented.
“In the purely farcical sense yes,” Goodnight said, waving it away. It was like he was just assuming Sam knew what ‘farcical’ meant, which Sam did, but not everyone would have looked at him and thought so. Sam found himself suddenly liking Goodnight a bit for the carelessness. “But why are you doing this?”
Sam considered joking it off, but when he looked up at Goodnight, eyes wide, still standing tensely across from him, he knew the man didn’t need another joke. He needed something real.
So he just looked right back at Goodnight. “Certain school of thought says that if you save a man’s life you’re responsible for him.”
Goodnight stared at him a while longer until finally he nodded.
“Okay,” he said.
They settled in and Sam was about to drop off when he heard Goody’s voice addressing him a bit dryly:
“Thought you said you didn’t save my life though.”
“Oh no. Those boys were going to kill you. No question about it.”
Goodnight nodded. “Yes they were,” he agreed.
He sounded almost appeased by the thought.
*
Billy brought two plates of food back over to the table. He set one of them down in front of Goodnight.
“Where’s mine?” Faraday and Vasquez both said immediately, and Sam had to resist the urge to roll his eyes. The sooner those two stopped sniping at each other and realized they were cut from the same cloth entirely, the easier it would be on the rest of them. Faraday and Vasquez were flip sides of the same coin alright, just one of them happened to be a peso.
“Waiting at the counter,” Billy said simply, immediately digging in. Sam saw Goodnight holding back a laugh.
“You got Goodnight’s for him,” Faraday groused, in a mock-complaint.
Sam glanced upwards at Billy to see how he’d take that, but Billy just shrugged, still focused on eating.
“I like him more than you.”
The men laughed, Vasquez especially. Faraday grinned, and seemed to want to keep the joke going.
“So how do we make you like us enough to wait on us hand and foot too, huh?”
Billy suddenly fixed him with a steely glare, his eyes cold. It was like he had doused any sign of light in them, no reflection at all. They were hard, black slabs.
“I don’t wait on anyone,” he said very quietly. It was like the air had been sucked out of the room while everyone looked tensely at him. “Got it?”
Faraday nodded quietly.
“Hey Billy?” Goodnight asked suddenly.
“Yes?”
“Get me some more beer?”
“Sure.”
The table fairly exploded in laughter as Billy got up, Faraday’s laughter more relieved than anything else. Billy’s moustache twitched up, and Sam got the sense that if Billy were the kind of man to wink, that’s what he’d have done. Goodnight was laughing hardest of all, and Sam could tell they’d pulled that joke before.
Sam got up and strolled over to the bar, joining Billy.
“Was waiting to see who would put the fear of God into Faraday first,” he said in a low chuckle. “You two’ve got that charade down, sure enough.”
Billy shrugged as he waited for the bartender to get a couple beers. “Comes naturally from my manservant days.” He looked over at Sam, and Sam immediately felt like an idiot. He had just been joking earlier, but Sam had always been so perceptive that some of his jokes tended to land right on the mark, whether he meant them to or not.
“I am sorry about that,” Sam said. And he was. He of all people should have known better.
Billy waved it away, and despite his guilt, Sam couldn’t help feeling a flicker of amusement. The gesture was so entirely Goodnight’s.
“It’s not so bad coming from you,” Billy said. He gave Sam a nod, which Sam returned. They understood one another.
“I’m guessing Goody doesn’t introduce you as his manservant then?” Sam asked.
“No,” Billy said, taking the two beers that the bartender had poured. “But he’ll sometimes introduce himself as mine just to fuck with people.”
He walked back to the table with his and Goodnight’s beers, leaving Sam grinning ear-to-ear, shaking his head.
*
“Well I suppose it’ll work better than introducing me to people as your manservant,” Goodnight said dryly, fingering the blue cloth of the coat he wore.
Sam had pinched the extra Union coat before the two had crept out of the camp early. It was a little too big for Goodnight, but no one would question that. Lots of men had lost weight in the war.
“Thought you mighta been too proud to wear it,” Sam said, looking over at Goodnight who was pushing the sleeves up a little. Goodnight just shook his head.
“I’m not proud of anything,” he said in a low voice.
Sam sighed. The way he spoke it was like Goodnight was the only man who’d played a part in the entire war.
“Boy you had better be more company than this if we’re gonna cross half the country together,” he said. It was a proposal he’d made the day before. Sam needed to get to Kansas, and Goody needed to get home. They could leave Maryland and travel together, parting ways in Missouri easily enough. But Goody needed to get through the Union states, and they’d be passing close enough to the Confederate ones for Sam to be uneasy. It benefitted them both. But now Goody was looking like he was questioning it.
“Look that’s just it,” he said. He looked over at Sam with the same pleading eyes he’d had when he’d asked Sam why he was helping him. “If we’re really gonna do this, then there’s something you oughta know.” He took a breath. “In Antietam –“
“You were the Angel of Death?” Sam interrupted, registering the way Goodnight started as violently as if he’d taken a bullet.
“You mean you –“
“You already told me your name,” Sam said, giving him a level look. “I know who you are, Goodnight Robicheaux.”
Goodnight looked lost for words. “Then why?” he asked, frustration ripped into the words. “You know who I am, what I am, then why, Sam?”
Sam looked at him. Goodnight’s entire body was wound tight, his shoulders tensed and his head cocked like a trigger, waiting for Sam to deliver a fatal shot.
“Because men aren’t angels,” Sam said. “And they aren’t devils either. Men are either good men or they’re bad men, but that’s it.”
He looked seriously at Goodnight who was waiting uncertainly on Sam’s words.
“And you, Goodnight Robicheaux? I’m pretty sure you’re a good man.”
*
Sam walked over to where Goodnight was standing, coming up behind him and squeezing his shoulder. Goody turned and gave him a smile, which Sam returned.
“You alright?” he asked Goody.
“Oh you know me, I can’t complain,” Goodnight said.
Sam laughed. “Bullshit. You can and you do. Regularly.”
“Only when I’m most content,” Goody said with a winning grin. “Although I am sorry our opportunities to catch up have been a bit thin on the ground.”
It was true. Their chat by the fireside had been the only chance they’d had to have anything resembling a heart to heart. But they’d once travelled all the way from Maryland to Missouri together. Over that time they’d had more meaningful conversations than most people get in a lifetime, and Sam would always be grateful for that.
“So am I,” Sam said. “You haven’t stopped being good company.”
Goodnight laughed. “You didn’t think so when I first met you.”
Sam snorted. “Did you I think you were being maudlin? Yes. Bad company? Never.”
“Sam Chisolm, you’re apt to make me blush,” Goodnight said, and Sam rolled his eyes.
“Speaking of good company,” Sam said. He nodded to where Billy was still sitting at the table, seemingly focused on his beer, but clearly listening to Vasquez and Horne going on about something or other. “How long’ve you been travelling with him?”
“Christ it’s…ten years now. Just over.”
Sam was not expecting that answer. He was stunned but didn’t let it show.
“When are y’all gonna tie the knot?” he joked.
Goodnight had been joking about blushing before, but now he really was.
Sam glanced over. Goodnight wasn’t usually so easy to tease. Sam would go lighter.
“Well I like him. And he’s chattier than he seems, isn’t he?”
Goodnight gave him a grin.
“So was I.”
*
“If I had any idea you talked this much I would have left your ass in Maryland where I found you,” Sam said, shaking his head.
“Oh come now, Sam,” Goodnight said with a grin, sitting atop his horse. He gestured theatrically to the vista of rolling fields and craggy cliffs before them. “Our country was fractured down the middle but does the land care? No sir, the wind keeps blowing through the trees, the grass keeps pushing up to meet the sun… you can’t tell me that this doesn’t get your heart going.”
“Clearly not as much as it gets your mouth going,” Sam said dryly.
“Some people just don’t appreciate nature, do they?” Goodnight said to his horse and Sam rolled his eyes.
Sam and Goodnight had been lucky to find the pair of horses one state back. Some might have considered it ‘stealing’ not ‘finding’ but if people were dumb enough to leave perfectly healthy horses wandering around with no ropes or supervision, well then Sam and Goodnight would be sensible enough to take advantage.
“I appreciate nature just fine,” Sam said as they made their way down a lush green hill carpeted with the red and yellow leaves that were falling thicker from the trees lately. “But you can appreciate something without needing a goddamn soliloquy for it every time.”
“Oh Sam.” Goodnight tsk’d him. “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”
“It’s not even summer anymore.”
“Ah but ‘thy eternal summer shall not fade’.”
“You speak an infinite deal of nothing,” Sam quoted back, and Goodnight’s peals of laughter followed him all the way down the hill.
*
“I still can’t believe I got to see you again in Louisiana that time,” Sam said, shaking his head a little. “Let alone getting to see you again now.”
Goodnight held out his drink and Sam clinked his own glass against it.
“Told you you had a standing invitation,” Goodnight said. “I just can’t believe I happened to be there when your letter came through. Spend most of my time in Texas these days.”
“We’ve taken quite a few paths haven’t we?” Sam said smiling around his beer. “They were bound to cross again.”
They drank in companionable silence, watching the men whose lives they’d somehow linked up with too. Sam saw Goodnight and Billy exchange a glance from across the room. Billy gave Goodnight a questioning look and Goodnight nodded back.
Sam didn’t miss it. “On the subject of paths, what kinds of things have you all come across? Don’t tell me you haven’t got any stories for me. If you’re still the magnet for dramatics that I know you are, you’ve got plenty.”
Goodnight shrugged. “I wouldn’t even know where to start. You’re right about it being plenty.”
“Come on, man. Pack of wolves?” Sam asked. Goodnight laughed remembering. “Gangsters, tornadoes, drug lords, outlaws, how about it?”
Goodnight stilled. He tried to cover it with a sip of beer but Sam knew him too well to not notice, and once again he internally cursed his own unwitting perception for whatever he’d said that had made Goodnight tense up.
When he’d last seen Goodnight the man had been practically radiant. Goody was still animated enough, a far cry from the haunted, kicked-dog of a man Sam had stumbled across up in Maryland. But there was a shadow over his eyes now that reminded Sam of the Goodnight he’d first met. Something had happened in the last few years to put it back there, something other than the man’s usual demons. Sam shouldn’t have pried.
Goodnight’s fingers twitched nervously as he held his glass of beer. He tried to take a sip but it was shaking too much.
“Goody?” Sam asked concerned.
“No I’m fine, it’s just sometimes…” Goodnight trailed off, shaking his head. “I’ll be right back.”
He set his drink down and walked over to where Billy was still sitting with his feet propped up on the table. Billy looked up immediately at Goodnight’s approach, his feet already swinging down to the ground. Goodnight stuck out his hand and Billy took it in his own, and in one seamless motion Goodnight was pulling Billy up.
*
“Take my hand! I’ll pull you up!” Goodnight shouted from where he was perched on the top of the rocky outcropping, coattails whipping around him from the force of the storm, the rain plastering his hair to his head.
Sam was on the face of the rock wall, almost at the top, almost at Goody’s hand. It was a steep cliff, but the height wasn’t the danger here. Sam chanced a look behind him. The pack of wolves were running full-tilt across the plain towards him, out of season and out of food, starved for the man who was plastered to the cliff like a target, only a leap and pair of snapping jaws to the ankle away.
“This handhold’s gonna crumble if I let go,” Sam called back up, heart pumping, knowing the bloodthirsty animals would be there behind him any minute.
Goodnight swore. “Hang tight,” he said as straightened back up, slinging his rifle out from behind his back and raising it up to his eyes.
“I need them closer,” Goody said tensely, shifting the rifle a little. The metal was slippery from the rain.
Sam’s fingers were digging into the rock wall, and he saw some gravel start to spill out of it. “Hurry,” he urged.
“Just a second,” Goodnight murmured, raising the rifle just a hair as the wolves drew closer.
Cracks started appearing in the rock around Sam’s fingers. “Haven’t got a second, Goody,” he yelled as the rain thundered down around him, his fingers starting to slip.
Goody cocked the rifle.
“Three,” he counted to himself.
Sam could almost hear the pants from the animals behind him.
“Two…”
A growl and a vicious snarling, and Sam could practically sense a wolf about to leap.
“One.”
There was flash of lighting, a crack of the rifle, and Sam felt a bullet whistle past his ear. He heard skull splinter amidst a whimpering yelp. And then the rest of the bullets were shrieking by him one after the other, ungodly blasts, ten bullets in less that number of seconds. When the sound finally stopped, Sam chanced a look down to the heap of fur beneath him. Headshots all.
He looked back up the cliff to see Goodnight standing as straight and sharp as Southern steel, the rifle smoking in his hands. There was another flash of lightning, illuminating his figure on the rock. The man’s eyes burned ice-blue, and for just a second the coat that billowed out behind him looked like a pair of wings.
And then the rock Sam was holding crumbled, his heart leapt in his throat as his body seemed to hang in the air for a split-second before the drop and –
Fingers. Closed fast around his wrist.
Goody looked down at him from where he’d thrown himself down on the rock to catch Sam, his rifle discarded beside him. His eyes were soft and sure and his coat hung around him as he held onto Sam. Not an angel any longer. Just a man.
His fingers tightened around Sam.
“Gotcha.”
*
Sam walked out onto the porch sometime later to get a breath of fresh air. Billy and Goodnight were already out there, passing a cigarette back and forth, speaking in low voices, heads angled together. Sam watched them for a moment before clearing his throat.
Goodnight glanced over. “Sam Chisolm!” he said, grinning a loose, mellow grin. He took a pull of the cigarette, handing it back to Billy. “I tell you about Sam Chisolm, Billy?”
“Once or twice,” Billy said, lips twitching around the cigarette he’d placed back between them.
“Or thrice.”
“I still think you made that word up,” Billy said.
Goodnight mimed taking a shot to the heart. “And gain by ill thrice more than I have spent,” he quoted with a gasp of mock offense. “How you do offend.”
“Do you ever quote alive people?”
Sam watched them in what seemed to be a well-choreographed dance, feeling like he was missing something.
“Sam, tell Billy here that ‘thrice’ is a real word while I replenish our stocks?” Goodnight asked, lifting the empty beer glasses. He didn’t seem drunk at all, but he was certainly more relaxed than he’d been before.
Goody brushed past Sam and went back inside, leaving Sam with Billy. Sam wandered over and leaned beside Billy on the porch’s railing.
“I suppose I should tell you ‘thrice’ is a real word,” Sam said. “But I also suppose you already know that if you’ve been with him this long.” Sam glanced at Billy because he needed to double-check. He was trying to figure out some timelines in his head. “Ten years?”
Billy nodded and Sam let out a whistle.
“My condolences,” he joked, and Billy gave a small smile.
“He’s an easy man to like,” Billy said simply.
Sam chuckled. “He sure is.”
Billy took another puff of the cigarette. Sam got a better whiff this time.
“That ain’t tobacco, is it,” Sam said. It wasn’t a question.
“Opium,” said Billy.
“The drug?” Sam asked, not letting his surprise show.
“Drug sometimes.” Billy shrugged. “Medicinal other times.”
“Medicine for Goody though. Not you. Am I right?”
Billy didn’t answer, just looked him silently. Sam lowered his voice.
“I’m not asking to pry. I don’t give a shit about that, I just…how is he doing these days? Really?”
Billy paused, looking back through the dusty window at something in the saloon, presumably Goody. His eyes flicked back to Sam’s like he was reading him. Sam let him.
Finally Billy lowered the cigarette.
“What do you know about The Owl?” he asked suddenly. It was the last thing Sam had been expecting him to say.
Sam furrowed his brow. “The California drug smuggler? Heard he died. Three years ago now. Someone killed him.”
Billy nodded. “That was Goody,” he said calmly.
Sam started. He stared into the man’s face for some sign that he was joking, the quiet way he seemed to. But he saw no trace of laughter now.
“They say that man could drive you insane,” Sam said slowly. “Could pull apart your mind before putting it back together however he pleased.”
“He can’t,” Billy said. “But his drugs can.”
Sam was quiet and Billy continued.
“He was supposed to be my hit originally. I failed. So Goody finished what I couldn’t.”
Sam was reeling. “So Goody…”
“Goody won, but it came at a price. The Owl got inside his head.”
Sam felt a clench in his chest. He thought Goody seemed shakier, more haunted than normal.
“He’s still the same man,” Billy said, as though reading Sam’s thoughts. “But it’s all closer to the surface now. Certain things set him off and…” Billy shrugged and gestured with the cigarette between his fingers. “This seems to help.”
Sam looked at the cigarette with the drugs Goody must have been exposed to, and wondered how much Billy had made off with for the sole purpose of keeping Goody together. There was any number of things Billy wasn’t saying: how the hell Goody and Billy had gotten mixed up with West Coast drug smugglers in the first place, why Billy had been asked to take someone out, what had happened to make Goody step in…
But looking at Billy quietly rolling the cigarette between his fingers, Sam knew none of that was the heart of the matter.
“You know he doesn’t blame you,” Sam said suddenly. “Don’t you?”
“Of course I do,” Billy said narrowing his eyes. “Goody never blames anyone but himself. For anything.”
Sam nodded. He already knew that.
“I blame myself,” Billy said more quietly, and Sam started to get a faint picture of what it was he’d been missing earlier.
Billy’s eyes looked over his shoulder, back into the saloon, then back at Sam.
“I’m telling you this because I know you’re Goody’s friend,” he said seriously. And Sam had just enough space to nod his head in thanks before Goodnight was bursting back out with three foaming mugs.
*
“Well I guess this is it,” Sam said, looking over at Goodnight.
Goodnight nodded, not looking up from the Missouri soil.
“Hey, Goody…” Sam started. They were standing beside their horses, neither seeming to want to get back on.
Goody looked up, his chin set decisively.
“I thought every last part of myself had burned away up there,” he said. “Till I met you. I want you to know that.”
Sam was moved.
“What we lose in the fire we will find in the ashes,” he said quietly.
Goody screwed up his forehead in thought. “Who said that one?”
Sam smiled. “Me.”
Goodnight laughed. “Goddamn soliloquizing son of a bitch.”
And then the laughter faded from his face as he and Sam moved forwards to catch the other in a hard hug.
“You ever find yourself in Louisiana,” Goody mumbled into Sam’s shoulder. “You look me up, you hear?”
“Gonna introduce me around town as your manservant?” Sam chuckled, the sound rumbling through Goodnight.
“I was thinking friend,” Goodnight said quietly.
Sam nodded and swallowed, tightening his arms.
*
Sam walked through the streets of the small town, looking around it, lost in thought. He could hear the chatter and laughter floating out the open doors of the saloon. It was starting to sound like a town should. Not the ghostly silence that had filled the streets when he and Billy had walked through them the first time.
Sam reflected on the other man thoughtfully. He was working on a hunch here, surprised he hadn’t had the thought before. He’d had his mind on other things, he supposed. But even so, he should have seen it sooner. If he was right it would be an unexpected turn of events, but then again, everything to do with Goody had always been just that.
Sam wandered slowly back to the saloon and stopped. Goody and Billy were still outside but around the side of the porch this time, out of the light.
Sam looked around and took a step back, thankful he blended into the night. He wasn’t sure if they knew he could see them.
They were speaking quietly, leaned into each other entirely. They always seemed angled towards each other, unconsciously or otherwise, but now they’d closed the gap, their arms slung easily about each other as though they’d been waiting to do so all day. Billy said something in his ear and Goody nodded and laughed, the easiness in his face making Sam smile where he stood.
*
Sam smiled widely at the man in front of him.
“Goodnight Robicheaux.”
“Sam Chisolm as I live and breathe,” Goody hooted, and with that he was launching himself at Sam, tackling him in a hug right there on the Baton Rouge train platform.
Sam laughed and dropped his bags so he could catch Goody, impulsively swinging him around as he hugged him back. Goody whooped and put his feet down, delivering a hearty smack to Sam’s shoulder.
“You are one sight for sore eyes, my friend,” Goodnight said grinning broadly.
“Me? Look at you!” Sam exclaimed, looking in wonder at the man practically glowing in front of him, eyes sparkling under a wide brimmed hat, hands tucked into the pockets of dapper threads, a smile to rival the sun overhead.
Sam had heard that the only way to know a man properly was to see him at his lowest point. Personally Sam thought that was a load of horseshit. He’d already seen Goody at his lowest point, and he could tell that the man before him with light practically pouring from his fingertips was Goodnight Robicheaux as the good Lord had intended.
Sam reached out poking Goodnight in the stomach. “Someone’s been looking after you,” he said teasingly, but he didn’t mean it. Goodnight had been practically emaciated when they’d first met. “Filling out are we?”
“What can I say, you’re an inspirational man, I wanted to be just like you,” Goodnight said, punching Sam in the shoulder. Sam made a sound of protest and caught him in a headlock, Goody laughing and swatting at his arms. It had been years. Sam had never had a younger brother but Goody knew all about being one, and Sam imagined that the score probably went something like this.
They straightened up from their roughhousing, and if anyone on the train platform was confused about a black man and a white man beaming at each other, it didn’t show. That was one thing Sam had noticed about the South: in the North it felt like a black man could rise as high as he wanted to, but never become that close. In the South there had always seemed to be the opposite problem.
“So how long can you stay?” Goodnight asked picking up one of his bags as they walked down the platform.
“Oh I’ve got a few weeks,” Sam said. He smiled at Goody. “I’m on holiday it seems.”
Goody whooped. “Perfect. I’ve got my sister’s house for that time while she’s away. I’m on a holiday of sorts myself.” And with that he was steering Sam into a waiting buggy, hopping up to take the reins.
*
Sam watched as Goodnight said something to Billy. And then Billy’s face was splitting into the first full smile Sam had seen on the man. He looked like a different man entirely. It wasn’t the smirk he occasionally threw out, or the barest curve of his lips. It was a real smile, for Goody only, and it took over his face as he threw his head back and laughed at whatever Goody had said.
Goodnight’s eyes were drinking him in, and Sam could see even from here just how soft the man’s face had gone.
*
“You’ve got someone, haven’t you,” Sam smirked hugely from around his mug of beer, looking at Goody’s soft, woolgathering expression.
Goodnight choked on his drink and looked around the crowded bar, looking for a napkin, looking at anything but Sam.
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” he said delicately, removing the golden handkerchief from his pocket to wipe his lips.
Sam snorted. “Please. You’ve worn your heart on your sleeve for as long as I’ve known you, and you haven’t stopped smiling once all day. I’d like to flatter myself that it’s just my fine company, but you’re looking downright moony, son.”
Goodnight rolled his eyes, grinning a little.
“Fine. Yes.”
“So where are they?” Sam asked.
Goodnight sighed.
“California. Their mother’s not well at the moment so they had to go visit.”
“You didn’t go with?” Sam was surprised.
“Oh believe me, I tried,” Goodnight said sardonically. “But their mother wouldn’t approve of a…a Southerner,” he finished.
Sam raised his eyebrows. “They from up North?”
Goodnight suddenly looked amused for some reason. “You could say that.”
He took another sip and continued. “I wanted to go. Offered a thousand times, but they can be stubborn as a mule and insisted they’re not actually that close. With the mother, that is. It’s just more of a ‘duty’ thing for them. So here I am, taking the opportunity to catch up with my own family while I can.”
He raised his glass at Sam, his meaning of ‘family’ clear.
Sam smiled. “Well go on and tell me about ‘em. Good looking?”
Goody laughed. “Showstopper.”
“Funny?” Sam asked, not being able to imagine otherwise if Goody was so hooked.
Goody’s lip quirked up. “Once you know what to look for…hilarious.”
Sam nodded to Goodnight’s pocket, the yellow cloth tucked back in.
“And lemme guess: as fair and golden as that fancy pocket square you’ve got there.”
Goodnight grinned looking down. His eyes flicked back up to Sam.
“Raven,” he said conspiratorially and Sam laughed.
*
Goodnight slid a hand through Billy’s dark hair, teasing out a strand that he tugged at playfully. Billy reached up as though to swat him away but Goodnight just caught his hand and pulled Billy towards him. Billy let out a huff of laughter and laced their fingers together, resting his forehead onto Goody’s.
Goodnight looked at him, lips tugging up, his eyes shining, his face glowing, the picture of a man who even after ten years was still completely, totally, and utterly in love.
And then Goody tilted his chin, Billy leaned forward, and the two were kissing in the corner of the porch, as lost in its shadows as they were in each other.
*
“You’re in love, aren’t you?” Sam said with a bit of a smile.
Goody looked across the table at him, his eyes soft, the line of his mouth relaxing in an upturn, radiating contentment out of every pore.
“More than I ever thought possible, Sam,” he said quietly.
Sam's heart felt warm in his chest.
“Well that’s alright then.”
*
Goodnight pulled back slowly, rubbing his forehead against Billy’s a little. Billy ran a thumb over Goody’s beard affectionately, pressing one more short kiss to Goody’s lips.
And then Goody was walking back into the saloon, Billy watching him go.
Once Goody was gone, Billy reached into his pocket for a cigarette, lighting it with a match he scraped along the porch’s railing. The flicker of the flame illuminated him in the relative darkness of the porch, and for just a moment every angle in his face seemed to glow.
And then he was waving the match out and taking a pull of the cigarette. A real cigarette this time. He leaned back against the saloon, closing his eyes, letting a puff of smoke wisp out from between his lips.
“Hi Sam,” he said, eyes still closed.
Well here was a man who missed nothing. And Sam thought he’d been mostly invisible in the night, especially to any two people as far gone on each other as those two seemed to be.
But hell, for all Sam knew maybe Goody had seen him there too. As enraptured and locked as the man’s eyes had been, they were still the eyes of a sharpshooter, best Sam had ever seen.
Sam walked over to join Billy on the porch. He stood beside him quietly, where Goodnight had been just a moment ago.
Billy opened his eyes without looking over and took another drag of the cigarette.
“You’ve got questions,” he said matter-of-factly, not testing, just waiting.
Sam thought for a minute.
“Just one,” he said finally.
Billy glanced over and Sam looked at him levelly.
“You love him?”
Billy looked back quietly.
“I love that man more than my own life.”
Sam nodded.
“Well. That’s alright then.”
Billy looked like he was waiting for Sam to say something else. But when he realized Sam was done his lip twitched up slightly as he looked thoughtfully at him. And then Billy was shaking another cigarette out of his packet, holding it out to Sam.
Sam didn’t much like smoking. But he liked Billy Rocks. So he took the cigarette in the spirit that it had been given, and the two men smoked silently.
Billy finished first, stubbing out his cigarette on the porch railing. He looked at it, the last tiny ember winking out in its crumpled tip. He looked back at Sam suddenly.
“Before him I was living a cold life and didn’t even realize it. Then Goody came along and gave me his warmth before I even asked.”
Billy looked back at the stubbed-out cigarette, a hint of smoke still trailing away from the cinders.
“My life was just ashes before him,” he said quietly.
Sam started at the metaphor. And then smiled as everything suddenly felt smoothed out. Felt right.
“Well,” Sam said. “If you were in the ashes then I’m glad it was Goody who found you there.”
Billy smiled in recognition, and Sam knew that out of all the dead writers Goody had probably quoted to Billy over the years, there was at least one line in there by Sam Chisolm.
And then Billy was turning around and walking back inside, heading over to take the place he’d chosen by Goodnight's side. Not an angel to look over Goody’s shoulder or a sentry to watch his back.
Just a man to walk beside him until the end.