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He hadn’t grown up west of the Mississippi River, despite what he led people to believe. He’d grown up in a somewhat well-to-do household in Tennessee, taught to read and write. He’d never worried about dinner or money.
But his only horseback lessons were sidesaddle, the only books he was allowed to read things like Sense and Sensibility or Pride and Prejudice, only allowed to talk about things his father would have approved of for his little girl.
He left home at sixteen and never looked back, his mother’s guns on his hips, carrying her family name and her parting words echoing in his ear.
I wanted to name you Joshua.
Joshua Faraday went west, where people could be whoever they wanted.
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He told people his name with all the southern charm and politeness he’d been raised in, and corrected them with the business end of his gun when they thought they knew better than he did. Enough hard work from people who didn’t look too closely at his size and shape gave him the build he needed to handle drunkards who thought that his drinking made him stupid and his pants made him easy. He taught people to respect the name he gave them and picked their pockets when they were busy clutching at their broken noses.
Fifteen years, he did it, skipping town when things got rough and cleaning assholes out by cheating at cards until they riled enough for him to justify shooting them. His aim got better. So did his poker skills. Still got accused of cheating, but it was almost all by low-lifes who couldn’t tell the jack of clubs from the king of hearts.
He met Sam Chisolm on a streak of bad luck that had begun with a handsy asshole with a few extra holes in him and, more recently, gotten him run out of a town with an overzealous preacher. Sometimes, he wondered if he should’ve just joined a convent instead. Men were stupid.
Chisolm had a job and a horse and enough respect for him that he took the offer. He made Emma a little uncomfortable and Teddy a mite nervous, but Chisolm didn’t so much as twitch, even when he introduced himself as Joshua. He couldn’t ask for more than that.
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The rest of them weren’t any worse about it, surprising the hell out of him.
Goodnight just called him ‘son’ in the condescending tone Joshua had grown up with. Cajun or not, southern politeness was still the same whether it came from the bayou or the mountain foothills, and while Goodnight thought little of his intelligence, he didn’t question what Joshua told him. Billy had shrugged and threatened to stab him if he got annoying.
He got along best with Vasquez, who made fun of him without mercy and took it as well as he gave. Vasquez had taken his name and his pointed inspection of his guns and said he was an asshole either way. Joshua had a pretty decent grasp of Spanish from the years he spent wandering close to the border, and understood most of what Vasquez said. Not that he’d say that. Listening to Vasquez call him all manner of colorful insults under the assumption that he had no idea what was being said was more fun than it probably should have been.
Red and Horne hadn’t said a thing, but they weren’t antagonistic, so he’d take it. The bar for interactions with people had been set far too low over the years.
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Nobody in Rose Creek was overt about their bullshit unless they caught him alone, barring drunks in the saloon.
One of them made a rather unfortunate comment about how Joshua would have all their women wearing pants and calling themselves men by the time Bogue showed up. It was nothing he hadn’t heard before, but while he was content to ignore it until they started something, it turned out Vasquez was not. Joshua hadn’t managed to stand all the way by the time Vasquez’s fist had made contact with the man’s nose, let alone manage to stop him. The sickening-sounding crack made even him wince.
“You didn’t have to hit him,” he said, pulling a kerchief out of his pocket and handing it to Vasquez to clean the blood off with. “Those assholes aren’t worth the time.”
It wasn’t a lie. Joshua had learned which ones were worth the time and possibility of being run out of town and those guys didn’t make the bar. He’d be a liar if he said it wasn’t nice to have someone else looking out for him on that one, to know that someone else was willing to defend him and not just smile and nod and call him a woman behind his back.
“This from the one who threatened to shoot me, the first time we met, if I ever said the word ‘miss’ in your presence? Really, güero?” Vasquez asked, staring at him while he cleaned the blood away. “They should learn to respect you.”
“That’d be the day. C’mon. I’ll let you win a hand of cards for defending my honor,” he said, gesturing to the table everyone was sitting around. Vasquez snorted. He certainly didn’t want to be the damsel in distress in any situation, but if Vasquez wanted to be his knight in shining spurs, he’d take it. Having someone in his corner was nice.
“I don’t need you to let me win.” Even if that someone was an idiot.
“If you say so.”
---
He didn’t lie to Emma, either. Joshua Faraday had no father, just a mother that was long-since worm food.
Looking at Chisolm and Goodnight and Billy, surrounded by people who took him at face value and didn’t question a thing, he thought he might have found something like a family.
Looking at Vasquez, he thought he might have found something like a home. That was a thought, though, he drowned in a bottle of whiskey and buried in the back of his head. Vasquez made him stupid sometimes.
---
He didn’t regret deciding to do the suicide run on the Gatling gun. He’d spent fifteen years living the way he wanted, capping it off by blowing up a bunch of people who had it coming. Waking up in a horrendous amount of pain threatened to change his mind on that one.
Billy was by his bed the first time he woke for more than a few minutes, feet propped up next to Joshua’s hip and cleaning his knives. A quick look around told him that nobody else was in the room and that Billy was in remarkable shape for someone on the receiving end of a Gatling gun.
“You’ve been unconscious for two weeks,” Billy pointed out. Joshua gave him that one. The fact that he’d survived wasn’t a miracle per se, but it was still surprising, and sleeping for two weeks wasn’t an unfair price to pay for it. “Goody’s fine, Horne had arrows in places arrows weren’t ever meant to go, but Red’s got experience with those, so he handled it enough to keep Horne alive.”
“Where’s Vasquez and Sam?” Sam was probably fine, but Vasquez had been hit once by the gun that Joshua had seen and Lord only knew if he’d been hit again.
“They’re both fine. Sam locked Vasquez in the jail for a few hours until he calmed down after starting another fight,” Billy said, like Vasquez being in jail was no big deal. When Joshua just stared at Billy in confusion, Billy sighed and explained. “After you were bandaged up, people noticed a thing or two and started referring to you as a woman. Vasquez corrected them. Violently. There might have been guns involved.”
Joshua grinned at the image that inspired. Vasquez did care and Joshua was going to give him hell for it from now until the end of time.
“I’ll tell Sam you’re awake and to let Vasquez out. Maybe now that you’re awake enough to defend yourself, he’ll stop.”
He doubted it, but he let Billy go. If nothing else, he’d drive Vasquez up the wall until Vasquez wanted to kill him and that’d keep any other fights from starting for a while. Or he’d rope Vasquez into a few rounds of poker. He hadn’t played since the fight and he’d lose his touch after a while.
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Fifteen years living the way he wanted and counting.