Wild Fire (Book II)

Two Men, One Angel

     Amos hitched the black silken animal beneath his legs to the shoddy hotel post in the ruddy bay town of Van Horn. Along the broken strip of buildings, fat with whores and common thieves much like himself, Amos fell into place like the broken stitch among a sea of lawless criminals. He didn't share the legendary name his brother Micha did, roaming along with the Van der linde gang, but Amos was an evil unto himself.

     He paid for the room quickly, walking upstairs and throwing down his one pack of things to the dirty bed covers. In the heat, he stripped off his shirt, plopping down on the mattress with a humph, and pulling the two pictures from his pack.

     Micha's cold eyes stared up at him, and he could almost hear the dark tee hee of his laugh echoing in his mind. Micha had always been jealous of his brother. Jealous that he got out and had a family and children. How elated he would be now to know, that that family was ripped from him by an ambush on the little cottage nestled in San Francisco by Lemoyne raiders. All of them dead. Dead and rotting, they left Amos empty and angry, and he went as far from his home as he possibly could, ending up in Annesburg for his efforts, to drink away the rest of his pitiful existence.

     He never reached out for Micha. He had already told him to never contact him again so what really was the point? Now, as he held his brother's face under his thumb, a pang of sadness tore through him. He should have talked to him. Should have taken up his own dual guns, different only by the blue inlay on them opposite of Micha's red.

     He pulled his own double action peacemaker from his hip looking over it thoughtfully. Micha had carved in the barrel of his gun a long time ago Vengeance is hereby Mine. Amos shucked the hunting knife at his ankle free of its sheath and began to carve himself. Final Retribution. In the darkness the gunslinger smiled evilly. His baby brother would be soooo proud. As he carved the gun, his steel eyes twisted to find the angelic face of Emma lying next to his fallen brother's. Within him a hate rose. A twisting, writhing flame that ground up through his gut like a coiling worm. He stared at the mocking blue eyes, the tip of his blade digging into the barrel of the gun numbly. "Soon.", he whispered, and shifted the knife to gouge a little deeper.

***

     Emma blinked her tired eyes against the pouring sunlight that sliced into the room. Cuts of the orange brilliance wedged the air in long rectangles, hitting the corner mirror and casting a kaleidoscope of color over the dark wooden walls. She didn't move. Her body was curled under the blanket that had been pulled up over the side of the bed and around her, tucked in with loving care to cradle her exposed shoulders.

     She let her eyes wander to the door and could catch the briefest glimpse of the left side of Dutch as he worked with his back to her. He wore his dark dress pants and the dress coat over his long shoulders as he swayed in front of the little square bellied stove. Was he humming? Yes, he was.

     Smoke trailed from the thick cigar in his left hand as he stirred something on top of the stove cheerfully. The smells hit her then. Thick pork feathered in grease and soft spongy yellow eggs fluffing against the pan he toiled with just out of her sight. He was cooking for her. She didn't even know the man could cook.

     After all the months in the camp and fruit or stew being the only things she had eaten by Pearson's hand, who'd a known that the distinguished handsome leader could actually fend on his own. She watched him quietly.

     His strutting movements swayed back and forth with his hum as he cooked and paused to look outside now and again at the cheddar sun bouncing off the lakes still ripples. He seemed.... happy. But why? She had positively revolted against him last night. Fighting him to where he knew he had to hold her down just to touch her. And for what? Just to receive her shivering crying face in his arms against his warm chest in a cascade of self-loathing.