The Wastes- Chapter 4: ...But now They're just called cops.
#4 of The Wastes
So here it is, the thrilling conclusion to last night's episode! Kidding, its not over yet. Hope you enjoy it!
In retrospect, the job would have gotten done just as well if Nicholson had fired just once. The Hunter's body was slumped back in a pool of its own blood, which had begun to seep into the dust and dry into a dull brown color. Six ragged red tears in his shirt marked where the bullets had entered and done their work on the man. The gunslinger had fired off all the rounds in his gun, losing a fight with himself after the second round left the barrel. After that point, it had been an angry and vengeful blur to him. By the time the third round had ejected bloody white bits of the Hunter's spine out of the back of his shirt, the child whom he had taken hostage had fled back into the crowd. The boy (a mutie) was now clinging to the leg of a slumped old woman dressed in a derelict and dirty dress, who was crooning soft words to calm the child down.
Nicholson and the bartender now stood over the body, examining what was left to see. The gunslinger hunkered down and scooped the man's weapon from the dust. It was nothing too fantastic, just an old .22 handgun, hardly enough to kill somebody. Even the townsperson who had gotten shot in the arm was making a quick recovery from the aid of a little fix-up. The drifter stood again and clicked the safety of the weapon on, the proceeded to eject the clip and dismantle the rest, stowing parts he could use away in his bag.
After staring for quite some time, the crowd began to mill around again, murmuring to each other and themselves. The bartender grabbed under the arms of the dead man, and asked Nicholson for a hand. The gunslinger complied and grabbed the Hunter's feet. They lugged him off to the other side of the interstate and then left the body for the buzzards. Before they left back toward the settlement, the bartender turned and held out his hand to Nicholson, offering to shake. The barkeep looked far less jolly now than he had when they first met. His clothes were dusty and smeared with the dead man's blood, and glints of broken glass sparkled from his hair and beard.
"S'pose I ought to thank you," The bartender said, still holding out his hand. "I'm pretty confident that I wouldn't be here to talk if ya hadn't intervened." Nicholson shook and nodded his response, still keeping quite. "M'name's Charles." The bartender announced, withdrawing his hand again and setting off toward the truck stop again. As they walked, he continued talking while the gunslinger picked bits of dried blood from the fur on his arms (He had taken off his duster to carry the body and it was now hanging on the open door of the bar back at the truck stop). "You still go by Nicholson, then?" Charles asked. Not looking up from his arm, the gunslinger responded.
"Closest I been to a name thus far. Been called many things in between, though."
"Like what?" Charles quipped.
"People who know me long'nuff to name me usually gravitate toward Jesse, like tha' old west outlaw. Sounds odd, but it's always the same, believe it if it suits 'ya." At this the barkeep Charles let out a hearty chuckle, now seeming to be back to his old self, and clapped a hand on Nicholson's back (The gunslinger's right hand dropped to his hip where his gun was slung in an involuntary reflex, but then relaxed).
"Jesse Nicholson!" Charles continued his jolly laugh, holding his round stomach. "Sounds damn well like an old-fashioned desperado if I ever heard one!"
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By the time the gunslinger (Whom Charles had insisted on calling "Jesse" from then on) and the barkeep got back to the other side of the highway where the town was set, the blood had been swept or hidden and everything was back to business as usual. The pair stopped outside of the bar, and Nicholson plucked his duster from the door where it hung and pulled it back on, shrouding him once again into an enigmatic person.
Charles turned to him, propped against the scabbed and chipped stucco wall outside the home-made bar.
"You figure on stayin here for a time? Folks could use a decent bit of protection, may even pay you for it." He said casually, but behind his words were the feelings of prying hope. Nicholson pulled his hat from his head and scratched behind his only ear, raising brown dust from his fur in the process.
"Suppose that all depends. You have issues like that," The gunslinger gestured toward the stretch of road where the Hunter had been, "often?" Charles shook his head and leaned his full back on the wall, looking out at the town through aged and weathered eyes.
"Nothing that extreme, to be fair to ya. What problems us most would be them marauders and bandits. Come through here on the whim of an easy plunder, and most the time they get exactly what they came for." Charles waved an open palm at the settlers who shuffled between the shacks and lean-to's that dotted the town. "These people don't 'zactly have the means to protect th'selves, and could'n dream of putting up a workable offensive. There are the occasional heroes, o'course. There's always somebody who is ready to lay down their own for the sake of others. But you, of all people, ought to understand how guddamn difficult it is tah get along in the wastes. Nothin is free any more, not even the water we drink." The gunslinger recalled the emphasis that was heard when the bartender had offered him a FULL glass of water and nodded slightly, looking down at the dirt between his boots as if pondering the vast intricacies of life. Charles shifted his weight and made to move back into the bar, finishing the conversation with a final statement.
"Reckon this town could use another hero, even for a short spell."
Back inside the bar, Charles had resumed his usual position behind the counter, and was serving a mug of dull purple slop to a customer. Nicholson followed him after a minute or so, in which time he had been mulling over what the jolly round bartender had said. Before he was able to enter the bar, however, he felt something tug on his faded and sun bleached jeans, just below the knee. The gunslinger looked down at the disturbance and found himself staring right into two large brown-rimmed eyes which stared up at him widely from behind a long angled muzzle and wet nose. A young mutie was pulling on the leg of his pants, attempting to get his attention.
The boy looked to be about nine or ten years old, and was wrapped in what appeared to have once been a pillow case, but had since been re-designed into a shirt by the skillful hands of a mother. He wore faded brown cargo pants that were a bit too long, and extended past his feet, where they became dusty grey and mangled of spending most of their time dragging along the ground. His pillow case shirt dangled higher in the back, where it was lifted slightly by the mutie's black and sandy brown tail that carried itself high in the air (A trait only seen in the young'uns, as age causes tails, among other things, to sag). His head was coated in a short bristly layer of black fur, and a rich brown patch ran down his neck and along the middle of his head. His jowls hung just slightly and all his skin seemed to as if it didn't quite fit just right yet. Any dog enthusiast or even owner could have seen right away that this boy was certainly a German shepherd pup, plus humanoid characteristics.
The pup was wringing his hands now, still staring up at the gunslinger with its wide brown eyes. It was then that Nicholson recognized him: This was the mutie whom the Hunter had taken hostage. The drifter attempted to give him a smile (Not one of his strong suits, mind you).
"What ails you, pardner?" Asked the gunslinger, attempting to sound welcoming as opposed to his usual stand-offish drone. The boy stared up at him a moment longer and then spoke in a voice almost too quiet to hear.
"Nothin sir, jus been sen' over to say thankya by my mah." The shepherd was still wringing his hands slowly, and was looking around awkwardly. Nicholson spotted a full-grown shepherd mutie some distance off, wearing the waste "robes" and sporting several patches of missing fur as a mutation side-effect. She was watching the child intently, and nodded. The gunslinger saw the boy react to this and turn back toward him, backing up a step.
"So... thankya kindly fer the help, from me and my ma." At this the pup scampered off back to his mother, stumbling once on his homemade pants as he went. The gunslinger felt the touch of a real smile tug at the corners of his mouth. He turned and strode into the bar, whistling to catch Charles' attention as he did.
"Alright son, I'll keep an eye on 'er town for a bit."