Chapter Text
=• Part 1 •=
They first laid eyes on each other on the train out of Blackwater. Bonnie had been seated there in the passenger car with her head leaned against the window watching the folk who embarked after her. Watched the old city ladies in their pastel dresses and derbies and then the priest in his stark livery leading behind him a young and hopeful acolyte as they passed on down the narrow aisle on the way to their seats and she listened briefly to their conversations, picking up gossip as it came, though the brunt of her concern was with the satchel resting in her lap. She opened the cover and peered inside and quickly closed it again as if she looked too long the contents might vanish. A handful more migrant workers and travelers sat down about her and she stared out the glass at the city and at the dark waters beyond as the ferry chugged out of view first behind the rooftops then beyond the lakeside cliffs. A fireapple red automobile glided slowly down the cobbled streets and men on horseback stepped around it and turned in their saddles to watch it pass by.
Her mind had begun to drift and she nearly failed to notice that a hush had fallen over the compartment. No one was talking. She glanced around and saw that nearly everyone was looking at the back of the car. She turned her head and then beheld a woman that was unlike any woman she had seen before. She was dressed much like a man, clad in pants tucked into tall boots and she wore a thigh-length coat over a waistcoat and collared shirt. A faded Stetson rested atop her head and everything about her was dark: dark-haired and dark-eyed and dark-skinned enough to stand out in an assemblage such as this. She was heavily armed. There was a knife and a revolver hanging at her hips and a hunting rifle and bandolier slung over her back. At either side of her were two men in linen suits and bowler hats and they followed her until she sat down a couple of rows behind Bonnie on the opposite side of the aisle. One of the men muttered a few words to her and then they took their leave from the car. The woman never looked at her escorts nor spoke to them and once they were gone she crossed one leg over the other with her ankle resting above her knee and glared out across the compartment at the gawkers, her expression confrontational. Folk were quick to look away. One of the old ladies began to fan herself and some shifted in their seats, some pulled their belongings closer to themselves. The woman silently regarded them all the while. Eventually her gaze swung around to meet Bonnie's and she studied her from under the brim of her hat. Bonnie offered a small and courteous nod but the gesture was not returned. The train whistled to them and billowed smoke about the windows, lurching forward slightly on the tracks and Bonnie turned back in her seat, her eyes averted but her interest piqued. She chanced another glance but the woman was no longer looking at her and instead was staring at a fixed point beyond the window, sight and mind far away from those diffident passengers poised so nervously about her.
They left the station and traversed rolling grasslands and a narrow swath of pine. Elm trees solitary out on the viridium plains and blackfoot daisies lining the roadsides. Travelers rode alongside the tracks, racing the train along the edge of the county as it dived headfirst into a vivid and ancient wilderness and then through a corridor of spruce and burgundy ferns. Towering pine and cedar and the Ambarino mountains looming pale blue not so far to the north. The city and all traces of civilization as they knew it vanished behind them and into the distance. Conversation slowly picked back up. The prim old ladies gossiped of politics and Indians and the priest discussed hell and damnation and salvation with his rapt audience of one. Grim talk all around. They crossed the falls and rolled past the MacFarlane Ranch and into a tunnel through the mountains, the car dimming and the shadows from the lamps along the rock shifting strange and geometric across their faces and when they emerged they were looking out over a bleak expanse dominated by huge saguaro that stood upright like crude effigies with arms outstretched towards a sky so uniform in its blueness that it looked to be painted so. In the far western distance was a raw-looking mountain range that sprawled towards the southern border to Mexico from which juniper trees grew out the seams of cliffs layered blue and red and orange and yellow, striations in the rock dripping waxlike towards earth. Horse trails fanned out over the desert like thin white rivers and serpentined up the switchbacks. With the right eyes one could see in the unforgiving terrain and in the aggressive vibrance of the sky that this land had seen centuries of bloodshed harkened back to the fireless nights of bone clubs and war-chants.
They left the mountain pass behind them and as the train began its descent into the flat of the region it seemed to pull the sun down with it. The western edge of the sky turned scarlet and gold-rimmed clouds sat before a sun that pulsed heavily above the peaks. The train slowed and screeched and finally settled at the small settlement of Armadillo in the true heart of New Austin. Bonnie stood up and looked behind her to find the woman already gone. She stepped off the train and caught sight of her just as she passed through the swinging doors of the saloon with many faces looking after her. Even when counted amongst the strange wayfarers that sometimes passed through this town no folk around these parts had likely seen anything quite like her before.
Amos had the wagon at the outskirts of town stood up next to the stagecoach and he glanced at the satchel in Bonnie's hands and nodded his head. "Miss MacFarlane."
"Amos. Everything alright at the ranch?"
"Same as you left it ma’am."
She climbed up and sat down. The woman left the saloon following a man that Bonnie recognized but could not name, the piano tinkling behind them and into the street. They both mounted up and rode out of town heading west. They crossed in front of the wagon and crossed the tracks and Bonnie watched after them. The train whistled and began its slow crawl forward once more and then hid the riders from her sight as they disappeared into the desert.
======•======
The next morning Bonnie and Amos drove together to Ridgewood Farm to the west of Armadillo in order to appraise a stud for purchase and on the way home the road they followed looped up into the feral territory of Rio Bravo to circle those wild hills where both held rifles over their laps and watched the wilderness on either side of the trail. Little dark wolves trotted in the shadows under the ridge and the horses snuffled nervously. Buzzards circled high and slow above them. The wagon crested a low incline and over the edge they caught sight of the whitewashed walls of the bandit stronghold Fort Mercer and Amos clucked the horses up. The sun was still low and the sky was a dusty navy under the cloud-cover from which shone splashes of pink and orange. Bonnie noticed a dark shape ahead on the side of the road before the gate and studied it, thinking it a shadow. As they neared she saw it was a body.
"Amos, look."
Amos squinted. He slowed the horses. "The hell."
"Stop up there. They might be hurt."
"Ma'am if you had any sense you'd be tellin me to hightail it out of here. It might could be an ambush."
"Amos."
"We're gonna get our dumb asses shot," he said. But he kept going, trotting the horses cautiously down the road where the fort stood still and silent as if abandoned. No sentries at the gates or snipers peering over the high walls. The woman from the train was laying on her back where she seemed to have fallen, a trail of dark and dry blood running thin into the road and there was more blood splattered closer to the gate. Amos halted about ten feet from where she lay and hid the wagon and the horses behind the ruins of a bullet-riddled stone wall. Bonnie immediately dropped down off the bench and hurried towards her. Amos cursed at her under his breath and followed, aiming his rifle at the fort, menacing the top of the wall in case any of the bandits within chose that unfortunate moment to poke his head out.
Bonnie crouched down beside her and found a small hole in her coat from which blood had bloomed and ran out her shirt. Her face was pale beneath the dust. Bonnie carefully placed her hand on her chest and had to wait a long moment to feel it rise slightly, the breath that followed labored and short.
"Amos," she hissed. "Amos, she's still alive. Get over here."
Amos cursed again and scurried over and handed Bonnie the rifle. He bent down to pick the woman up and slung her over his shoulder to lift her into the wagonbed. Bonnie climbed in behind and held steady pressure against the wound with an empty burlap sack while blood slowly seeped up to coat her palms. The woman did not stir.
They brought her back home and laid her on a cot in one of the vacant ranch-hand lodgings. She had lost some blood and the bullet had likely put a crack or two in her ribs but she was alive and would stay so. Amos had glanced at her in the back of the wagon on their way back and shook his head like he could not understand quite what she was.
"Don't know why the hell we bothered with that. I mean, look at her. What the hell kind of woman goes knockin at the doors of wanted murderers."
Still, Bonnie had attended to her, checking often to see if she had woken up. She was interesting to her, novel and ambiguous, and she had questions she wanted to ask. Bonnie had known and heard of plenty of men who walked the path of violence but not many women, and after she had properly seen the stranger with her bloodied clothes stripped from a body that bore the scars of an unlucky life she knew this was a violent woman and because of this she always entered the cabin cautiously. For all Bonnie knew she had gone to Fort Mercer seeking trouble and had in turn been met with it. But she could not help but wonder the circumstances that would have guided her towards such a choice and such an outcome.
By the following morning the stranger had awoken. Bonnie had cracked the door open to find her with one hand pressed gingerly to the bloodied bandage wrapped around her waist, still laying flat on her back. She cleared her throat to announce her presence but the woman hardly glanced at her before turning her eyes back to the ceiling. Bonnie frowned at this rudeness but bit down her ire and took one small step in.
"Well, you're alive."
The woman still did not turn. She raised her arms and regarded her hands as if to appraise that each limb and digit still remained in proper order. If she was surprised to find herself in a place she had no prior notion of or if she was relieved by her continued existence she did little to indicate it. "So it seems," she said.
Bonnie took another step inside and closed the door behind her. "How do you feel?"
"I'm afraid I don't know the polite word for it."
Bonnie raised an eyebrow. "Stupid is the word we use round here. What were you doin?"
The woman leaned her head over and finally looked at her. Bonnie had studied the ragged scars across the dip of her cheek and had thought then that the woman must have been mauled by an animal, maybe a wildcat. But there were many others that were straight and deliberate. Man-made marks, the circular remnants of bulletholes here and there. She was striking, even with the scars and likely because of them, her features sharp and her eyes quick and without much warmth but none of the meanness she had borne on the train warped her countenance as she studied Bonnie. The woman turned away again and grimaced as she sat up. "Hell if I know what I was doin. Somethin stupid, if I had to guess."
Bonnie's lips quirked and she leaned back against the door. "Well, you'll be okay. Once you didn't die the doctor said you'd be fine. Got the bullet out a couple days ago."
"Good."
Bonnie nodded at her. "Never thought I'd watch someone nearly bleed to death in the back of my wagon."
The woman glanced down at her hands and raised one to push her hair out of her face. "I apologize for the inconvenience. You should've left me there to die."
There was nothing in her tone to indicate she was jesting and Bonnie eyed her dubiously. "Is that what you wanted? Is that why you rode right out to Fort Mercer and picked a fight with the most dangerous bandit in the county, Miss...?"
The woman looked up again and then stood slowly. She was tall, wiry. She held out a hand. When Bonnie took it in hers she felt callouses on her fingers from years of them being wrapped around a pair of reins.
"Marston," the woman said. "Jacklyn Marston."
Bonnie nodded. "Bonnie MacFarlane. Miss Bonnie MacFarlane."
"Well, Miss MacFarlane. You may be right." She paused and slightly tilted her head, eyes fixed on Bonnie's face. "You were on the train."
"I was."
"I thought I recognized you."
"Why were you really up at Fort Mercer?" Bonnie asked.
Jacklyn considered the question and waited a moment before choosing her answer. She began to look about the little cabin, scouting out her belongings. "I was giving Mr. Williamson a chance, for old times sake."
"You know Bill Williamson?"
She picked up her bloodied waistcoat folded at the bedside table and buttoned it, wincing as it pulled around her bandage. "Used to. Long time ago now."
Bonnie studied her. Hard to tell if she looked old enough for there to have been a long time ago but this land aged people in strange ways and time passed even stranger so she did not question it. "How'd you know him?"
Jacklyn pursed her lips. "We have a bit of a history. Nothin too pretty."
A guarded response. Someone else may have realized that this was a subject she did not wish to speak of but Bonnie was as relentless as her curiosity. "What was he like?"
"Angry and stupid. Nothin's changed."
She slowly shrugged the black coat over her shoulders and looked around for the rest of her possessions. Bonnie nodded at the trunk where her hat rested. "Well, Miss Marston, what will you do now?"
"Now I'll take my time, and go after him the less kind way."
"Are you trying to arrest him? Is that what you're doin here?"
"I'm not the law of any kind, ma'am."
"Are you a bounty hunter?"
Jacklyn contemplated the term. She let out a little surprised laugh as if at a joke. "In a way, I suppose that's what I am now."
"How does a woman end up in an occupation like that?"
"Good aim and bad luck," said Jacklyn, and that was that.
Bonnie's eyes narrowed. This interrogation had left her with more questions than answers but Jacklyn seemed unwilling to dispense more than the absolute vaguest of responses so she discontinued her line of questioning. For the time being.
"Well, if you're lookin for something to do in the meantime while you're healing up, you could help me round the ranch," said Bonnie. "Could use someone to come along for a quick patrol along the perimeter later, we've seen some people sneakin around here at night recently. You could work off a bit of the money we paid the doctor to dig that bullet out of you and it'll give you a chance to get your bearings. Otherwise, you can stay here as long as you need."
Jacklyn placed her hat upon her head and nodded as if satisfied with her completeness. "I'm more than happy to help. Least I could do to repay you."
"Well, I won't turn down free labor," Bonnie teased. "I'll be frank though, you're gonna get stared at. Strange enough for some of these men to have a woman as the boss round these parts, they won't know what to do with themselves when they lay eyes on someone like you."
Jacklyn nodded. "I'm used to it, ma'am. I'll try not to be a distraction."
Bonnie dipped her head and turned to give her privacy.
"Miss MacFarlane?"
She stopped and turned. Jacklyn was watching her with a flinty gaze that gave away little but her voice was gentler and less guarded when she spoke again. "Thank you for savin my life. Most folk would've taken one look at me and kept on goin. I may not act as grateful as I should but I owe you a debt and I intend to try and pay it back."
Bonnie nodded. "Just do me one favor, Miss Marston, and try not to lose it so earnestly. Not sure I'll be around the next time you need saving."
"I'll do what I can, ma'am."
Bonnie smiled at her. "And I do appreciate that. Try and take it slow. No need to be in any hurry when you've got a hole in your ribs. I'll be around the big house just down the road if you need anything."
"Yes ma'am."
"And please, call me Bonnie."
"If you'll call me Jacklyn."
Bonnie smiled a little wider as she stepped back outside. "Alright. I suppose that'll do."
Later that same afternoon Bonnie watched from her porch as Jacklyn made her way towards the house, one hand resting on her side. Bonnie lifted her hand in greeting and a curt nod was returned.
"Miss Marston. Back in the land of the living, I see. Just couldn't stand to take it easy like I asked?"
Jacklyn walked up to her porch and placed a boot on the step. A few workmen at the barn and corral watched after her but their attention went unacknowledged. "Thought it was about time I make myself useful," she said. "I believe you had mentioned a patrol earlier."
Bonnie nodded. "Well, I could always use an extra set of hands. Let's get you back in the saddle. Did you have a chance to see the place?"
"Just what I could take in from the walk over."
"Let's go on a quick tour then. You won't be much help if you don't know where anything is. We'll patrol later, at sundown."
Bonnie led her to a pair of horses hitched next to the foreman's office. Bonnie had picked out for her a fine bay mare and Jacklyn sat the horse like she had spent more of life in the saddle than with her boots on the ground. They rode together easily, Bonnie making most of the conversation with Jacklyn listening and surprising her by replying as politely as any gentlewoman would. Bonnie soon found that her initial mistrust and even fear of her had been misplaced.
"You should know, Miss Marston, when I first saw you on the train you looked like you were sent in there to massacre the whole car. Unsettled the whole lot of them, you did."
Jacklyn chuckled. "My apologies if I unsettled you. I wasn't in the best of moods for that ride, I'm afraid."
"Who were those men with you? Looked like government men."
"I suppose you could call them my employers. I say that with reluctance but it doesn't really change much. I work for them regardless."
Bonnie nearly pried further but caught herself. Jacklyn's expression had clouded and Bonnie decided to change the subject, filing away that line of conversation for later. "How about we rest a bit? We can sit in the parlor and talk a while before headin back out. You look like you could use a drink."
Jacklyn dismounted her horse, tenderly holding her side. She nodded up at her. "I'd like that, Miss MacFarlane."
She rolled her eyes. "Call me Bonnie."
They went inside. Bonnie brewed them coffee and added a quick pour of rum to Jacklyn's mug.
"Thank you, ma'am," she said as she took the offering from Bonnie's hands, smiling to herself when she tasted it. "Have to say, I can't remember the last time I encountered such hospitality. And this is fine property. You run this place on your own?"
Bonnie sat down across from her. "My father owns the land. You'll meet him at some point. He's visiting an old friend of his in Strawberry. Mother died from illness when I was a little girl. I had six brothers but only one of them is still alive and he's a big shot banker in New York City. Traded out his saddle for a suit and tie and didn't look back. And Amos is my head ranch-hand. He was there when we found you on the road. But otherwise, yes, it's just me."
"Must be tiring."
Bonnie shrugged. "Can be. Luckily my pa handles most of the bookkeeping. He's gettin a little old for hard labor. But in many ways I'm a woman in a man's world, working a man's job. At least that's what I've been told. When I first started taking over more of the day-to-day operation plenty of the hands fought me on it. Didn't take too long for them to fall in line though. They recognize competence when they see it."
Jacklyn eyed her over her mug. "I get the impression that you can intimidating when you wish to be."
"I'd like to think you mean that as a compliment."
"I do. You give some people an inch and they'll take a mile. Holdin your ground can be difficult. Makin a space for yourself, even more so."
Bonnie tilted her head at her. "I'm sure you know a thing or two about that."
Jacklyn knew she was being baited and shrugged and averted her eyes towards the front window overlooking the road. "A thing or two," she replied, and said no more.
Bonnie sighed through her nose. "I'm going to make myself something to eat. It's been a couple of days since you've had anything, would you care for a sandwich or something?"
"I'd like that, ma'am, thank you."
Bonnie stood and retreated into the kitchen. From the doorway she could see Jacklyn still staring out the window though her mind seemed to be elsewhere. Bonnie watched her a moment longer and then turned away.
She was some time in the kitchen and when she came back out with two plates she found Jacklyn sound asleep, still seated upright in her chair. Bonnie set the plates down and carefully removed the empty mug from Jacklyn's hand. She stood there a moment studying her and then she sighed again and left her alone, closing the curtains as she left the parlor.
"Miss Marston?"
Jacklyn sat up quickly, startled, one hand immediately reaching towards her sidearm. She froze when she realized it was Bonnie standing there in the parlor, watching her with an amused twist to her lips and entirely without fear. She sat back in the chair, dropping her hand and glancing once more out the window, eyes widening almost imperceptibly when she saw how much the world beyond the glass had darkened. "How long?"
"Couple hours," Bonnie said. "You were out before I could even feed you. So much for hospitality."
Jacklyn did not quite look embarrassed but still she rubbed the back of her neck and her expression was contrite. "My apologies Miss MacFarlane, for fallin asleep and for nearly pullin my gun on you. I'm a poor guest."
"It's quite alright. I told you you needed the rest, didn't I? And your trigger itch might come in handy. You might recall me mentionin trouble we've been having with rustlers and other undesirables around the ranch. Will you help me keep watch on the property line this evening?"
"Of course."
"I want to see who is trespassin our land. Best bring your rifle just in case."
"Always do."
Bonnie picked up her own rifle and tossed her head over her shoulder as they made their way to the door. "Let's head out. Country is real beautiful around this time of night."
Mauve sky to the west, the stars thick and pale at the zenith of the heavens where the last light of the sun reddened the edges of the clouds. They looked out towards the horizon across the ranch's pasturelands and they could hear the bellowing of cattle beyond the barn. Thick fields of blue wildflowers and plaingrass that grew waist-high sprawled over the low hills and deer grazed under big oaks along the high ridge of the mountains whose uppermost peaks were cloud-wrapped and faded into the firmament. They sat their horses a moment and just watched. It was Jacklyn who spoke first.
"You're right. It is beautiful."
Bonnie smiled and clucked her horse up. With as exhausting as the ranch could be it was easy to forget how magnificent it was in the right light. "It sure is. Come on then. Keep your eyes peeled. All sorts of strangeness happens after dark round here."
They trotted along the back of the house. At the garden Bonnie cursed and readied her rifle, pointing at the crops. "See that? Rabbits at it again. Help me clear them out, will you?"
Before she had even finished talking Jacklyn had dispatched two of the rabbits from atop her horse, shooting quickly and precisely as they sprinted squealing out of the garden and past the low picket fence, dropping silently mid-leap to the ground as she picked them off. Bonnie watched, calling out encouragement and afterward she sat her horse staring at the lean bodies that littered the rows between her crops. "Hm. Better at shootin rabbits than outlaws, I see."
Jacklyn gave her a look and Bonnie grinned. "I jest. You're a real deadeye. Much better than the men I always see tryin to kill things around here. You'd think they were wanting to make holes in the clouds."
"It does help that I'm no man."
Bonnie laughed. "Sure does. Much obliged for the help. They can be wily critters."
"That they can be."
"I'll have to come by later and fetch them before somethin else does. Haven't had rabbit stew in a long while."
They rode around the back of the property past the shooting range that the hands had set up and past the sandlot where they played horseshoes. Over the flat roofs of the worker's lodgings they caught the soft glow of a cook-fire and muffled voices. Men at rest following the day's labors. Bonnie spurred her horse and cantered ahead into the evening dark. "Let's get going. We've still got plenty of ground to cover. If it's not the rustlers stealin our cattle, it's the rabbits stealin our crops."
Jacklyn glanced back over her shoulder at the bloodied soil in the garden, the newly mended fenceposts where thieves had previously sent stolen livestock crashing through. "Not easy makin a living on the land like this. Perhaps you should move to a big city. Become a lady of leisure."
"You think so? Think I should get me some fancy dresses and feathered derbies? Maybe become one of those women who sit around all day in their wealthier friend's salons playing cards and fanning themselves?"
"That's an oddly specific image."
Bonnie shook her head. "I've gotten enough correspondence from my high-falutin brother to know it's not so far from the truth."
"I think it'd suit you just fine."
Bonnie's reply was cut off by small black shapes that cut a low path across the grass and disappeared yelping into the corral where the horses called out fearfully and circled around the fenceline in the dark.
"Coyotes. Come on. Let's catch them up before they get to the chicken coop."
Jacklyn spurred her horse up alongside her and they cleared the corral fences easily and pushed their way through the gates. The coyotes were at the coop and already there was snarling and a scuffle between them and the chickens. Gunfire was soon general between her and Bonnie and a couple of laborers nearby as they methodically slayed coyotes, their yelps and the popping of jaws a sharp counter to the rolling boom of the rifles. A ranch-dog had engaged in a bloody tug-of-war with one of the varmint, the chicken limp between their teeth. Several of the coyotes were felled and the survivors of the ragged pack slunk off into the shadows howling with the dogs right behind.
Bonnie appraised the carnage from atop her horse. A few chickens lied in piles of scarlet feathers and their blood and the blood of the coyotes was splattered thinly over the dirt. "Shame we lost any of them. Guess it could've been worse though. I know I said it earlier but you're a good shot with that rifle."
Jacklyn had dismounted and led her horse over, rifle still poised loosely in one hand. She shifted it and slung it back over her shoulder and it looked like a movement she had done countless times before. "It's somethin I have some experience with."
"I don't doubt it. Seems to me that Bill Williamson might've just gotten lucky."
"He wasn't even the one that shot me. Luck didn't come into it. Just cowardice."
They walked back over to Jacklyn's cabin, Bonnie still atop her horse. "You know, you'd be a useful woman to have round the ranch. Not to mention you offer a bit of variety from what I'm used to seeing around here."
Jacklyn laughed. "I suppose I do."
"Are you from somewhere where there are more women like you? Walkin around dressed like assassins and armed to the teeth, I mean."
"No. I doubt that many women have circumstances all that similar to mine though. And if they do, I'm sure they've found better ways to cope with them."
"You'll have to tell me about it sometime."
"We'll see."
Bonnie held her tongue, knowing that was all she would get from her that evening. "Thank you again for the help, Miss Marston. Makes me think that you were perhaps worth the fifteen dollars it took to save you. Get some sleep. I'll see you in the morning."
Jacklyn hitched her horse and tilted her chin at Bonnie. "Goodnight Miss MacFarlane."
Bonnie watched her disappear into the blackened interior of the cabin and shut the door and she rode off shaking her head, the corners of her lips curling upward on their own volition.