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Two tall Texans came riding into town at sunset, the way they so often did.
As the grit of the plains muffled to the dirt of streets under their horses’ hooves, they slowed, their eyes narrowing to closer focus.
To their left, a smith hammered on a horseshoe, an apprentice standing attentively by. To their right, two wool dyers were hanging skeins to dry. Down a side lane, someone was painting window shutters a cheery green. Ahead in the golden light, a small crowd sat chatting outside a general store.
The two drifters’ eyes met for just a moment - no, a moment just a little longer than that - before looking square ahead again. The glance was gratuitous, they knew they were already thinking the same things; but that glance belonged just there, all the same.
It was the final verse of looks they'd been exchanging over the past few hours.
The country they’d traveled through had been peaceful. People were at work, the lands they were tending their own, as far as could be told. As the afternoon drew on, there were children, let out from school, playing and laughing. They’d seen a woman sitting on a fence, looking up at clouds. A man in his thirties picking wild berries while humming a tune. A lady quarreling kindly with two hogs refusing to get out of the cool, muddy ditch.
And not all of them were white. The lady quarreling with the hogs looked Chinese. Several of the farmers, and of the people round the store now here in town, were Black or Mexican. The woman on the fence had looked Irish. About the smith, they just couldn’t tell.
They turned down mainstreet.
From the porch of the sheriff’s office - booted feet crossed up on the railing, chair at a daring angle - a man looked up. He pushed his hat back, revealing tousled blond curls.
He watched as they rode closer. He wasn’t wearing a star. There were two sixshooters on his hips, but his hands held a book on his lap. Black jeans, dark shirt, tan vest; he was cleanshaven, and handsome; his gaze was sharp as a knife. He tilted his head a fraction.
“Hey, Sheriff,” he called over his shoulder, the way you'd call your kids in for tea and cake.
The two Texans held in their horses, a pinto and a sorrel, shoring up for a sheriff.
A Black man walked out of the sheriff's office. He was even handsomer. Well swagged, one gun, tin star shining on a fancy shirt. He grinned, crossed his arms, and leaned back comfortably against one of the porch posts.
“Well now. Welcome to Mercy Springs, gentlemen.”
The Texans stared, and Bill was coming up with a reply, when the smiling sheriff went on amiably:
“Now, just so we all don’t get off on the wrong foot, do you prefer to be referred to as ‘The Lone Star Hellions,’ or ‘The Texas Hellraisers’?”
Bill held his reins as tightly as he could without spooking his horse. “Neither, Sheriff,” he bit out. “We never go lookin’ for trouble.”
“But when we find it, we end it quickly,” Ben muttered.
“See, that is what I keep hearing about you, in among all the wilder stories.” The sheriff chuckled and pushed his hat up. “Jim here even met a feller who swore to you fellers’ good characters in person.”
“And who would that be?” Bill challenged the blond man.
“Tyree Garfield,” was the calm reply.
The Texans sat back onto their saddles, hands relaxing.
“And d’you reckon old Tyree would vouch for you?”
“Fairly certain even Zelda and their girls would. In fact, Tina sent me this book.”
“Wait a moment,” Bill said, gaze drifting to the man’s two sixshooters. “Your name’s Jim?”
“It is.”
Ben looked at Bill, then at Jim. “The Waco Kid?”
Jim grinned. “No offense, but you need glasses if you still wanna call me a kid.”
The two vagabonds dismounted and walked up to the porch.
“Then I guess that makes you Sheriff Bart,” Bill said.
“Ours ain’t the only names traveling far,” Ben added. They both held out their hands.
Bart smiled brightly. “Well then, well met by sundown, gentlemen.”
They all shook hands, and sure, there was some seeing whose grip was the hardest and suchlike, but they all shook hands.
“Mercy Springs, huh?” Bill said, pushing back his own hat.
“Till we come up with something better,” Bart said.
“No, it’s good,” Ben muttered, leaving his hat where it was, hooking his thumbs in his belt.
“Now generally,” Jim said, “you two showing up would mean there’s trouble brewing we’re gonna need your help with. Did you see any while you were comin’ up?”
Bill and Ben frowned at each other, turned to Bart.
“We told you, Sheriff, we don't go looking for trouble.”
“I know,” Bart answered, “but that is the way the story tends to go, isn't it?”
The Texans shrugged.
“It is, at that,” Bill allowed.
“This feels like mighty peaceful country though,” Ben added.
“One thing I've seen enough times,” Bart said: “some people at peace, other people take affront.”
Bill and Ben cast a longer glance around town, at the unheard-of mixture of people milling round and tipping their hats at each other. A white girl walking with a Mexican boy. A Black woman and a white man, both wearing pants and bowler hats, strolling down a sidewalk discussing the pros and cons of statehood. Two aunties, one Indian and one Chinese, sharing a pot of tea on a porch.
“I believe we see what you mean,” Bill said.
“Far as we know, the way we came we ain't seen the kinda trouble you mean,” Ben said. “Yet,” he added, fair brows drawing together.
“If it's all the same to you, Sheriff,” Bill went on, “we'd not mind putting our boots up for a couple days. Anything does happen, we're at your disposal.”
“You seen somethin’ make you think danger’s in the air?” Ben asked.
“No,” Jim said, and added, in Ben's exact tone: “Yet.”
“‘S just been peaceful just a liiittle bit too long, know wh'I'm saying?” Sheriff Bart said.
“You might not believe this,” Bill said, deadpan, “but yeah, we do.”
Bart and Jim cracked up, and Bill and Ben cracked smiles.
“Tell you boys what,” Bart said. “How ‘bout we get you rooms at the hotel and then me and Jim treat you to supper at the rest-au-rant. We'll tell you all about Mercy Springs.”
“I can tell ya plain,” Bill said, “we ain't never felt as welcomed by a sheriff in any single town before.”
* *
“Only too happy to, Sheriff,” Mrs Tobita said, turning her sunshine smile to the two Texans. “Welcome, gentlemen! Would you be wanting two rooms, one room with two beds, or one room with a large bed?”
Ben froze.
Only because that only left him, Bill forced himself to stammer, voice dry, head somehow held straight, “One room with two beds. Please. Thank you.”
“Of course, thank you sir, please sign here!”
While Bill signed, sheriff Bart said, “How ‘bout we see you at eight of the clock just ‘cross the street?” pretending all the while like Ben wasn't staring into empty space.
“See you at eight, Sheriff,” Bill managed, not looking up, taking the room key he was given and grasping it painfully, bruising his own fingers.
Somehow - grabbing the back of his shirt and hauling, he vaguely recalled - Bill got Ben up to the room and flung him onto one bed, sitting himself on the other only after making very sure the door was locked.
It hung between them, the thing they often, if not always, acted on, but rarely, if ever, spoke about.
“Why would she even - “ Bill began, cut short by Ben’s murmur:
“A large bed.”
They sat quiet. Imagining it. Bill budged over to Ben’s side. After a few breaths, knocked their boots together.
“Think this town could even.” It wasn’t a question, nor a wish; it was an impossible thing. They remembered all the narrow beds, the hard ground under all the bedrolls, the odd, rushed, green prairie meadow.
“Some folks’d reckon things we seen today nastier,” Ben said.
“C’mon,” Bill said, and they walked back down the stairs.
The sheriff and Jim had left.They hung back while Mrs Tobita dealt with a delivery, and then they received the full attention of her smile again.
“Is everything to your liking, gentlemen?” she beamed.
“It’s a very nice room, Ma’am, thank you,” Bill said, and then all in a rush: “But you mentioned something about a room with one large bed?”
“Oh, yes, we have one of those available too!”
“Could … we see it, perhaps?”
The room wasn’t much bigger. The view wasn’t better. But the bed was wide, and the mattress to match.
“I’ve the key right here, in case you’d like to exchange?” Mrs T said. “I’ll fix the paperwork.”
“I think we’d like to, yes,” Bill said. “Thank you, Ma'am.”
“I’ll just go fetch our bags and get the other key back to you, Ma’am,” Ben said.
When he dropped their bags inside the door of the new room, Bill was sitting on the bed, boots already off, working on the buttons of his vest. Ben locked and started unbuckling his belt.
**
“Damn, runt,” Ben stirred. “You set your watch?”
Bill roused, turned to silence the dinging clockwork, then clambered back onto his partner.
“We’re meeting the sheriff at eight, remember?” he grumbled.
Bill was the runt only by virtue of being six foot two to Ben's six foot five and a half, and the way they lay tumbled, it hardly mattered, both tall men sprawled out on the firm, comfortable downs; Bill’s dark head on Ben’s chest, Ben’s leg hooked over Bill, as much of him as it could reach. Ben burrowed his face into Bill’s hair, tightening his arms for a moment, before letting one arm spread out across the mattress, the other hand coming down to rest on Bill’s bum. Bill stretched his legs wide, savoring physical memories.
“A body could get used to this.” Ben didn’t voice it, merely moved his lips into Bill’s mussed hair. Bill snuggled closer.
“Nothin’ ever lasts,” he whispered back into Ben’s collarbone.
“Mm. So what time is it now?”
“Seven thirty.”
“Shit,” Ben drawled, and proceeded to get thoroughly kissed into the wide bed.
**
The blue sign lit by lanterns read “Alice May’s Restaurant”. The building had one saloon to its left and one across the street, and all three establishments were busy with the kind of noise you liked to hear out of such establishments. Of course, the evening, even for a town like Mercy Springs, was young.
The two drifters from Texas pushed open the doors to the rest-au-rant and several townspeople looked up - most noticeably, busy in the middle of the room, a tall lady with piled-up golden brown hair. She wore an amber dress with an apron embroidered in red and copper, and she changed tack towards them at once, smile shining to match the crystal chandeliers.
“Welcome to Mercy Springs, gentlemen!” She drew all their attention, walking towards them, wiping her hands on the apron. “I’m Alice May and this here’s my place.”
The Texans swiftly snatched their hats off.
“Thank you kindly, Ma’am,” Bill said. “I’m Bill Valentine, and this here’s Ben Emerson.”
“You’re Bart ‘n’ Jim’s guests, then! Right this way, come right on.”
The sheriff and the Waco Kid stood for her when the small party reached their table; they already had beers and Bill and Ben accepted Alice May’s offer of the same. Once they’d settled side by side in the two remaining seats, she presented the evening’s specials and all four ordered their food.
The beer was plain excellent and the food even more so; it almost distracted them from conversation, but by coffee and whiskies they had the stories of Bart and Jim’s drifting years after Rock Ridge followed by the founding of Mercy Springs, and had offered some stories of their own.
They had also had more than a few glimpses of casual touches between the sheriff and the gunslinger. Hands brushing over forearms, shoulders or elbows nudging, legs resting against one another. Side glances meeting, lingering, winking.
In contrast, Bill and Ben tried not to glance at each other at all, and certainly not lean towards each other. The looks the other two darted at them were getting noticeably amused by the time Jim refilled their whisky glasses.
“Perhaps this will help,” he said, almost as an aside, more to the sheriff than to them.
“Aw, come on, baby, you know the concept of gaydar will be doubly anachronistic to them,” Bart replied and grinned at his guests. “But I guess you fellas did get a hint by Mrs T’s range of rooms.”
Ben stared at the whorls of the grain of the wood of the table, but the whisky kept him from freezing.
“It’s a very nice hotel,” Bill enunciated, eyes fixed on his coffee cup.
The sheriff kept grinning. “Anyway, being blatant is o’course everyone’s choice for themself. But it could be nice to know you do have the choice. Say, you fellas wanna take in the show at Hillie’s Saloon cross the street? Or you wanna call it an early night?”
“What kind of show?” Bill asked.
Bart’s grin dazzled. “One of a kind.”
**
It started familiar enough. A saloon singer, no better than she should be and the confidence to carry it, in not much of a dress, with the kind of make-up seen only in saloons after dark. The song itself had been a bit peculiar, but the set-up was still recognizable - except, perhaps, that for some reason it made the two tall drifters slightly less uncomfortable than such shows sometimes tended to do.
Four dancing girls joined the stage for the second song. It started out peppy, and they kicked their legs, but the song and the music slowed and mellowed, and to the singer’s honeyed voice the kicks became sinuous arcs, the kick-turns lazy twirls. A second singer came out on stage, adding a deeper voice, and, as the stage lights turned a pale purple, the dancers paired up. In each other’s arms, looking deep in each other’s eyes, the ladies flowed impeccably over the stage, and when the music changed again and the light turned blue, they were joined by more couples.
Bill and Ben sat side by side, staring, barely moving except for taking another swallow of beer. Early on they lost count of whether there were men or women on stage, women dressing as men, men dressing as women, or something else altogether. In addition to the very fluid question of their genders, the performers were also of as multitudinous a variation as the daytime town had been. The music was alien, but not unpleasant. The show was not unpleasant.
At one point, at the end of one long final note, sung and played, the lights went down completely. There was silence for several moments before the lights came up again, pinkish red where before it had followed blue tones, and three singers came on and began a duel, spoken and sung, insulting and mock-praising each other, and it was filthier than anything Bill and Ben had heard on stage - and that was with not even understanding several of the jibes that raised raucous laughter from the audience.
Two other singers came onstage and began putting down the first three, and somehow it turned into more music and song, and then there was more dancing, and then it was beautiful again, and then back to bawdy, followed by more strange music and dancing.
In the darkness beyond the shifting, many-colored lights, in the silence below the music and laughing, Ben reached out to grab Bill’s hand and hold it very tightly for a few seconds, before letting go again.
At the close, with a last singer, champagne glass in hand, crooning a slow French tune to the sole accompaniment of an accordion, they knew without having to discuss it that they would fight to the bone to protect this town from anyone who wished it harm.
Back at the hotel they got their boots off, tumbled into the large bed, and fell asleep immediately.
They made up for it in the morning.