Chapter Text
What do you do when God sends you a body?
You will not expect it. The sky will be clear, and the air will be thin and light. You will be able to taste the rays of golden sun on the tip of your tongue, and smile as the day has blessed you. The world will be at peace. Everything perfect.
So when He rolls a man, the only person you ever cared for, bleeding from his heart, into your arms, what do you do? Do you ask for forgiveness? Do you plead with all your might for it to stop? Was it okay to let Him take a life?
The first time it happened to you, and you looked into God’s hideous, blinking, all-loving eyes, you did not grovel. You did not repent. You fell to your knees and steepled your bloody fingers and made sure He heard every hateful, slandering word that came to mind. Liar. He was a damned, bastard liar.
Had you known what God was planning, you would have never taken His promise of paradise.
They burst inside the cabin. Hooves, carrying horses, carrying men had rumbled into town, guiding through a terrible storm, and bearing news that was even worse.
It was Charles – they said – it was bad. They were shouting, dragging him in by the shoulders through the dark boxy room. Charles’ feet scraped along the floor, his head hung low, his skin the color of cracked mud.
"Alright, now, Charles, you're gonna be alright." Arthur Morgan said as they lifted him onto a pew, laying him down, pulling his snow boots and trousers off quickly.
That was a lie. You could see the death on him, in his sunken eyes and pasty, sweat-addled skin. His breathing was hoarse and desperate. He was wanting more breaths, more time.
Suddenly, with a heavy lantern flame, someone shone light over Charles' body. It was clear to you what had happened: the bleeding cloth around his thigh and the gruesome hole beneath it, weeping thick, black blood...
Charles Smith had been shot.
You were grabbed by the arms and pulled into the crowd. The oppressive heat of everyone’s bodies and Charles’ sweat-slick leg twisted your vision like whiskey in the veins. They told you to hurry; stop the bleeding. Ointments and scrap rags were pushed into your hands, expecting you to use them to save Charles, and someone held that useless gas-lamp right up to his leg so you could see the damage.
The hole was deep. What use were some rags? They could not heal a bullet wound. Bullets fillet the flesh and peel away the cartilage and pop the bones inside like a pumped-up tick. You, nor any actually trained doctor, could save Charles Smith. You would need the magic hands of the Holy Father's son, or God's all-powerful, all-knowing eyes to see how to fix him. You placed your palm to your collar, where the cross sat. God, you bastard.
Charles was moaning — it sounded like your name on his lips. He was in pain as they wrestled his leg to the bed. The wetness on his forehead and his twelve, bared, hissing teeth were more and more of the same empty pleas for help, but you could not fix him.
“Do something, woman!” A chorus of hands pushed you down to your knees next to Charles. He was holding himself firm onto the bench with his hands, waiting for someone to do something, as he searched for the ground and his connection to life.
You were holding the knife in your hands. Your trembling human fingers hovered above the open, crying hole, wishing it would somehow heal before you had to go in and unfold his leg layer by layer. But calling to God was futile as He was laughing.
You began digging.
You picked out the black bits. You soaked up the spitting oil-blood with the scrap rags. You got his sticky flesh under your bitten nails and twisted the blade inside Charles' leg, just the way you remembered it had to be done.
The weight of their eyes were on you, as they fed his deaf ears lies for comfort and squeezed his shoulders and mopped his brow with sweet hands. They could not understand that Charles was a dead man, and you, in his body, were digging his grave.
Charles' laboured breaths swallowed you entirely and the blood poured lovingly into your hands.
It was done. You had crawled away, as far as possible, and did not look back, finding a place beside the hearth. The fire was grey with ash, tickling your nose as it billowed through the chimney. The windowpanes and walls rattled, beating your drunken head like waves on a sea bed.
Everyone else had withdrawn to their own anxious groups, muttering to each other. You could read their lips: how lucky that Charles got back in time; how lucky they had someone to fix him up. They must not have heard Charles still grunting or seen his hollow eyes. He was far from fixed. You sliced his stringy veins at least twice, and the blood — the thick, viscous blood — had not stopped spewing.
The first time it happened, you were told there was no use. Stop digging. Put the knife down, even after you had unravelled his gut. He wanted you to read him a verse instead.
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.”
What a joke.
You drank the last drops of whiskey bitterly, swirling it around your gums and licking your raw, bitten lips. One quarter left - it was not enough to get you dead-drunk. Unfortunately, someone found the bottle where you had stashed it behind the mantlepiece, and gave over half to Charles. Most of it was wasted down his throat, in fact, more-so up his nose, and in his eyes, before you managed to snatch it back. That was about four nights' worth of peace and today's worth of medicine. Without your fill, you could still hear and see and know who and what was looking at you, and remember what awful feeling it was to have your hands playing with Charles' life.
Many of the other gang members, despite being victims to their own vices, were extremely disapproving of the drunken doctor. Not everyone knew about it — only those with the power to leave you to get rid of you, like the gang leader, Dutch Van der Linde. You tried to hide it most days, but after all that 'fixing' you'd done, you thought you deserved a pass. It was only fair. Charles Smith had just put you through Hell.
However, there was one particular person burning a hole in the base of your skull. She had been since that morning. You knew whose eyes they were — eyes so familiar that you could draw them in the stars.
It was Abigail Marston. She had such dark, lovely, loving eyes. Her eyes were overflowing with love and passion. She looked upon her son, Jack, as if he were the most precious pearl to have landed in her hands; she laughed and cried as though she would never laugh or cry again. She indulged every emotion when you were together.
You thought you knew her eyes well — how deep the ocean went. You had swam in them many times since; always turbulent, to match her feistiness. Through her passionate ruminations about how much she adored and yet could not stand the father of her child, John Marston, and the torn gaze she often gave you over the camp fire, after the laughter had settled and both your cheeks were hot with alcohol, Abigail’s eyes became one of your favorite places to see.
However, having broken the last of her trust, the current turned on you. She would never look at you the same way.
You wanted to turn around and look properly at her face to see if you were wrong. Maybe she was looking with love — a pitying love. You weren't always right about people’s eyes no matter how many years of practice you’d gotten. You hoped she was the exception. Maybe the thrashing ocean was her tumultuous, feeling heart being torn to shreds and she wanted to make amends. If you did lock eyes, would the waters have stilled?
You turned then, against your better judgment. Even if she damned you to Hell, you wanted to see her one more time. But it was not Abigail who you saw.
All of sudden, Miss Grimshaw, the round-up lady of the gang, was towering above you with her wide frame. She was standing akimbo, so closely that the rest of the room was obscured, making your skin jump.
“How’s he looking?” She asked, discretely, with her gravely voice, not looking at you.
And thank God. You slid the whiskey bottle behind your back quickly, and turned fully towards her. She was one of the people who did not take too kindly to your habits, and you were not in the mood for another one of Grimshaw’s telling-offs. Yet, it seemed the Charles situation had ruffled even the toughest of them. By the lingering Woodbine cigarette smoke and great outdoors air still clinging to her clothes, you could tell she had just returned from a nervous smoke.
“He’s lookin’ better, that’s for sure.” You said with little conviction. It was more important in that moment to sound non-drunk. Only, it made her scoff.
Susan Grimshaw never did like you. She liked you even less than any of the others; even less than Abigail, who Miss Grmshaw was still shooting daggers at across the room, making your skin crawl. In fact, Miss Grimshaw had such a history of hating you, that you could make poetry out of her endlessly, insulting wordsmanship: she once proclaimed that 'if there ever was a more clabbered milk bucket, it would be you', whatever that meant. Her words didn't hurt, but she was still a frightening old woman. She absolutely would, if she could, have cut out your tongue on several occasions, being even less fond of your sarcasm than your face
What else was to be expected from a veteran gun-slinging outlaw? But in that very moment it did you well to take her seriously.
You restarted, catching her eye and mustering up some assurance on your very threatened tongue.
“He’ll hold.” You said, quite firmly, hoping she couldn't smell your bitter, alcohol breath.
But Susan Grimshaw was quick. She had the most pinching snake eyes in the West, deadlier than a diamondback, and spotted your dilated pupils by their sheer audacity. She grew red in the face.
“He better hold.” She said, circling you in one step and snatching the bottle from behind your back. People were looking; you could tell by the sudden lull in the room, and that the storm outside was deafening; swelling like a wet cold in your ears.
God was having a great time playing with you that day.
She got in real close to your face then, so you could smell her halitosis and feel spittle from her lip on your cheek as she said, “And if he don’t, you’ll wanna start counting the days, Lait.”
Luckily for her, you were already counting.
It was no less unfortunate to hear, despite expecting it, that she was assigning you to watch over Mr. Smith and make sure nothing bad came of him. That was, in a sense, the last warning. You were already thinking of excuses, to blame his inevitably worsening condition on factors out of your control, like bad weather or spontaneous combustion. But what was left of this rotten gang, you weren't sure you would have rather stayed, and you were even less convinced that Dutch Van der Linde would let you, in light of Susan’s threats. At least it would finally put an end to the headaches she gave you.
“And don’t let me catch you with another one of these in your hands unless it’s raining pigs," Susan finished, wiggling the bottle in your face for all to see. She simply could not help herself.
You smiled, lips-only, and chose to ignore the awkward glances. If it took pigs falling from the sky to get Susan off your backside, you decided it was better to get caught drinking all your stashed moonshine instead. And if she hadn’t cut out your drunkard tongue then, the camp cook would certainly share one last drink with you after.
Nevertheless, Miss Grimshaw knew there were no pigs in Amabarino. You would starve before they fell from the sky, and, without Charles Smith – the only good hunter in Dutch van Der Linde's criminal posse – that was seeming ever more likely.
When you finally chose to look at Charles, dying slowly and painfully, alone in the corner of the room, the thought of eating made you sick.
The day slowly passed, and you stayed away from him, stoking the fire in the chimney, and counting the hours, and his shallow breaths. He was sleeping, with his brows clenched and his arms wrapped around his body. The bench was too narrow for Charles, whose broad shoulders and thick legs were tentatively balanced across the wooden board. You did feel some pity. Charles looked nothing like the strong, mysterious man he once was.
Two days before, you had your first interaction with him. At the time, Charles was little more than a stranger to you. He was reserved and elusive, and rarely seen around camp, except for when he slipped into the forest to find game meat, or at night when he settled down to sleep. You noticed he was always in the corner of the room, facing the wall, blending into the shadows. Some people called Charles a ‘redskin’, others called him a black man, most of which was conspiracy – Charles never spoke about himself, nor really spoke much at all – leaving you to wonder if his self-isolation was a result of that unfortunate mix. Dutch Van der Linde, the revolutionary that he was, preached equality and freedom, but his devout followers did not all share his sentiment.
Anyhow, that was the very small list of observable things you had gathered about Charles Smith. He was either too far away to read in detail or spoke too little to reveal anything else.
Miss Grimshaw had sent you out with a pile of laundry, and the very useful instructions of ‘get on with it’, so that identifying whose clothes were whose and where the hell to find the owners stretched the day into one steep, mountain hill.
Eventually, last in your pile, his two animal skin gloves cropped up. They were wonderfully tailored, really. It reminded you of a city man’s riding pair: sleek and smooth, padded with a cozy wool lining that tempted you so. You had robbed your fair share of rich folk’s clothing in the past, out of curiosity for what made them so sought after and learned they were really only for show. Charles’ gloves, however, were perfect for hunting hands and you imagined if you slipped them on, they would heat your ice-dry fingers like a wolf-skin coat. You didn’t dare do it though.
Upon arriving at Charles’ spot – the last stop before you could return to the lovely burn of whiskey on your tongue — you said “Laundry,” interrupting him where he was smoking peacefully against an old cabin wall.
His dark bowed hat hid the cold, bright sun from his eyes as he stared through the thick wood of pine. It was the closest you had been yet. At first, the idea was to be done with this silly chore as fast as possible; your skin was prickly with pins and needles and your nose was gathering frost on its tip. You hoped Charles would just take the gloves and go. But upon rounding the cabin, it felt as though you managed to come within reach of a stag in its natural habitat, and not yet spooked it from grazing. You almost regretted it when Charles acknowledged you.
He gave the gloves a sideways glance and released the orange tip of his cigarette from his lips.
“Thought I lost those.” He said. His voice rumbled through you, deeply, like a thunderous waterfall into a twilit lake. It felt good to know that you were right about one thing: Charles was intense.
You swallowed the image of him: strong, sturdy legs, and a torso forged of solid wood; his arms could pop your skull if they squeezed hard enough, and his lips – those plump, color-rich lips – distracted you more than you cared to admit. You hoped it would reveal something new about Charles, but he was ever secretive
“That so?” You spoke, eyeing his unchanging expression. It was becoming clearer that Charles Smith wasn't the sort of feller around whom you could let your guard down. He was not aggressive or showed any sign of mal intent, but he was doing very well at hiding what was behind his eyes. Perhaps it was the lighting — the slowly falling sun was casting a dark shadow beneath his heavy brows, and his eyes were simply black.
Most people served themselves to you on a platter. Of course, the introductions and pleasantries needed sharing before you could crack them open, but it was not long before they showed you what you wanted to see. Either they deemed you so little a threat, or pitied you, or were so riled by your character — whether that be for better or worse — that they became an open book.
Take Miss Grimshaw, who by way of her absolute hatred, revealed in her eyes a brilliant story. She was brought up on the streets, picked her way through many violent gangs and eventually stumbled on Dutch, her past lover (evident by how she willingly rolled over for him like a cat with its legs spread) before sentencing herself to life of tyrannizing a group of outlaws. In fact, it was less a sentence, but a life’s purpose.
Besides the help of some rumours thrown around camp to complete the picture — you were not a mind reader — when Miss Grimshaw got angry and started to feel as though you were beneath her, she let her down. You, a simple drunk, and a poor, pitiable urchin swept off the streets, were no threat.
That was how it went with everybody. So, when you looked at Charles, you expected the same. He was a mighty force to be reckoned with, and no doubt too wise to mistake you for a Jezebel, so he should have shown you something in his eyes. Except, you came up with nothing.
Was he doing it on purpose? Did he see something inside you that was not to be trusted?
You had never dealt with a man like Charles Smith.
You continued, offering him a closer look at the gloves. “Seems like there was a hole in one of them. I reckon someone fixed them up for you.”
With the five meters between you, it was unclear whether Charles could even see them well enough, and you would have preferred it if he quit stalling. By that point, you were ready to call it a day. Your fingers were near numb, no thanks to Miss Grimshaw sending you there, knowing damn well your clothes were not built for the northern winds.
You wished to give her a piece of your mind. Why shouldn't the men fetch their own laundry? Why was it your prerogative as a woman — far from domesticated — to start scrubbing their union suits and folding their shirts into neat little squares?Where you grew up, it was every man and woman for themself. You were quite sure that Susan was, at that very moment, frigging in one of the privies to the thought of you freezing to death.
Finally, he pushed off the wall, and his silent feet began picking up through the snow toward you, closing the distance. You could see it then: Charles was a man built of pure muscle and stone. The nervous girl inside your bones jumped. You had spent many years figuring out the good ones from the bad; Mr. Smith was doing a mighty fine job of keeping you on your toes.
But he did no harm. Instead, his age-worn fingers — thick, and warm — brushed your hands when he took the gloves. He ran his eyes over them, remarking on the stitch work, and it was still unclear what he was thinking, when he eventually put his attention back onto you.
You were shaking like a brittle twig in your thin, wool coat, and flimsy lace-up boots, which after fifteen years of good going were on their last legs. Perhaps Charles was enjoying it. You then thought just to turn and leave, offended that he was making light of your misery, but he cut you off, passing the gloves back to you.
“Nevermind.” He said, not sparing you another glance. “They aren’t mine.”
The smoke on Charles’ breath engulfed you as he left. And you, with your two numb hands and an incredulous look on your face, stood with more questions on your tongue than life had ever pulled from it.
That image of mysterious Charles walking away with his top-hat feather dancing in the wind cycled in your mind. Why did he lie? The gloves were most certainly his — you spent quite some sizing up his hands from a distance, wondering what compelled him to part with something so cozy and well-crafted. Perhaps he realized you were bursting to leave and made a rash judgement in the moment. Maybe Charles would have liked them back.
You peered up from those gloves, which were now floppy over your fingers, and measured the length of his body in the dark blue, evening light. The shadows once again concealed his face from you, and the silhouette of his curious chin, lips, nose, and brows cast the picture of a steepling mountain ridge on the wall beside him.
Long hours of exposure to Mr. Smith were poor for your health. The more you absorbed, the more you wanted for something to wash it down with. You stole a few more gulps of moonshine that night, and shoved the bottle underneath the bathroom floorboards, before returning to bed. You wanted to forget Charles, hoping that when you woke, his suffering had ended.
The sounds of the northern wind kept you up; you rubbed your fingers between the wool bobbles of his gloves to soothe yourself. You imagined the storm’s final airy breaths in the morning, when all the snow had settled and the fell tree branches were buried to rest.
***
Your heart was heavy in your chest when you woke, and your head was pounding. From years of experience, you should have known mixing two drinks would put your body through the ringer. Your arm was numb where it had been wedged between you and the floor — clearly a good night’s sleep — but the sun was there to ease the pain, sitting high above the mountain and warm against your cheeks. It had been months since you were last given the privilege to sleep in and, lying there, following the dust motes with your two sleepy eyes, and puffy cheeks, was a foreign, but welcome feeling. No one was in the house, and in fact it sounded like no one was outside either. Only the hollow wind drifted in through the chimney, drying the drool down your lips. Unfortunately, no quiet moment ever lasted.
Once you felt the sleep melting away, and your more practical mind returning, the silence was no longer welcoming. If it were a regular morning, there would be muffled chatter and shuffling in the streets. Usually, you could hear the horses huffing through the biting cold, or a cart rattling past the window above your head. There was none of that. Only the humming wind.
Instantly, you threw your head toward Charles’ bench where you had left him, but it was empty, marked only by the blood and sweat of yesterday.
Your skin ran cold. If Miss Grimshaw found out, she would skin you like a taxidermy cat and hang you on the mantelpiece.
Then, it dawned on you. The missing Charles Smith was dead, and everyone else was gone. They must have carried him away, wrapped him in the abandoned sheets scattered across the old town and dug him a hole in the snow. Poor Charles Smith.
You rolled over, onto your back, staring at the tilted ceiling. The cross lay heavy on your collar bones.
With it set in stone, you could not muster the energy to feel upset. It was inevitable.
When you did have options, the Van der Linde gang seemed a sour reality. If you stayed, they would eventually be sentenced to hang, or a lifetime of imprisonment, you along with them. But if you left, you were back in the streets. At least there would be no more chores, no more killing, no more dying. You should have stopped trying after the bayou.
If God, for once, was going to relent, He would at least guide you down from the mountains, back to civilization, though your chances seemed grim. You decided for a bit you might stay in the cabin and finish all your moonshine before nightfall. Only, you couldn't imagine finding the resolve to get up and leave.
You rolled back onto your side and stared into the empty room. Only then — you saw movement.
In the corner, hidden beneath Colter’s spring light, was John Marston. The stitches upon his cheek, where the wolves tore his face up a week before, had come loose, and the congealed blood was winking at you. He was still sound asleep on the canopy, and the closer you focused, once the realization hit that John was in fact very much real, you heard him mumbling.
Abigail would never have left John.
You stood up in a blink, and tripped over your feet toward his body.
It was a miracle. But that did not explain the missing body. That did not explain the silence. Maybe the rest went on another mission, seeking revenge for Charles Smith. If he was indeed dead, then they were coming back soon, ready to tell you your sorry fate. And Abigail would be with them. If you could see her deep, ocean eyes just one more time, it would be good enough for you. You might even thank God.
Then that the front door swung open with the force of the wind, petrifying you at John’s bedside. Abigail was standing in the entrance. Upon seeing her, the whole world turned bright.
“Abigail?” You whispered. Her face was white; she was staring like she’d seen a ghost.
“Look, I just want some privacy.” She said suddenly, pealing away from the door toward you. It was an awkward exchance, her pulling out the chair beside you so she could sit near John.When she was with him, Abigail was a wholly different woman – in some respects better, and others, worse. You certainly never saw her giggling, like with you, only telling him off, or crying over him.
You pitied her that John was the man she chose to love.
She sat hunched over him, with her skirt wrangled tightly in her lap and her back stubbornly turned. It was a sorry sight. Even though this new tear between you was feeding on your heart like poison ivy, you had no right to argue with Abigail. She had been nothing but a good friend. You betrayed her.
“Were you looking for someone?”
“I was looking for some privacy.” She snapped. You didn’t wish to cause the Marstons any more grief. She had said her piece, or rather said nothing to you, and that was her piece. She had no words left. Was that how it ended?
You let yourself watch her for a moment longer, memorizing the glow of her skin under Colter’s stark light and the pattern of freckles along her ear. You wanted to say so many things to Abigail that she could never understand. But one thing, that you were certainly not expecting, ended that thought altogether.
There was a sound behind you. A moan in the back room.
Charles.
Abigail’s head shot up, but you were already pushing through the hallway, calling out to him. Impossible — you thought — absolutely impossble. There was no way Charles dragged himself off that pew. There was no way Charles had not been buried six feet under. But headed inside the bathroom, beneath your quick feet, there was a dark and viscous liquid trail. The door was ajar., and he was lying stock still, spread on the floor, sweating rivulets over his forehead, bleeding a puddle from his leg.
“He needs bandages.” You said hurriedly to Abigail, who ran in soon after. “Charles, can you hear me? Keep breathing.” You pushed your hands into the wound, feeling the blood spill through your fingers like ink, and through your veins, the guilt of a doctor, sworn to do all she could to save the dying and the sick, grabbed you by the throat. He was still alive?
Abigail helped you carry Charles back to the main room – his full body weight like a deer carcass on both your shoulders – and laid him in front of the fireplace. The floor was drenched in a fresh coat of blood. Charles’ skin was icy. It had taken more effort to pull his trousers back into place after, presumably, he went to relieve himself than to patch him up. You hoped he couldn’t smell the alcohol lingering on your breath. You felt such a fool.
“What were you thinking?” You hissed, throwing your head down into your hands, and his blood smeared everywhere.
“What were you thinking…” Abigail was seething. She heard it all wrong. You lifted your head, finding her standing right above you. She was looking down with terror in her eyes. Pure terror. She hated what she saw.
“Abigail, I’m sorry, I am.” You said, rising from the floor, trying to grab any part of her. The more you spoke, the more she was slipping away. Your words were like fungus. You were the poison. Why, God, why again? “I never meant any of this. I never wanted you to get in trouble, I never meant for Charles to…” You couldn’t say it. You both knew what it was. Maybe if you had the guts to say it, she would have at least given you the chance, but it was too late for that.
“Save it for your prayers, Lait.” She hissed, throwing your hands off her arms and storming out of the house.
You fell pathetically, to the floor. You brought your knees to your chest and wrapped yourself up in your big winter coat and threw your head between your knees.
That was person number two walking out the door, without asking how you felt about it, and letting Him decide what path you were going on. You wondered what you could have done differently; why God, since the day you crawled out of the womb, had chosen your tiny, blood soaked, naked body to be his plaything. He was there, toying with you every step, twisting your ragdoll limbs and sticking thick, puncturing needles through your back. One needle for each of his millions of eyes to be entertained. How many needles would it take to turn your flesh body into needles and nothing else?
You wished you had a still birth. You wished God never revealed himself to you and kept you in the ignorant dark about his puppeteering of your every move. You thought it was just bad luck — you accepted that bad luck, but then He was shown to you. He came in the form of hope. Of light. Of new beginnings. The cross at your breast was the anchor to it all. But it was a horrible, awful, Devil’s trick.
Over time, the cross discolored your skin, rubbing away at you each time you rubbed it. You thought by wearing the symbol, all the bad luck would go away, but Untouchable God wanted to stab you again and again and give you a reason to hate.
You tangled your fingers around the chain and pulled, and pulled, and twisted the gold metal until it was strangling you. The cartilage in your throat started caving in, the skin was breaking – you felt the hot friction burn and the tearful lump in your throat ripping you apart. If God would not end His terror upon your life, you would rebuke Him by ripping His tether to you or killing His little puppet yourself.
“Thank you.”
You stopped pulling. You recognized the voice. It was hoarse, but deep and rumbling. You felt the words in your chest. ‘Thank you’. Charles Smith was talking to you.
You peeked over your folded arms to see him staring. His eyes – sultry eyes – were half-open, a bit yellow, a bit blood-shot. You couldn’t tell what they were thinking. You almost forgot he didn’t know what you had done. Or if he did know, you couldn’t tell. In your mind, you had a catalogue of every single way that someone could look at you – amused, disgusted, pitying, hurt, and on, and on. Everyone’s eyes that ever saw you held you in one of these many obvious, very feeling ways. Strange that you couldn't feel any of those. How long had Charles been looking at you?
He licked his lips dryly and wheezed so hard his body shook; the man hadn’t had a proper drink for about twelve hours, no thanks to you. The color was still drained from his once rich, brown skin and the hollows of his eyes were becoming gaunt with hunger. He needed food. It would have been a good time for the pigs to start falling.
You were on your feet in no time, stealing the canteen that Abigail was using to feed John without a second thought and filling it up with the clean water by the fireplace.
“Would you like a blanket? A pillow?” You muttered, kneeling beside him and tilting the water into his mouth. He shook his head, but you found him a coat to rest it on anyway.
Whatever you were trying to prove to yourself was unclear. If by suddenly doing right by him, would he forgive you?
Despite your negligence, he was still alive. He was still breathing and still talking. He was even well enough to be kind and thank you for doing nothing. It was rare that any of your patients actually survived – that was the common thread. They always came to you with the worst kinds of injuries, and you, the apprentice, had been no good at bandaging broken bones, or sawing off people’s mangled arms in the bayou. If they did make it through, it would be a miracle. Charles was turning out to be his own miracle.
He spoke again once he was done drinking; this time with a well-watered voice.
“You are a woman of faith?”
He was referring to the necklace, which was, for once, untucked from your high collar. You paused your thoughts. Abigail was the only other person who knew about it– she asked why you hid the cross, but you hadn’t given much of a response. Did Charles think you were a prude? Was he a man of faith too? You let Abigail think you were a good, reformed, Christian girl because she believed in God, and no matter how well she tried to hide them, her judging eyes told you to keep your reasoning a secret.
Charles wasn’t giving you any useful signs. He looked at you, and in his eyes, you could see yourself, and nothing else.
“Are you?” You asked cautiously. He didn’t seem the type to attend Sunday mass, or even pray much, but neither were you.
“Not really.” He replied, matter of fact. “I’ve done too many wrongs for God to like me.” Well, that was just foolish. According to the bible, God was there no matter what His creations did. Charles must never have read it, or he would have known there was no escaping the Lord. In fact, you could instantly disprove him. God just saved his life.
“I think He still likes you.” You said, almost smiling. There was no need for him to think that way. Charles had a lot of good things given to him by God. His strength, for one, but his curious eyes too. His hunting skills, and his bow welding prowess. Four more things than you had. “You’re still alive, no?”
The silence lingered for quite some time. Then Charles, with his endless surprises, chuckled. You saw his belly contract, and two small lines curling around his lips. That was usually the sign of someone mocking you, but you checked him again, and all you saw was yourself in his eyes.
“Does that mean he likes me?”
This man. This infinite book of unreadable ink and locked pages was driving you mad. You wanted to pick his brain and see where his strange beliefs came from. What sins – Charles Smith – what sins did you commit to make God dislike you? You never had the chance to know your patients in the past. They always fled before you could nurse them, but you were learning a lot about Charles. You were learning you preferred this part to the dying part. There were none of the horrible cries or hopeless prayers alongside it. You didn’t have to unravel the flesh to put it back together. You got to see the color returning to his face after you nursed his thirst away, and the spirit in his eyes upon having someone to thank. You wanted to hear what life you had saved, and where it was going afterwards, and if you had given him a second chance.
You touched the cross again, with the tip of your finger, and stroked down the grooves. It was concave from the constant rubbing. You thought about how, not minutes ago, you were going to rip it off or drench it in your own blood out of pure rage, so you could finally escape Him. But the Lord would be waiting for you after. Was Charles right?
“I’m not sure.” You said, tucking the cross back under your collar.
You sat next to him for the rest of the day as he slept, watching the steady rise and fall of his breast; studying his unmoving, heavy brows and curling, light-catching lashes, and his big brown lips obsessively.
You didn’t think about Abigail. You didn’t think about moonshine or whiskey, or red wine. You were thinking about how sorry you were.
He thanked you. Why did he thank you? It was the type of ‘thank you’ that held weight; a gratitude which came from the soul. You once thought thanking was rare, and beautiful. It meant you were changing. It taught you the worth of living. It was like forgiveness. Once upon a time, before you knew what evil He was, you thanked God, every morning, every supper meal, and every cursed night before bed, inviting Him into your life. It was foolish. You were the liar.
How long until he found out? How long until he realized that it was you? You, who lured the O’Driscolls back to Colter. You, who allowed them to be ready for when Charles and the other men rode right into their ambush.
It was you, the unforgivable sinner, with the lying tongue and hands that shed innocent blood, who nearly killed Charles Smith.