Kane Darling

Chapter 1 Kane Darling

The outskirts of Redvale were cut in half by the ballast, and the logs with their twin rails paving from west to east. The plain of dry summer grass bloomed full dandelions, and the lilacs grew in bunches by a serviceberry tree. The slow trotting of the horse had Kane rocking from side to side. “It goes all the way to Common,” he said staring at the tracks.

“Then why didn’t we take the train?”

“Why take the rain, when you can take the road,” he smiled.

“This road is too long.”

“There wasn’t enough for train fare.”

“It’s a great waste of track.”

“Civilization was built to keep us distracted from things like that.” He nodded toward the deep orange marring the darkened sky, and the yellow tip of a rising sun. “You would’ve missed it.”

“Sure but now what’s missing is a place to rest my head and sleep.”

“That’s sleeping,” Kane said. “Not living.”

“Yeah, yeah.” He cleared his throat and tugged his reins. Kane stopped with him. “Look up ahead,” Carly said.

“I see them.”

“We could go around.”

“It looks like they’ve got something running over the spit.” His horse whinnied, and he rubbed her between the ears. “It’d be a missed opportunity don’t you think?”

“You’re hungry?”

“Famished,” Kane said.

“And what about Common?”

“We’re closer to Kidge than we are to Common,” Kane leaned over the side of his horse, and spat. “Hoss won’t mind,” he grinned knowing full well that Hoss would. He’d be stuck in some crowded saloon muttering curses, deep in bitterness and waiting for their arrival.

“They don’t look all right.”

Kane scrutinized the contents of the pot over the fire. “Looks like beans.” Two men sat on opposite sides of the fire, and a boy accompanied them. They looked up all at once, and one of them stood. He had thick greasy skin, and a drinkers gut.

“Hello,” he said.

“Morning,” Kane’s horse whinnied.

“What can we do for y’all?”

“We haven’t eaten, would it be all right if we shared this meal?” Kane asked.

“We’ve got beans only,” the man said nodding his head.

“Beans will do fine.” They dismounted and sat across from the strangers.

“Get them beans, Johnny.” He swiped his forehead with his sleeve and sat down. “I’m Tom,” he combed his oily hair with his fingers. “The quiet fella is called Daniel.” Daniel looked away from the carriage when he heard his name called, then he smiled sheepishly. “And the kid,” he pointed to the boy who regarded them with glaring eyes.

“Gentleman,” Kane tipped his hat slightly.

“And you?”

“Company is better enjoyed without knowing things like names, or at least that’s what a wise man once told me,” Kane said.

“Is he alive your wise man?”

“He’s still kicking.”

“Hmnn,” he muttered through a mouthful of food.

“We very much appreciate this, mister,” Carly said.

Tom nodded and pulled his shirt to his face wiping it clean.

“Fourteen,” Daniel said as he looked back at their carriage. The dented wheel had rifts on the finer edges. The windows were shattered, and he saw what he thought might be bullet holes. Thump, the sound from inside came in increments, and like the pecking of a bird. “Where are y’all coming from?” Thump.

“We were passing through Indian territory. Indians come by, braves, come after us,” Tom said as he chewed.

“Chased us right through them woods,” John said.

“Indians,” Kane said with a brow raised. “What a thing to hear. Y’all were real lucky then.” He took his hat off, setting it by his seat.

“We were.” John handed him a bowl of beans. He had the small hands of a boy, but the skin was chewed up from work.

Kane held up his hand, “No, the beans are for my accompaniment.”

Carly looked at Kane with a brow raised. John brought the bowl over to Carly. “Thank you,” Carly said taking the bowl from his hands.

Thump. Daniel kept his head down, and the long curly hair covered his eyes. Tom swallowed, “the two of you passing through?”

Carly nodded, “that’s right.”

“Where are you off to?” Tom asked.

“East.”

“East,” he croaked, and nodded as he said so. “That’s not the place you want to be going to.”

“There’s nothing east,” John said.

“Haven’t you heard? They found gold, in California no less.” Tom shoved another spoonful of beans into his mouth.

“Yeah, you hear all sorts of things on the road. Seems like they’ve got gold every which way. Cept what ground lay beneath you,” Kane drummed the ground with his boot.

Tom scooped a bit from his bowl, and held it up to his lips. “Is that it?” He took a bite. He made noise as he chewed.

“What’s that?”

“Nothing.” The men scraped at the bottom of their bowls, spoons clacked on the near empty bottoms. “So what’s east?”

“Opportunity,” Kane said.

“Money then.”

“If that’s how you want to put it.”

“Isn’t that what you inferred.”

John put down his bowl by his feet, and he picked up a Winchester rifle that lay by him. Resting his chin over the wooden butt, and on it there was a single word. Deliverance.

“He don’t mean anything by it mister,” Carly said. “He lived there is all, in California.”

“There wasn’t no gold. Just sun and sand.”

“There is gold west,” Tom muttered.

“Well if there was gold, I didn’t find any.”

John spilled the beans from his spoon, and they fell over his shirt. “Damn it,” he mumbled.

Tom plopped the spoon into his bowl. “Here,” he distended a linen cloth from his person, shaking it, and he handed it to him. “Wipe your face too,” he pointed around his own lips. “You got bean.” John wiped his cheeks, and his chin. Then he cleaned his shirt as best he could but the black of the bean stained through. Thump. The trunk latch clinked, and the back door swung open. “Goddamn it, Daniel get the fucking door.” Daniel shot up from his seat, and pushed it close. He came back and sat with his shoulders hunched, and the hollowed sockets of his eyes turned black.

The wood on the flames cracked. The logs sank closer to the smoldering ashes. Kane touched the handle of his pistol to see if it was still there. Thump.

“Fourteen.”

Kane spat, and he put his hat on. “I don’t give a damn what y’all did in wherever county. That ain’t none of my business. I’m probably not the best person to speak on what is morally correct, or define that line. So I won’t try to. You can go on your way, and us on ours.”

“We were attacked by Indians—”

“I understand. Indians. Very curious,” Kane nodded. “I haven’t seen one myself but I do know they ain’t around here. You’ve to get by Wolfcreek, which is some miles away, to even get a slim chance at a run-in. I don’t doubt you ran from something. But it wasn’t an indian, so…”

Tom gripped the edge of the bean pot and hurled it toward Kane. It flew past him clanging, and rolling to a stop on the long grass.

Daniel laid a shotgun on his lap. John gripped the handle of his rifle.

Carly put down his spoon, and he placed the bowl on the ground. He spat what food he had in his mouth, and the beans dotted the sunburned grass.

“We aren’t law,” Kane said standing, he put his hands up. “We just want east.”

Tom pushed him down to the floor. “Get on your knees.” His breath smelled rancid and dry. Kane’s knees bounced on the ground. The barrel of the gun touched the back of his head. Daniel pulled out Carly’s gun, and he hid it somewhere inside his ragged coat. Tom unarmed Kane’s, and he looked over the polished silver steel. The dawn lined the barrel in yellow, and orange. “Here,” he said and he tossed it to John.

The carriage creaked. Thump. Thump. The door threw open, a girl stumbled out falling on her knees. She moaned, and she ran off limping. “Get the girl,” Tom said.

Daniel scampered off, hobbling through the small sprouts of green grass poking through the sundried pasture. The girl’s ashy blond hair bounced as she ran. Daniel was on her heels. He reached out and pulled her down by the long blonde locks. She screamed.

“Shoot their horses.”

“I can’t,” John said.

Kane looked at his horse, her long golden mane spilled onto her dark black skin. He whistled, and she ran off. Blowing dirt from the edge of her hooves. Tom lifted his flabby arm, his aim wavered over her, deep in the distance and he shot. His hand jerked back, and smoke enveloped the length of his arm. She jolted in her sprint, falling on her hind legs. It took her only a second, and she picked up again. Running toward the bright orange horizon.

He cocked the shotgun again, and shot Carly’s horse. It fell over on it’s side, and a cloud of dandelion seeds sprang up around it.

Tom pulled out the pistol from his side. He came by the corpse, and aimed around the eye. He shot, and the thunderous sound beat off into the distance.

Daniel returned with the girl, dragging her by her hair. Tears were rolling down her young pink skin. “Oh please,” she sobbed. “Do something,” she said half-gasping for air. Tom knelt by her. “Please,” her fingers twisted the cotton shirt, smearing the blue with muddy fingers. “Don’t hit me.” She looked up into Tom’s eyes. Her brows locked together, “please,” she said sniffling. Tom’s scowl loosened, and the grip in his brows rose steadily.

“I don’t got a mind to hurt you girl.” He pulled her fingers off his shirt, and he glared at John. “Why the hell didn’t you shoot them horses, boy?”

“I couldn’t,” he said.

“You couldn’t?”

The kid nodded. Tom slapped him with the back of his hand. “I’ll cut off your tongue, boy. The next time you couldn’t.”

John held his cheek, and his eyebrows sunk into angry slants. John hit the girl. She groaned and fell on her back. He slapped her right eye, and she picked up her hands. “God,” she squealed. He picked up his arm and swung his fist into her jaw. The bone cracked, she lost the strength in her arms, and they fell down beside her. He punched underneath the cheekbone, and the skin split lashing out with red blood. It speckled his eyes, and the boy flinched.

“You got no right,” Carly said.

The kid felt his cheek, and the red dripped down his finger. “Will you get me a cloth?”

“Huh,” Daniel said.

“A cloth,” he said.

Daniel pulled out the rag smeared with beans, and he gave it to him. “Here,” he said.

John smacked his hand, and the cloth dropped to the ground. “That one’s dirty. Get me a cloth!” Daniel scurried around the campsite. John pulled out his shirt, and wiped the blood off.

“Well you can beat the shit out of a girl.” Tom said picking her up. “What’s that worth?” He placed her in the wagon gently.

John stood holding his hips with his hands. Looking around the empty campsite, and he sighed. He picked his teeth. Flicking away bean that had stayed. He saw it in the war, Kane. When the men littered the fields of Carolina fields. The eyes, that’s what he remembered. Cold empty stares, and the beautiful touch of color from their irises. Dormant green irises glittering with the orange hue of dusk, and holding little else. Yet John was alive because he moved, because he breathed, and that was the only difference.

“Are you still hungry?” He asked Kane. “There’s beans,” he brushed the tip of his nose with his sleeve, and sniffed. “There’s…we have black beans.”

“They ain’t hungry anymore John,” Tom climbed up to the drivers seat.

“Lost their appetites maybe.” John nodded.

Daniel stepped closer to Kane. His shotgun bumped his leg as he walked, then he picked it up holding it to Kane’s face. “Should I shoot them?”

Tom looked back, “no. I don’t think that would be right. We gave them food didn’t we?”

Kane spat by his feet.

“Not to this one.”

“Well what is his name?”

“I don’t know.”

“Give me your name stranger,” Tom said. “If you don’t, I think Daniel would be more inclined to shoot a stranger.”

“Kane!”

“Jesus,” Tom rubbed the sides of his temple. “Would you believe our luck?” He chuckled, “we broke bread with Kane Darling. They won’t believe this. Let him go, Daniel.”

“You want me to let him go?”

“Didn’t I just tell you? Let them loose! Cut their binds!”

“They aren’t bound, boss.”

“Goddamn it, Daniel. Get your in the ass carriage.” Tom tugged on the reins twice. The horses steadied themselves, and trotted away. Kane and Carly put their hands back down, and stepped into the dust trail of the carriage.

“What now?” Carly asked.

“I’m still working on that,” Kane said waving the dust away with his hand.

“I’ve got a knife,” Carly said.

“Where?”

“In my boot.”

“Can’t imagine what good it would do.” The horses sped up, and the carriage disappeared into the scattered trees. Kane slipped two fingers in his mouth and whistled. The sound carried off across the long dry pasture.

A dark silhouette jumped out from the horizon, the shadow moved across the open plain. The hazy grey figure moved in closer, its outline turned black. “There she is,” Kane said. The horse slowed as it neared. Kane rubbed her between her ears. Bullet fragments dotted her thigh, and she bled a little. He held her by the reins, and looked at Carly. “Do you know the way to Common?”

“Vaguely,” he said.

“Meet up with Hoss tell him what’s happened.” Kane climbed onto the saddle.

“He doesn’t know me. Why should he trust me?”

“You’ll get along fine,” Kane said. “You’re both cut from the same cloth.” He smiled at Carly.

“Kane,” Carly tossed the knife.

His eyes caught the glimmer of the blade, and he caught it by the black handle. He ran his thumb over the rusted edge.

“Kill those sons of bitches.”

“Find Hoss, I’ll meet you in Common,” Kane said.

Kane clicked his tongue, dug his heels into her thighs and the horse sped away. Through the dandelions that blew apart, the small particles flocked together in the morning breeze. Floating to the black clouds in the west where thunder rumbled soft like whispers.