The Maiden and the Reaper

[Two Dollar Jim]

"Mayor."

With a nod, Jim reached across and gave him a curt handshake. He could guess there was more to this than it seemed, so he sized the man up as they both played cards. Andy's question broke the ice, and he looked down at his roll, and whether or not he could afford a hotel room.

"Figure I do now."

[Andy McCall]

Andy gave a hm, and lifting her finger from her whiskey she stuck it in her mouth.

Nothing to do with an invitation, just mild curiosity. She rested an elbow on the table. Happy enough to watch, she made sure to pay attention to Jim and how he sat, the movements of his hands, the way he breathed, everything. Truss she didn't have to look at; she'd played with him enough to know how he carried himself in a game.

The two sat in relative silence on either side of her, and lifting her glass to her lips, Andy finished off the dregs of her drink before breaking the unusually quiet atmosphere of the game.

"Ain't seen a one-eared man come through town, have you Truss?"

[Harold Alexander Truss]

The mayor paused in the midst of a drink of water, and tipped the glass downward, but not to the point of setting it down. He wet his lips, swallowed, and then eased the glass, and his drinking hand, to the table below.

"What's the joke's punchline? I don't follow."

His cards were dealt, but he didn't look at them yet.

[Andy McCall]

She ignored his reaction, and reached over to turn one of his cards face up. A two. With an apologetic humph, Andy straightened back up.

"No joke. Jim's lookin' for a man with one ear is all. Thought you might've seen him."

[Harold Alexander Truss]

Slipping a dollar into the pot, Mr. Truss made no expression when he was dealt another card and busted. Returning the ante for the next hand, he thought over that tidbit of information.

He took another drink, and turned to look at Jim.

"I'm afraid not. Missing friend of yours?"

[Two Dollar Jim]

The ash grew a bit too long on the end of Jim's cigarillo, but he made no move to dispense with it. He looked at the mayor, wondering how best to explain.

"I'd like to find him."

He turned his eyes forward again, to the dealer. The stakes in this game were getting steeper.

[Andy McCall]

She knew better than to repeat what Jim had told her earlier in the day, about him being the one who'd taken that ear. No, that wouldn't do; not in front of the mayor at least. Who knew what the old goat'd do then. She was smart enough to keep most of her more illicit activities out of his sight no matter how much time passed, and so she extended the same courtesy for Jim.

"Anabel said he visited the Bareback earlier today. No one's seen 'im since."

[Harold Alexander Truss]

The mayor took another drink, this time dispensing all of the water in the tumbler. He took a napkin, blotting excess moisture from his lips as he set both down.

"Did Anabel say anything else?"

He looked to either of the two with curiosity he attempted to mitigate to some degree.

[Andy McCall]

At that, Andy looked the ceiling. The mayor had no need to look to her for answers. Jim was the one who'd stayed after all. She knew that nothing concerning the one-eared man had come up in conversation between the two; fact, she knew that more'n likely no sort of conversing took place at all. Anabel was mostly a working girl that never got to know the men she slept with, and so everything was strictly business with her.

Course, by now she'd picked up on Truss' behavior well enough to know that something was up, and coupled with Jim's ever-stoic demeanor, Andy suddenly found herself trying to think of something that would lead the topic of discussion away from its' current subject.

"Bareback's a whorehouse, Truss. What other information do you think Anabel gave."

[Harold Alexander Truss]

Mr. Truss cut her off with the sharp sound of his glass rapping against the table. The dealer paused in his business, himself looking up at the trio.

Suddenly concious of his unspoken outburst, the Mayor took time deliberately turning the glass about on the table, watching the light catch it differently as he did. He looked at Andy, and beyond her at Jim. He didn't like the way either looked back at him.

"This isn't a social call, then?"

[Two Dollar Jim]

Jim continued to smoke, and at last extinguished the cigarillo into a crystal ash tray. He didn't say a word.

[Andy McCall]

Jim certainly wasn't bein' forthcoming, and Andy wasn't gonna offer any sort of word on the matter. Didn't mean she wasn't gonna look at Truss like he'd just kicked mud on her boots. She narrowed her eyes at the mayor just a hair, moving her chair just a little bit closer to Jim's.

[Harold Alexander Truss]

The faintest glimmer of recollection caught the Mayor's eyes, as if going back to some insignificant memory of some insignificant thing that crossed his path. The rest was woven together by a thread made of intuition.

"You said your name is Jim."

His mouth was dry. He paused, pressing his lips together to moisten them slightly.

"Jim Ballard? Two Dollar Jim?"

[Andy McCall]

For a short second Andy didn't move. With her back to Jim and her eyes on Truss, she suddenly remembered all the different retellings of what Two Dollar Jim had done five years back.

There weren't no way she felt unsafe in her position, but that didn't mean squat.

When she did move it was slow, and she pulled her cigarette from her lips, turning to face Jim and hereyes going up to his face. It was unreadable as ever.

"How many was it, really," she whispered, a small bit of excitement seeping into her voice.

[Two Dollar Jim]

"Jim Ballard died five years ago."

He spoke so softly it was almost a whisper. His hands were on the table. He lifted them slightly, turning them palms up to look at the weathered creases. He dared only linger a few moments before the fingers gently closed inwards, obfuscating his view of his killing hands.

"Two Dollar Jim's just a story."

[Harold Alexander Truss]

"Jim."

Mr. Truss stood up. The friendly lilt to his tone was gone. What remained was a granite voice that he'd tailored over the years. It was a voice that people couldn't help but to hear.

"You come to my town to live again. You come to wipe the slate clean. I'm fine with that. I don't ask people these questions lightly."

He took the glass on the table just as suddenly as a bird flapped its wings, and hurled it toward's the mysterious newcomer.

It was plucked out of the air without so much as a second thought. Jim's hands were there as if they'd always been.

"Fast hands."

Mr. Truss regarded the specimens that held his glass. He stood for a moment, then plucked a handful of chips from the dealer, arranging them on the table in a semicircle of six.

"As fast as they were five years ago? Or faster? You didn't come to my town to shake a man's hand so don't you dare insult me with your silence."

[Andy McCall]

Truss' tone was one that she knew well enough; he'd used it on her more than once, and Andy couldn't help but watch as the scene played out in front of her. Even as the mayor threw his glass at Jim she didn't flinch, nor did she let her surprise show at how Jim'd caught the glass as easily as anything.

But, again she knew that unfortunate things happened when Mayor Truss talked like he was now.

"We ain't come in here for trouble, just cards and drink."

Setting her jaw, Andy threw caution to the wind and growled out the last bit against her better judgement.

"I think you need to go home, Mayor. Yor makin' my leg hurt."

[Harold Alexander Truss]

The Mayor's attention snapped to Andy.

"Jim came here for something, but it wasn't that. And want me to sit, smile, and crack wise that he's going to stroll into my town and kill a man in cold blood?"

He looked back to Jim with the sharp expression of a hawk spotting a prarie dog.

"Six men!"

He jabbed a hand at the chips on the table.

"Six men with their backs to him at a poker table, and he comes in with murder on his mind."

He snapped his fingers, and slung the chips off the table, where they clattered to the floor. He holds up two hands with the thumbs up and index fingers out.

"Two guns in each hand, three men to a gun. That's shootin' that would make Wild Bill himself pale in the face. And over what?"

He looked at Jim, who had long since averted his eyes.

"How much was that pot? We all know how much."

[Andy McCall]

Everyone in the saloon had long since stopped their own talkin' and card playin' to watch. Andy didn't feel awkward , but she certainly didn't like the way things were going. If it'd been anyone but Mayor Truss she'da drawn her gun already, but she didn't dare do that. Not on the mayor.

"Of course we all know how much. Everyone knows. It ain't 'xactly no secret."

In lieu of the gun, Andy flicked her cigarette over Truss' shoulder instead of using the ashtray as Jim had.

"And anyways," she spat, "How do you know he come to town to kill a man? Odds are pretty damn good that he's just passin' through. No one ever said that one-eared bastard was livin' here.

"I know I'd sure remember if someone like that was."

[Two Dollar Jim]

His past had come back to him, and it was the sort of thing he'd learned to deal with in the short time he'd been a free man again.

Jim stood from his seat, a slow and deliberate action that brought him to his full, lean height of six feet.

"Mayor, I paid for my crimes. I'm still payin' for 'em. Every day I wake up."

The silence was thick. Not a person even whispered.

"If I've committed one in Justice, you'd best hold me to account for that as well. I pay my debts."