Chapter Text
When I had initially set out to leave Seattle for an anonymous life, to escape the city that had my name and face plastered on every alley wall and police station corkboard, I hadn’t expected the drain and toll it would take on my body and mind. Although I was already a damned soul that the Lord was hellbent on making life harder for me, 625 hours on the road wasn’t something that either I or my sweet mare, Lantana, had accounted for. If humans were the perfect machine, that would equate to about 25 days of non-stop walking pace. But living things needed sleep, and some days were simply too harsh on Lantana to really travel. While I wouldn’t call it a waste of time, swimming in frigid creeks while Lantana either slept, grazed, or joined me to soothe her own aches..., they weren’t necessarily productive.
Eventually, you get tired enough to start cutting corners. So we started train-surfing, an act of which only poor idiots partook. Walk by the station teller holding up a yellowed card that vaguely resembled a ticket, swear that you were in a rush to the engineer, and board yourself and your horse, and then hide out somewhere inconspicuous that underpaid ticket checkers avoided. Like the bar car, my favorite for reaching into fools' pockets.
In the outlaw world, there’s an unestablished food chain that everyone with gun belts and cigarettes hanging from their hips and lips abided. If you worked for Uncle Sam, you were the lowest of the low. The perception was that you were so desperate for some kind of cowboy action that you took it upon yourself to reach into spaces where the government had no place being. Those men didn’t last long–either because they quit or got shot. Next were those who ran it alone, like me. Depending on what your poster said about you, you either held significant respect or none at all. For men like Benedict Allbright, who sold nothing but Good, Honest, Snake Oil to desperate people seeking desperate solutions, you resided with the men who found purchase in zipping up the American government's pants after they were done being their own little martyr of law. Though for people like me, born or thrown into a life of lawlessness, you were often left to your own devices in silent respect. Nearly resembling the way a rattlesnake curled in prairie grass, only striking if bothered by an uninvited guest in their space, such creatures and I were strangely alike.
The phrase, “you find safety in numbers,” also applies to the other side of justice and right. Gangs that mostly sprawled across the Bible belt (ironic, right?) were to be avoided. Unless you were in a gang, the last thing an unsuspecting person wanted to stumble upon was a gang. Bullets fly faster, people arrive at fights in shocking numbers, and it is nearly impossible to clear your name if you wronged one member. Luckily, I was blessed enough in this cruel world to have avoided any trouble with gangs. Knock on wood, of course.
“Can I get a shot of whiskey? Well is fine,” I asked the bartender, taking a seat on a barstool beside a man who smelled vaguely like tobacco and gunsmoke. He was speaking to a colored man–rather a boy–about the prospects of certain jobs. I tuned them out.
“Thirty-five cents, ma’am,” The bartender responded cooly, and I reached into my maxi-skirt pocket I had sown in (because heaven forbid a woman bear pockets in today’s progressive age) to gather the thirty-five cents. But just as I was about to slide the metallic coins across the polished wood, the man to my right spoke.
“Now why are you chargin’ the lady ten cents more’n that whiskey ‘s worth?” The man asked bluntly, turning his body to face the bartender with a slight glare set in his expression.
Oh, great heavens above, who art thou whom take his seat beside mine?
Or in other words, the man beside me was gorgeous. A muscular build with a corset-resembling waistline, shoulders too wide for my own good, and hands I suddenly yearned to have grasping my thighs ran smoothly across the bar. The bartender’s shaking voice snapped me out of my daydream, and the scowl I held in public returned after the embarrassing flush on my cheeks.
“It’s fine, sir, I understand-” I started to defuse, though he held a hand up to me and I swear my knees felt weak.
“It ain’t right by you, missus. What’s yer name?” He asked suddenly, picking this fight to be the one he would stand firm on, and I answered back in an unstable tone.
“Marigold. Marigold Lenker,” I murmured after a moment.
“Thank ya,” he nodded, turning back to the bartender and speaking firmly. “You oughtta mind yer manners around a woman and charge her what you do others. It’s twenty-five cents, last I knew.”
The bartender was silent, glancing between us and then leaning over towards me.
“I apologize, miss, I suppose I may have misspoken-” He started, before the man beside me interjected once more.
“You suppose? What a load of shit,” He muttered with a sigh, rolling his eyes and sliding a quarter towards the bartender before getting up off the barstool and taking his friend with him.
Thank you, gorgeous being of God, for paying for my drink. The bartender slid me a shot of whiskey, and after taking it with a slight wince, I nodded and muttered a brief “thank you” before going to turn to one of the commercial cars. Though I was interrupted by an actual shot, ringing through cars and yelps of fear rippling down the length of the train.
Motherfucker, is my first thought. I spent an hour and a half in the Bible belt, and I’m getting robbed by what I assume is a local gang. It’s not like one person can hold up a train, not without other riders waiting. But the people who were holding up this train were all male, around their thirties, and definitely in a gang, considering the somewhat silent communication they were using.
As shots began to fire closer to the bar car, the first thing I did was drop to a crouch, peaking over a nearby table and making my way to the back of the car towards where my horse was. Last thing I needed was Lantana freaking out and tossing me in times of need. Firm footsteps were gaining, and my heart rate only continued to rise into my throat. God, I know we aren’t close, but if you can hear me, please spare me.
In the moment of weakness and prayer, I wasn’t really paying attention to my surroundings, like an idiot. It wasn't until I felt someone grab the collar of my shirt and yank me onto the floor, standing over me with a Widowmaker six-shooter, hovering my forehead. The man from the bar, now with a mask over his face and what I would assume is a smirk hiding under that cloth bandana. His gloved fingers wrap around the front of my collar, pulling me up slightly and speaking lowly.
“Mari, right?” He asked, and as confusion and frustration painted my features without a response for him, he kept rasping threats in a gruff tone. “I hate to do this, but yer gonna have to empty those pockets o’ yers. And I’d hate even more to have to shoot you between those pretty eyes.” He. . . flirted?
A response didn’t seem to register in my brain, so I stopped really thinking about what the proper response was.
“Unfortunately, these pockets are pretty empty. I was spendin’ my last couple of dollars on the drink you so kindly sponsored.” I shot back quietly, my eyebrows set in a hard glare.
In the middle of our stubborn dispute, someone with an authoritative tone called from the other end of the bar car, interrupting this strangely charged interaction.
“Arthur! Finish up what business you’ve got with that woman, we gotta go!” The mystery man beckoned, and when Arthur looked up to face the man, I took my opportunity to grab the six-shooter and slide it away from him before grabbing his wrist pulling him beside me on the floor.
I flip up onto my knees, throwing myself across his lap and drawing my own pretty semi-automatic revolver on him. Shock overtook his formerly-cocky expression, and before I could get out any words to retort, he bucked his hips up, coaxing a yelp from my throat as he tossed me off-balance. I caught myself on my left hand, my wrist stinging from taking most of the fall as he grabbed my forearm and jerked me upright. A clatter followed me dropping my own weapon as he drew a knife from his hip, slamming my back against one of the train walls. A groan left my lips, and I tried to wriggle my way out of his grip. Fuck, he’s big. Probably a hundred pounds heavier, and definitely an easy eight inches taller. I managed to wedge my foot between us, pushing him away with my heeled boot and throwing a bottle found on a nearby table at him.
“What do you want from me?!” I exclaimed angrily, staring at Arthur and trying to figure out exactly why he was hassling me so hard.
“Just got a job to finish ‘s all.” He responded playfully, as if this was some game to him and not my life on the line. Though just as I was about to swing on him once more, that same voice from earlier entered the car again, holding his hand up and speaking almost tauntingly to Arthur.
“Mr. Morgan, is there a reason you’re givin’ this lovely lady a hard time?” He asked, running a hand through his dark hair and dropping a heavy saddle bag onto a table.
Arthur paused, dropping his fists and leaning towards the man with a frustrated growl. “You said we was tryin’ to lay low, ‘n this ‘lovely lady’ happens to recognize me.” The other man turned to me, and I wiped my bleeding nose on my shirt sleeve.
“Is there a reason you’re fighting my right-hand man so hard?” He asked, raising a brow at me.
“It’s not my fault your right-hand man can’t take no for an answer!” I shouted, my tone slightly breathy from the fight.
“Is that true, Arthur?”
“She hit me first.”
“It was self-defense, you goddamn bottom-feeder!” I spat, strutting over to Arthur to maybe start more shit than I had already stirred, before the man in the middle put his arm out and stopped me.
“Now now, there ain’t no need for further violence. I think we can all agree that Mr. Morgan here was just doin’ what I asked him to, and you responded with great. . .enthusiam against him.”
What was this man saying? For a moment, there was confused silence in the car, before a couple of what I assumed were this man’s men, one of them shouting a question about who “this bitch”-as they so kindly put it-was.
“I don’t get what you mean,” I stated bluntly, tilting my head slightly and glancing at the unnerving number of men that continued to look on at this strange standoff that was beginning to feel like an advertisement to me.
Another pause, as if the man was thinking, before turning to Arthur.
“How much did she struggle?” He asked, and I was almost offended by that.
“Enough,” was all Arthur said, bending over to pick up his weapon that I had tossed across the room.
“Is this yours, ma’am?” The man asked, and after a moment or two, I nodded, watching the man pick up my firearm and hand it back to me. He pulled down his cloth mask, and when I took the gun, he held out his left hand. I slid my iron back into the holster on my hip and hesitantly took his hand to shake it.
“I presume that you ain’t from around these parts. My name... is Dutch Van Der Linde. The men you see in this train car work for me. Has the outlaw life ever interested you? It must have, considering you disarmed dear old Arthur,” He teased, to which Arthur only grumbled an insult likely directed at me in return.
“...I don’t partake anymore. I’m tryin’ to be a good person these days,” I answered quietly.
“There’s no shame in saying yes to me, dear. We are in desperate need of more members, anyway,” Dutch paused to think before continuing. “Why did you want to leave the outlaw life?” He asked curiously.
“It ain’t right for me anymore. Some people who matter to me made me understand what risks I was taking. I don’t want to hurt them more than I have.”
“Oh, but sweetheart, if you run with us, we can make sure you’re never in the hands of the law. Safety in numbers, don’t you know?” Van der Linde taunted, almost dangling the concept of security in front of me. And like a cat drawn to the flicker of a mouse tail, his charismatic speech worked its wonders on me.
“Fine,” I groaned with an eyeroll, turning my head away from any of them to curse myself for this decision. But it wasn’t like I had many options. It was this or probably die on the trail. No man can run forever, no matter how hard he tries.