by Ember Pierce
No, he didn’t recognize his surroundings at all. His mouth felt dry and cottony, and also like something had crawled in behind his teeth in the middle of the night and died.
* * *
He had definitely drank too much last night, but then again, when was there a night where he didn’t do that? Kristian scrubbed a hand over his face.
* * *
The last thing he could remember was being in the middle of a poker game at Red’s, the only saloon in these parts.
* * *
He was a regular, and he had been there with other regulars. Nothing had seemed amiss.
* * *
In his mind’s eye, Kristian could see himself sitting with all his buddies in the smoky corner of the saloon that had been his for as long as he could remember.
* * *
He liked that spot because he felt safe there. The meeting of the two walls gave him the security that no one could sneak up on him, and he had a view of the rest of the saloon from where he sat.
* * *
It had been the perfect evening.
* * *
There had been tequila shots being downed all around him. Kristian could remember feeling pretty good at that point, and then… he let out a groan as he dropped back down on the bed.
* * *
With a rush, the memory of betting everything he had came back to him. He’d had a few winning rounds before that point, and he knew he had been feeling pretty good.
* * *
So, he had bet all the money he had won thus far and downed another shot.
* * *
And that was all he could remember. Had he won or lost?
* * *
Something had obviously happened, because he hadn’t ended up back at home. Which brought him right back to the beginning of his dilemma. Where the heck was he?
* * *
Taking a sniff of the air, he found that wherever he was smelled fairly clean, so automatically that disqualified any of his buddies. Their cabins smelled like sweat and decaying meat.
* * *
Now that he was paying attention, Kristian could smell coffee in the air, and something baking in the fire in the next room over. His stomach rumbled.
* * *
Even with the momentary distraction of food, Kristian’s mind kept coming back to his bet the night before. Heaving himself off the bed, he found his pants on the floor.
* * *
He searched the pockets. Empty. That wasn’t a good sign. He sat back down on the bed with a heavy sigh. The straw tick mattress groaned as he shifted his weight.
* * *
This was the usual state of affairs these days. As soon as he had a little money in his pocket, he gambled it away. Easy come, easy go.
* * *
Until recently, that hadn’t seemed like such a bad life philosophy. Now, he was starting to think that attitude was what was getting him into trouble.
* * *
Pa would be mad, but wasn’t he always these days? Kristian tried to ignore the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach.
* * *
He couldn’t remember feeling this way about his choices. Ever.
* * *
He knew he owed Graves O’hara a sizable amount of money at this point, but he had no idea just how much. The creditor always lent him money with a tight smile on his face.
* * *
Kristian had convinced himself that the other man was friendly enough, but still, he was now indebted to Graves, and that would definitely cause some problems at home once his parents found out.
* * *
How many times had he borrowed money from Graves, anyway? Kristian tried to put the days in order. Surely, it was only three or four nights.
* * *
He’d run out of the allowance money his father had given him. The little loans hadn’t seemed like a big deal when he had done it.
* * *
Now, in the harsh light of day, he wasn’t so confident. Also, after a night of drinking as well as gambling, sometimes his math abilities suffered in the morning.
* * *
When he’d calculated what he owned, he had missed a few zeros a couple of times.
* * *
Just as Kristian was about to get himself up and moving, the door to the bedroom opened. An older woman, probably in her forties, bustled into the room.
* * *
She wore a plain blue calico dress that looked like it had seen better days. Her brown hair was streaked with a few strands of gray and piled high atop her head.
* * *
She had so much paint on her face that Kristian couldn’t make out just what she looked like, but that didn’t matter. Something about her looked familiar.
* * *
“Good to see that you’re finally up,” she said, and when she spoke, he recognized her as one of the barmaids.
* * *
He couldn’t remember her name since he rarely paid attention to the women who brought him drinks.
* * *
“You were dead to the world.”
* * *
Kristian let out a strangled noise, but managed to say, “Good morning.” Then he bit the inside of his cheek to wake himself up more, and added, “Exactly where am I?”
* * *
The woman opened the curtain over the small window, light flooding the tiny space. Kristian winced as the sunlight pierced his eyeballs, his headache flaring. He put a hand up to shield himself.
* * *
“You passed out at the table last night,” she said matter-of-factly. “I had Red bring you up here to sleep it off.”
* * *
Kristian considered this statement. With his history, she was probably telling him the truth. If she had been intent on robbing him, she would have just done it downstairs and that would have been the end of it.
* * *
Somehow, she seemed to actually care about him—though why that would be, he had no idea. Even his parents seemed to want to disown him most of the time.
* * *
He often wondered what was stopping them.
* * *
“Do you… do you know if I won last night? At the poker game?” He knew the question came off as desperate, but he had to know.`
* * *
In a second, he realized what a silly question it was. How many times had he won in the last week? Or in the last month?
* * *
The woman paused in her straightening up of the room and gave him a look that said, “What do you think?” He could read it and immediately his heart sank.
* * *
“Darn it all,” he muttered softly. It wasn’t like he’d actually thought he could’ve won when he’d discovered his empty pockets, but there had always been that inkling of hope.
* * *
He couldn’t help but be optimistic, even when life was dealing him a series of hard blows.
* * *
“Now, get yourself up and dressed,” she said.
* * *
“I’ve got some breakfast on if you aim to put anything in your stomach. The way you were drinking last night, though, I can’t imagine that you’re actually hungry.”
* * *
She had a point. Kristian knew he would feel better with something other than alcohol sloshing around in his gut.
* * *
When she had closed the door behind her, he stood, and paused, swaying, until the dizziness left him and his vision cleared. Then, he pulled on his pants and buttoned his shirt.
* * *
When he stepped into the main room, he was greeted with the warm smells of coffee and fresh baked bread. A slice was already set for him on the rough wooden table pushed up against the far wall.
* * *
Kristian’s mouth watered as he caught sight of a thick pat of butter melting on the warm bread. The woman set a steaming cup of coffee on the table and gestured for him to join her.
* * *
Catchin
g the way he was looking at her, she arched an eyebrow and said, “I’m Rhonda, by the way.”
* * *
Kristian could feel his cheeks heat up with embarrassment. “I… I knew that,” he stammered.
* * *
Rhonda let out a warm laugh. “No, you didn’t,” she said, but she didn’t seem upset. They lapsed into silence as they dug into the meal in front of them.
* * *
Kristian shoveled the bread into his mouth. After a few moments, he realized that Rhonda was watching him intently.
* * *
“What?” he asked, wondering if he had food stuck to his face. He ran a hand over the stubble of a beard that had grown in overnight.
* * *
Letting the silence stretch for a long moment, Rhonda finally said, “Can I give you some advice?”
* * *
With a shrug, Kristian said, “Sure.” Because why not? She was a wise older woman. Maybe she would be able to help him stop his losing streak.
* * *
“You should stop coming into Red’s,” she said.
* * *
“Huh?” The bread suddenly felt dry in his mouth, crumbs flaking out as he spoke. That wasn’t what he had expected to hear.
* * *
“I’ve been watching you,” she said. “You really need to work on cleaning up your life.”
* * *
Kristian took a quick sip of his coffee, the hot liquid burning his throat on the way down.
* * *
He coughed, then said, “Thank you for your concern, but honestly? I like being a gambler and a drunk.”
* * *
Rhonda frowned at him, and once again he tried to place her at Red’s, but couldn’t. Was he really that dense that he didn’t pay attention to those around him?
* * *
Finally, after what felt like an eternity, she said, “That isn’t who you truly are.”
* * *
She was right about that. This wasn’t who he truly was. He remembered when walked home with dignity.
* * *
He raised his hand and saw it shake. He remembered when he’d had a steady hand.
* * *
He recalled when he’d sat proudly on a horse and tracked an outlaw the sheriff was looking for. There were few better in tracking than he was.
* * *
And he had been a darn good shooter, too. Now, he couldn’t hit the broadside of a barn.
* * *
Back then, he was a bit like his brother. Tall, dignified. He didn’t cause any trouble but he didn’t let anyone cause trouble for him, either. Or for anyone else.
* * *
He had stopped more than one bully, And he had rode on more than one posse. And traded shots with an outlaw. And the outlaw had lost.
* * *
The man wasn’t killed, but he’d needed to be patched up when they had taken him back to town.
* * *
“Dang good shot,” a fellow posse rider had told him.
* * *
The shot had even won praise from John, which was one of the high points of his life. He was usually praising his brother, but this time, his brother had complimented him.
* * *
It was a fine day. He shook his head. The chasm between that day and this night seemed immense—a gap almost unimaginable.
* * *
How did he get here? Borrowing money and drinking too much and losing too much at poker, he thought. How did this happen?
* * *
Yes. John died.
* * *
And nothing seemed the same since.
* * *
Suddenly, all he wanted was to get out of this place and go home, even if it meant facing the wrath of his father. Who was this woman, anyway, to interfere in his life?
* * *
He hadn’t asked her to rescue him last night. Surely one of his buddies would have dragged him home.
* * *
Then he sighed. A while ago, he had talked to a friend who was heading down Whiskey Row but then had turned himself around.
* * *
The man snickered. “I was getting dime store philosophies from saloon workers.
* * *
“I knew, and I mean knew, down in my gut, that if I didn’t stop now that I was headed for an early and shallow grave. That pulled me out of it.”
* * *
Pushing his chair away from the table, Kristian stood and said, “Thank you for the food, but I have to be going now.”
3
The walk back to the ranch was awful. Several times, Kristian had to stop alongside the road to heave until his stomach was empty.
* * *
All of him was empty. For a brief moment, he wondered what had happened to him. The Kristian Downing of the last few months was not like the Kristian Downing before that.
* * *
He had not let anyone get him down before that. He’d never started fights but he never backed away from one, either. And he was never face-down-in-the-street drunk.
* * *
Now, Kristian seemed to be a different person. Ever since his older brother, John, had died, Kristian had been doing a good job keeping himself numb to the grief that always seemed to lurk around the edges of his life.
* * *
He knew that his father would be waiting for him—sure enough, Pa was standing out front of the house with a fierce scowl on his face.
* * *
Kristian stuffed his hands in his pockets, kept his head down, and approached for the usual lecture.
* * *
“Out all night again, son?” His father’s voice was hoarse with emotion—tightly controlled, but always threatening to burst forth to the surface.
* * *
“As always, Pa,” Kristian replied, not caring if his tone was rude. He was in trouble no matter what he did.
* * *
“Do you have any idea what kind of responsibility you have as my son?” Pa began the lecture the way he always did, as if Kristian needed a reminder of the expectations forced upon him now that John was gone.
* * *
Instead of answering, he just kept his head down, his gaze glued to the dirt and rocks at his feet.
* * *
“It’s time for you to grow up, son, and start taking your responsibilities seriously. If you don’t stop drinking and gambling, I’ll have no choice but to cut off your allowance and ask you to leave.”
* * *
Kristian’s head snapped up. Had he actually heard Pa correctly? Gaping at his father in disbelief, he said, “You’d actually kick me out?”
* * *
Pa’s scowl softened into a look of such deep sadness and disappointment that Kristian actually felt worse than when his father was just mad at him.
* * *
“If that’s what it takes for you to get your life together, then I will do whatever I have to do,” he said.
* * *
The ache in Kristian’s stomach had returned. “What am I supposed to do?”
* * *
He hadn’t meant to sound like a whiny child, but the fear that was flowing through his veins was controlling everything about him at the moment.
* * *
“You can start working with me here, at the ranch. You’ll learn how to run it,” Pa said.
* * *
“I think you should also find yourself a wife. Getting married, settling down—that would help you get your life back on track.”
* * *
Kristian could hear the pleading tone in his father’s voice, he knew how desperate his Pa was for him to get his life together. To get out of his self-destructive cycle, as Pa liked to call it.