Saint of Whales - Chapter X

“Hey, we can’t thank you enough for stopping for us,” Mz. X said, throwing theirs and Saint’s satchels up onto the back of the wagon. They gave a quick motion for Saint to climb up, and he followed the direction, albeit in a slow, laboured fashion. 

Seated at the front of the wagon, a white settler man tipped his hat and gave a little wave. 

“Ain’t no thing, ma’am. These roads ain’t safe, as you know.” He reached down and patted the seat beside him and tipped his hat again. “There’s a whole mess of bandits out this way. Them Sargent Boyz is all up in a rage over one of their card games getting held up and it seems like they just reckonin’ to take it out all on whoever they can and if they get the man who done sticked up their game, that’s extra. And if they don’t catch him?” He sucked his teeth and shook his head a few times side-to-side. “Well, let’s just say if they don’t catch him, I don’t think they’s gonna lose too much sleep, in some ways. Not so long as they catch someone so they can save some face.” 

Mz. X nodded a few times, trying their best to avoid reacting to either the driver’s assumption about their gender or the comment about the card game. As much as they hated the notion of being looked at as either a man or a woman, there certainly were times when their slender figure, softer bone structure and appearance of being female worked in their favour. A lot of folk carried the idea only men could be gunslingers and bandits, and there were a whack of notches on Mz. X’s gun belt speaking to that, but at the moment, they took what was being presented. Cutting against the grain for the gunslinger, too, was the need to keep their mouth shut about robbing the card game and sticking it to the Sargents. They hated that gang and they hated everyone who ran under the banner, and they didn’t like the idea of not spreading the word about busting up their game. It was always a good thing to put egg on the collective face of the Sargent Boyz, but there would be other times to do that. Right now, discretion was the name of the game, especially with a bunch of dead imperials back at Old Man Oh’s cabin.

“Come on up now. I don’t got much time to keep still here. Daylight’s fading and I don’t wanna get caught out here when the night comes ‘round. Let’s hustle now,” the man said, to which Mz. X nodded while walking to the side of the wagon and climbing up. They would ride up front while Saint rode in the back. It made them a little uncomfortable to ride without their shotguns or knife at their waist and with only one revolver handy, but civilians didn’t travel armed to the teeth with monied weapons. While Saint had the bundle with the sawed-offs, the knife, and the other revolver, Mz. X didn’t figure they would be of much to use to him, especially not while in the process of coming down from being drugged. At the end of the day, what would be, would be. Almost as soon as their ass touched the bench of the wagon, the settler snapped the reins and the horses started up in a light trot. 

“And what is it youze all go by?” The man asked, his eyes staying on the road straight ahead.

Before answering, Mz. X cleared their throat. “My name’s Jessie,” they said, and pointed to Saint with a thumb, “and that’s… that’s Duane back there. How about you? What’s your name, boss?” 

The man shrugged and snapped the reins again. “My name is Fleetwood Mack. You can call Fleet or Wood or Mack or Fleetwood,” he said, his low drawl dragging out his words. “You sure are lucky I came across you all. I’m on my way just east of Cal-gary. There’s this new town being built—I done heard they’re calling it Brooks—and I wanna get out there and get my  name spread around as someone who can get supplies out there, and I know I’m out here right now on this side of Cal-gary, all on the westside and whatnot, but just because I live out here don’t mean I can’t make those trips back and forth, you know.” 

Beside him, Mz. X blinked a few times, the length of the man’s answer coming somewhat as a surprise. They turned to check on Saint who lay atop some sacks of grain. He was dead to the world, even on a wagon rumbling along the road, and wearing stolen clothes a size or two too small. The sleep would do him good. Turning back around, they looked at the man to their left. “Your family won’t miss you?”

Fleetwood waved his left hand and shook his head. A whistle punctuated the movements. “The missus and me got nine children to us, and my mouth’s bigger than two of theirs,” he answered before laughing heartily and slapping at his stomach, drawing Mz. X’s eyes and leading to a quick eyeball. 

The driver certainly fit the profile of a travelling merchant in some respects. A blue-and-white checked shirt with sleeves rolled up to the elbow showed off the thick forearms of someone who’d spent years loading, unloading, and driving a wagon, while his broad shoulders and barrel chest completed the look. The beer gut hanging between his legs gave away how he unwound after a long day’s ride and that was just fine with Mz. X. Flipping the rein from his right hand to his left, he wiped at forehead and adjusted his hat before taking the reins back in two hands. Fleetwood’s once-pink skin had been baked a deep brown, the result of years hauling goods back and forth. While his easy, folksy, down-home attitude and tone resonated a sense of calm, Mz. X knew the man likely had a gun of some fashion sitting close by—maybe under the blanket behind his feet—and that he’d defended himself successfully more than a few times. 

Fleetwood broke his gaze from the road a moment to look Mz. X. “So, to answer your question, my family ain’t gonna miss me much. ‘Sides, it ain’t like I haven’t been on the road for most of them kidses’ lives anyhow. My youngest, Anna—her name’s actually Hosanna but we call her Anna—I think I ain’t never seen but one or two of her borndays. Most of them kidses it’s the same,” he shrugged and snapped the reins again. “With them tax collectors always coming ‘round with some new tax, I just ain’t able to be at home. My oldests work the farm and some of them got jobs, too, because if we ain’t able to kick up to the taxman then them imperial polices is likely to come and, at best, give us the boot, and at worst?” He turned his head and spit onto the road, before whistling again.

“I’ll tell you, Jessie, if you and your man back there ever end up with kids of your own, you better make sure you ain’t got to do what I do and spend all your life out here hauling goods back and forth. It ain’t the most glamourous life in the world, I can tell you that much.” He spit to his left again before taking the reins in his right hand and patting at his breast pocket. A frown settled on his face and he turned to Mz. X for a second. “You mind looking around your seat and checkin to see if my smokes is there somewhere? I could have swore I put them in my pocket.”

“Yeah yeah, I don’t mind,” Mz. X answered, pushing up from their seat for a moment and shifting around looking for the pack of smokes. Sitting back down, they continued to check on the footrest and in the mess of blankets between sitting behind both Fleetwood’s and their own feet. As they shuffled the blankets around, a long, well-oiled rifle barrel greeted them. The gun didn’t appear to have an energy charger on it, which didn’t mean much except the rifle wouldn’t blow a man’s torso clear off, nor would a round punch through imperial armour. There were some out there—farmers, merchants, bandits, outlaws, and gunslingers alike—who scoffed at an uncharged round, like a bullet from a gun hadn’t been killing folk as long as they’d been made. Mz. X felt around for a pack of smokes and sat back up after having no luck and gave a shrug. “I didn’t see anything there, sorry. Have one of mine?”

“Well, I do believe I will, Jessie. Thanks to you,” Fleetwood answered, accepting the cigarette being placed into his hand, flipping into his mouth and leaning to his right while Mz. X lit the smoke. “Your husband back there is the quiet sort, ain’t he?” 

Mz. X sniffled while lighting a cigarette of their own, before clearing their throat and shrugging. “Sometimes he is, yeah,” they answered, figuring it was easiest not to overthink the play. “We been… we been on some hard times as of late.” 

A long whistle came from Fleetwood. “Boy, do I hear that,” he said and let a cloud of smoke out of his nose. “What had you all on the side of the road way out here?” 

The question was longer in coming than Mz. X expected, but the question itself wasn’t a surprise. No one could last on the road as long as Fleetwood seemed to have been out if they beat around the bush or found themselves afraid of an answer. 

“Well, you see me and the…” Mz. X hauled on their cigarette and held the smoke in their lungs for a moment before exhaling and continuing. “Me and the hubby,” they said, the last word slipping and fumbling out their mouth, “we was riding into Calgary to try and find some work and we got waylaid night before last. They came up on us when we was eating supper and I managed to shoot enough for them to decide we wasn’t worth it, but they cut our horse loose and here we are.” For the sake of relative proof, Mz. X flipped back their jacket a little to show the butt of their revolver. 

“That’s a damn shame that is,” Fleetwood said, spitting to the side again. “Was they with them Sargent Boyz, do you know?”

Mz. X clicked their tongue and shook their head. “Nah, I don’t think. I ain’t never heard of them Sargents leaving no one alive. My guess is just some toughs thinking they can go taking what they want."

Another whistle and another nod. “Boy, do I hear that. Ain’t that the saddest truth,” Fleetwood said. He spit to the side again and whistled. “What kinda work you all do?” 

“I ain’t partial to one gig or another. I’m best at slinging drinks and running a door at the tavern, but there ain’t many jobs out there that I ain’t willing to do.” 

“And Duane?”

It was Mz. X’s turn to whistle, and they followed the sound with a shrug. “He was born with a lame hand so he ain’t built for much needing strength,” they said, pausing to haul on their cigarette. “He’s real good with his numbers and done accounting for a bunch of time, but we ain’t landowners and we ain’t farmers so if me and him ain’t got the right work then we are where we are.” 

The comments brought a series of nods from Fleetwood. “Boy, do I ever hear that,” he said. He gave the reins another light snap and then dropped the cigarette to the floorboards where he crushed it under his boot. “So, Jessie, where you wanting to be dropped in Cal-gary?” 

“I got a friend who runs a little drinking hole. I thought maybe you could let us out there and we can get ourselves sorted from there,” Mz. X answered. 

“And where is that drinking hole, Jessie?” 

Something about the way the question floated from Fleetwood’s lips and touched Mz. X’s ears, setting the gunslinger on edge. “It’s near Beltline,” they answered, hauling sharply on their smoke. Grabbing a revolver would be tricky in such close quarters, but a burning cigarette to the eye would do the trick, if necessary. 

“Beltline, huh?” The words hung in the air and time seemed to slow. “That’s awfully close to the Bankview Crater.” 

“My friend’s poorfolk just like me and Duane,” Mz. X answered. “Ain’t no way he’s ownin’ nothin' near anywhere else but the crater. The imperials seen to that. Anywhere else just plain cost too much unless you wanna be in bed with ‘em or work for someone in bed with ‘em.” The gunslinger spit over the side of the wagon and looked Fleetwood plain in the face. “If you got a problem with us being poorfolk and needin’ to go near the crater, you just ought to save us all some time and let us off right now.”

“Whoa now, whoa now,” Fleetwood whispered to the horses and gently brought the wagon to a stop. He turned his right and narrowed his eyes at Mz. X. “You ought to listen good to me right now here, miss,” he started, pausing to clear his throat. “There’s lots of types out there trying to do a lot of things and I ain’t fixing to get involved in none of it. You musta ain't heard me when I say I got ten mouths back at home to put food into. I ain’t got the time to care whether someone got or don’t got any money. We clear on that?” Clearing his throat again, he didn’t wait for an answer. “What I do got time for is making sure I ain’t putting myself in some position where my missus or one of my kidses has got to come up and see me in a box. Am I clear on that?” 

Both Mz. X and Fleetwood stared into the other’s eyes, clearly assessing whether or not it was only barking between the two of them, or if there’d be something different to settle. The air crackled with energy, though neither seemed willing to break their stare. Behind them both, Saint shuffled up from the sacks of grain and pushed himself up to his knees, taking the moment from both Fleetwood and Mz. X.

“Wh-wh-where are we right now?” The words floated dreamily across the air, while Saint rubbed at his eyes and looked around.

In a blink, the gunslinger whipped out their revolver, pressing the barrel firmly against Fleetwood’s skull, just above his right eye, and stopping the man from reaching his rifle. Despite Fleetwood’s bulk, he’d nearly grabbed his weapon and had it up, but Mz. X’s vocation—gunslinger and bandit extraordinaire—had honed their reflexes just a little more keenly than did the gig of wagon driver. 

“I don’t shoot civilians,” the gunslinger advised while shifting in their seat slightly. “You can take us into Beltline and drop us there and we’re all on our way, or you can not take us there and we take your wagon and you’re shit outta luck. Your choice.”

“You mind if I sit up straight?” Fleetwood asked, drawing a nod from Mz. X. He slowly sat up with his hands raised. “I make decisions a lot better when I don’t got a gun pressed in my face. You think we can make that happen?” 

Mz. X narrowed their eyes, releasing the hammer on the revolver and lowering it to their lap. If need be, the gun would be up in a blink. They had 35 dead men’s names on their resume when it came to quick draws, and while the wagon driver might have had a gun hidden on his person, going for the rifle, more or less, was his cards being played. 

“What’s going on here?” Saint asked, looking between the two in the front of the wagon. He rubbed at his eyes, still trying to clear cobwebs from his mind.

“Keep quiet back there, “ Mz. X ordered, their eyes staying glued on the wagon driver. It dawned on them that he might have been a bit more than a travelling merchant, but how much more remained to be seen. There was a clear difference—to Mz. X, at least—when it came to being a criminal and working for criminals. If Fleetwood was only a wagon driver moving supplies and running goods under the radar, he might only find his gear stolen and tied up at the side of the road. If he was muscle or someone doing the hustling himself, a bullet in the head would be the likely outcome of the situation. Maybe operating with such a black-and-white worldview harmed more than it helped, but those making their livings on the less honest side of the world had to be prepared for the catch that came with such a life, even if they were just wagon drivers. 

“Get us moving here. I ain’t looking for any imperial patrols to come up to us on why we’re stopped,” the gunslinger barked. 

Fleetwood whistled and shook his head in resignation. He took up the reins in his hands and snapped them twice. “Let’s go,” he said to his horses as they picked up to a trot.

“What—” Saint started, but Mz. X turned quickly, holding a finger up to him.

“Shut your mouth,” they barked, and he shut his mouth, turning to face out the rear of the wagon and lay himself down once again. The gunslinger turned back around themself and let a long exhale out their nose. 

An uneasy silence settled between the riders on the wagon, with only the sound of dirt and pebbles crunching under the wheels. In a lot of ways, riding in to Calgary from Bragg Creek way ought to have been a relaxing and calming trip. The gentle slopes of the hills, wide open sky, high-sitting sun shining down, and gentle breeze made for ideal conditions. With weather neither too warm nor too cold, it was hard to find fault or complaint in the day. Of course, for Mz. X, Fleetwood, and Saint, there were more moving parts in their lives that complicated the ability to simply sit and enjoy the moment. 

While unable to speak for the two men, the gunslinger knew their life was complicated, largely, because of their decisions. The authoritarian nature of the imperial Canadian government made it hard for anyone to scrape out a life according to the terms and conditions forced upon them by the strong-arm rule of the bloodthirsty cybernetic overlord, Sir John A. MacDonald, but it could be done. If Mz. X had followed in the footsteps of their parents, they’d have been a third generation miner toiling in the coal pits, working their fingers to the bone while their lungs turned black, with the only guarantees being a miner’s life and a miner’s death. There was no shame in a civilian life and, in many ways, it came with greater challenges and greater responsibilities than the life of a gunslinger and bandit, and Mz. X was entirely aware of that. In a way, riding alongside Fleetwood Mack, he with a missus and nine children, brought a bit of clarity to the gunslinger they hadn’t had in a long time. The wagon driver might have a lot of dirt on him and a lot of grit about him, but he might still have been just a wagon driver trying to get from one place to another to put food on the plates and clothes on the backs of those he loved. In a lot of ways, that life was far more difficult than the one Mz. X led, and the introspection led the gunslinger to slump a bit as they stared out into the distance.

In the back of the wagon, Saint, too, was left to his own thoughts and his own ruminations. A few days ago—as though time and space held any meaning anymore—he’d been scraping through a hangover, trying his best to fake his way from one point to another, with his only real hope and desire being to get home and hide from the world around him. Most of his life had been spent trying to hide from the world, trying—and usually failing—to somehow treat the pain sitting deep in his guts. In a lot of ways, he wished he had the guts to confront everything around him and to rage against the societal web within which he found himself trapped. Maybe he wished he were more like Mz. X sitting up at the front, someone unafraid to piss into the wind, someone willing to live and die by their own actions. Granted, he didn’t know much about them beyond whatever he saw and whatever he’d started to romanticize. Was there much life to be lived when one was always looking over one’s own shoulder? Was there much life to be lived when the only thing one could trust was how quickly one could draw a gun? Was there much life to be lived when one needed to strap weapons to one’s body the way a mother might strap a child to her body? Those were bigger questions than Saint could answer, and, if he was honest with himself, they were bigger questions than he wanted to ask.

The gunslinger and the old man said they were in Bragg Creek, and before that they’d talked about Turner Valley—Burner Valley, they’d called it. They told Saint his neighbourhood was gone. They called it a crater. They told him it was 1890, and they told him it was August. He rubbed at his face and sighed, shaking his head. Mz. X said he’d been dosed with LSD, and while that might have been the case, when he tried LSD as a teenager it lasted a lot longer than the few hours he’d felt it in the cabin and waiting at the side of the road. Wherever he was, whenever he was, none of it made any sense, though it wasn’t like anything made any sense when he was where he thought he belonged. Everything was so fucked.

Saint rolled his head back and stared at the sky. If he'd called in sick to work instead of going in, he’d have been spared dealing with his coworkers and he’d have been spared getting hassled by his manager and he’d have been spared the headache of trying to get home. If he’d made a few different choices in his day, it all would have turned out differently. If he hadn’t stepped in dog shit, maybe he would have been able to get to his apartment faster and wouldn’t have had to dive out of the way of the maniac who’d been following him. Maybe he wouldn’t have slipped on the ice. Maybe he wouldn’t been kicking rocks and ice and cursing himself for being unable to control his reality around him. 

“Motherfucker,” Saint grumbled under his breath and turned onto his side, resting his right arm under his head. He knew exercising gratitude and thinking about good things were supposed to be functional ways by which one could lift oneself out of the doldrums of depression, thought it was never something he’d ever been any good at. He always wondered what on earth he had to be thankful for and found himself playing the hard-done-by card. What did he have to be thankful for? He had a million things he could be thankful for, many of which he’d never had any agency in. Where and when he'd been born, to whom he’d been born, the privileges and things falling into his lap simply because of who he was. When he was honest with himself—a rarity—he felt overwhelming guilt for everything he had, for being able to survive in a world in which, by tricks of fate, others suffered so greatly. He shuffled a bit and scratched at his right left with his left foot, and his eyes tacked onto the moccasins on his feet. A flurry of tiny memories sparkled across his mind and he pushed himself to seated. He saw himself kicking at the ice and the blue sparks scattering across the ground, something his eyes had looked past. He thought about how he kicked the ice more and more, harder and harder, and the blue energy skittered along the sidewalk and street until he finally kicked with such ferocity at the insurmountable darkness he felt within him and surrounding him that a field of blue light broke through his bleak reality and birthed him into wherever and whenever it was he found himself. 

“H—” Saint said, turning around to face Fleetwood and the gunslinger. 

“Shut up.”

The response was direct and forceful, filled with venom and spite. Even a few minutes ago, the answer would have deterred Saint and—just as he’d done—he would have turned around and put his head down. However, it was always a funny thing when one’s guts were stirred, even momentarily.

“It’s important,” Saint said, trying his best to put some force behind his words, though his voice didn’t necessarily carry the weight he wanted it to. 

The gunslinger growled. “I don’t give a shit. I told you to shut your mouth. Keep talking and we’ll drop your ass at the side of the road and you can see how well you get by.” 

Fleetwood shifted in his seat and cleared his throat. “With all due respect, you think leaving him at the side of the road is a fair way to treat your hubby?”

The comment drew a scoff and Mz. X snapped their head away to stare out across the land. Without looking, they drew out their pack of cigarettes and went out about lighting one. 

The wagon driver let out a heavy sigh as he flicked the reins again. “Being so angry’ll be the death of you.” 

“Fuck you.”

An answer as simple and as old as time. Fleetwood sucked his teeth and spit over the side of the wagon. “All I see is someone who been drinking that bitter tea for so long they don't even know what anything else taste like. I’m gonna get you and him there over to wherever the hell you need to go in Beltline and then I’ll be more than happy to forget I ever came across your sorry ass.” 

Another few snaps of the reins and the horses picked up a bit more speed.

“I’ve got something really important to tell you,” Saint said again, trying to keep his voice low and easy.

“If you gotta piss, piss over the back,” the gunslinger snapped, not even turning their head. 

“You ought to be willing to hear someone out, even if it ain’t something you’se wanting to hear,” Fleetwood said.

The words drew a middle finger from Mz. X, who continued to stare out across the land. 

Shrugging in response, the wagon driver snapped the reins again. “Why don’t you tell me what’s on your mind there, Duane?” He asked, but kept talking before an answer could be given. “Maybe you ought to tell me your real name though. I don’t buy for a minute that you’se Jessie and Duane.”

Saint sighed and nodded. The surreal nature of his recent waking hours seemed to lessen in the slightest way, like a weight beginning to budge. “My name’s Saint Kinfail, and that’s… that’s Mz. X, or at least that’s the name I got.” 

A long, slow, low whistle and long, slow blink came in response. “The Mz. X?” 

The gunslinger wrinkled their upper lip. They cleared their throat sharply and shook their head a few times before hawking a glob of snot off the side of the wagon. They brought the cigarette up to their mouth and smoked and exhaled in a short, angry burst. 

Fleetwood let out another long whistle, eyes widening. He gave another quick, short whistle while blinking repeatedly and shaking his head. “Like, THE Mz. X?” 

Mz. X cleared their throat and spit on the ground once again. They turned to look at Fleetwood then Saint and back. The gunslinger sighed, and flipped their hands in the air before smacking palm against thigh. “Cat’s outta the goddamn bag now, ain’t it?”

As the last word faded from the air and the wagon began to slow to a stop, the shell of the seen-it-all wagon driver melted away. The vibration began slowly. First, Fleetwood softly chewed his bottom lip before his entire lower jaw began to shifting side-to-side, all the while his eyes continued to widen. He alternated between licking his lips and swallowing while his eyes flicked open and closed. The wagon driver pointed with his thumb at Mz X and turned to look at Saint. “Do you know who you’re with?” His voice cracked halfway through.

“Uh, M—”

“Mz. X,” Fleetwood barked. 

On cue, the gunslinger grabbed the wagon driver’s finger and bent a bit, drawing his attention back immediately. They pulled him while leaning close. “Stop shouting my name and drive,” they whispered before letting go and straightening up and looking back out across the land. 

“Oh yeah yeah, yes, yes, of course,” Fleetwood answered, head bobbing up and down with eyes still wide. “Yes, you bet, boss. Will do.” 

“Motherfucker,” Mz. X said, continuing to sigh and shake their head. 

Saint opened his mouth to try again. “Wh—”

“No one is ever going to believe this,” Fleetwood said, snapping the reins to get the wagon moving again. His head swivelled back and forth in disbelief the whole time. “Can I tell him about you? Can I tell him about you?”

Being a topic of conversation was an uncomfortable feeling for Mz. X. Some got into the life to hear their own name from the mouths of others and to hear tall tales about their scores and heists and gunfights and shootouts, with a dozen different versions of a dozen different stories in every inn, saloon, pub, and brothel from sunrise to sunset. In Mz. X’s experience, an outlaw with a name on the wind wasn’t often an outlaw with a lot of life left. Almost always, bandits—usually men—who got drunk on their name and their own folktales got fat and slow in the mind, and bought into believing they were the caricature of themselves they heard about so often, and once a man became fat and slow in the mind, it wasn’t long before he became fat and slow in the body. Mz. X had heard it called the long slip, and once an outlaw started slipping, the dirt nap wasn’t far behind.

“Can I? Can I tell him?” Fleetwood’s body shook with excitement, like a child waiting for permission. 

Mz. X clenched their eyes tightly, trying to remain calm. They robbed the robber who worked over the people subjugated by imperial and colonial rule. There were no heroes in a place poisoned by the expansionist ambitions of a racist government hellbent on the oppression, enslavement, and assimilation of every people it came across. Every story of Mz. X’s exploits reminded them of the deep hurt and the deep pain existing on a larger scale that even put them in the position to do what they did. They turned to the wagon driver and flicked a hand back at him. 

“Make it quick and keep it quiet. We don’t need the whole goddamn world knowing about me,” they said, knowing the stories would get told just the same. Maybe telling a story or two helped ease the weight of the yoke of it all.

Fleetwood gasped and snapped the reins lightly again. He whistled lowly again, and took a breath before exhaling it out sharply. “You really don’t know who you’re with here, huh?” He said, looking back at Saint quickly, who shrugged and held his palms up. Maybe it wasn’t the right time to talk about how he’d ended up where he’d ended up. Learning a bit of about the gunslinger might help him piece things together a bit more anyway. 

Fleetwood whistled again. “Mz. X is only the quickest draw in all of western provinces of imperial Canada. Sh—”

“They.”

The wagon driver cleared his throat and nodded. “They’ve shot and killed thirty-four men in shootouts.”

“Thirty-five. I shot a man in Pincher Creek a month back,” Mz. X interrupted. They spit off the wagon before lighting another cigarette. “He talked too much shit and cheated at cards. He was haunting around some of the working girls, causing them grief and putting his hands where he shouldn’t have been putting them.” They paused as they inhaled on their cigarette and let a cloud of smoke out the nose. “He didn’t like being confronted and wanted to make his name on a duel. I told him he should at least sober up so he could die with a clear mind and he ain’t want to do that and so he there he died, three sheets to the wind with a bullet through his neck.” 

“So, they’ve shot thirty-five men in shootouts,” Fleetwood parroted. “And I heard they got this set of black-and-gold guns that got the quickest pull around and all it takes is one wrong look and it’s—”

“It ain’t never one wrong look.”

The air cooled immediately on the wagon and Saint looked at Mz. X, while Fleetwood kept his eyes glued to the road ahead, cowed with the colour of embarrassment creeping up his neck. 

“Those thirty-five men have been dogs and they been dogs needin’ to be put down for too long,” the gunslinger grunted. “Some of them been rapers and child touchers and some have been out there thieving from oldtimers and poorfolk. You been working the roads a long time. You know exactly the type I done drawn Action and Muscle on,” they said, spitting on the road again and still looking off into distance. “All them who out there fucking the honest person, that’s who I done shot and I done robbed.”

“Are you like a sheriff or something?” Saint asked.

The answer came simply. “I ain’t no johnny law.” 

Mz. X angrily smoked, uncomfortable with the direction the conversation had taken. Maybe it was their fault. Maybe instead of butting in, they should have just let Fleetwood ramble away and let it be. They turned and looked at the wagon driver and saw him vibrating in his seat. No doubt he would have listened to them talk for as long as they wanted to, but he clearly wanted to talk about the gunslinger. 

“Why don’t you tell him what I do,” Mz. X offered, but held up a finger before finishing. “Just no fucking around with the stories. I was there for all of ‘em, remember.” 

“Oh my gosh, no. I won’t say nothin’ that I ain’t heard direct to my own ears,” Fleetwood answered. “Mz. X ain’t work for the law and I heard they even done held up sheriffs and imperials alike, just as much as they held up any gangs out there. And all the money they robbed always end up back in the pockets of the poorfolk. There’s doctors gettin’ paid for and law-yers and bail money and food ending up in the bellies of them who ain’t got the means.” The wagon driver whistled again and snapped the reins. “Down Lethbridge way, I heard they robbed the imperial bank coach getting ready to head all the way east to Toronto. I heard there was thousands of dollars in it. Ten thousand or twenty thousand or fifty thousand or some such business,” he said and whistled a few times again. “And I heard there was another time down there High River way where the hangman was getting ready to drop a half-dozen men through the gallows and Mz. X came riding in shot the place up until the men was escaped and g—”

“No one gets born to die hangin' from a rope,” the gunslinger said. “Some of them men was criminals still, and I settled up with some of ‘em already and some of ‘em met might have ended up hangin’ just the same, but I ain’t never gonna let no imperial set someone to dangle if I can stop it.”

Fleetwood a nodded few times and flicked the reins. “I heard one time down Vulcan way tha—”

  “That’s enough of all of this. I ain’t never been to Vulcan. Keep it quiet and get us into  Calgary. No more talking,” Mz. X barked. 

The wagon driver nodded enthusiastically. “Absolutely. Yes, boss. Whatever you say, boss. Absolutely,” he said, content now to follow orders and ride in silence. 

Behind the two, Saint settled back down on the sacks of grain and laid his head down. He closed his eyes and tried to feel the warmth of the sun against his skin, to let the soft breeze carry him away to sleep. Maybe when he woke up, he would be back home. Maybe he’d hit his head harder than he thought and he would wake up in the hospital and everything would be back the way he remembered. Maybe he was dreaming of gunfighters and bank robbers and western drama, anything more exciting than the life he might be waking back up to. His breathing began to smooth into gentle ups and downs and the rolling of the wagon wheels beneath him led him slowly off into sleep and whatever lay beyond.