The Hand That We're Dealt

Dimly he remembers stories that are the stuff of slobbering old men and drunken immigrants– seal women, with their seals’ skins left on the shore to dry. They made good wives. Quiet, obedient, and– a ribald laugh escapes him like a gunshot, haha– always wet, at least. The laugh splits the air, disturbs the silence, and the figure standing in the water whips up its head like a startled deer.

Very white flesh stands out stark against the brackish river water. He’s waded in to where the water hits mid-thigh, at least, and the thicket of brambles and hanging vines between the two of them does something for modesty. His, presumably, is the shirt thrown spread out over the nearest thorn-bush. Our gentleman’s not much good with the shaving knife, from the spots on the flapping cuffs and front. There’s a rime of frost on the river shore, and Christ Almighty, any sane man would be freezing out there.

Dun smiles, wiping his hands on the flat of his thigh and stepping forward.

“Come on out and say hello.”

By the time the boy’s out of the stream and shivering on the grass, Carcer has liberated his wallet, his pocketwatch, and his pistol, curious piece of work that it is. He’s almost tempted to let the poor bastard have his shirt, at least, looking like a drowned rat as he does (he’d taken him for a girl from a distance, not just woken up with a taste for screwing boys, and there was no reason to make the distinction about rapine) but that’s the point, isn’t it? Naked and shaking.

He’s got odd eyes. And he’s hardly a boy, watching him with all due suspicion.

As Carcer collects his things, it occurs to him that the milky-eyed youth is a bit better armed than most city-bound stagecoach passengers. He holds the bundle out on arm’s length, grinning.

“I’ll give you these back when we’re through. What’s your name, boy?”