Before a Beginning...
Aug. 11th, 2014 06:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vigorsgunsandgirls“I was never a good man, never a man who liked peace. I was drawn to violence, war, and pain, and causing it was something I not only liked, I was damned good at it too. Too good at it. I was thrown out of the Pinkertons when I ended a bad situation in a way that even they couldn’t cover up entirely, but it saved some lives, and some people remembered. When they needed soldiers for the issues with the Indians, they called me, gave me rank, and took advantage of my skills. Wounded Knee happened, and I was in the middle of it. I killed, and killed, and killed, until even I was sick of blood. Until it covered me head to toe.” Booker spoke quietly, gravely, as he cleaned his gun. He was sitting, and running the cleaner along his gun as he spoke.
“Something changed there, in the middle of it. Somehow, my whole self changed. Some people change in battle for the worse. Maybe that was my change for the better… sort of.” He chuckled, a dry, broken sound, that echoed through the room, and he took a long haul off of a bottle of whiskey.
“At least they gave you boys some good whiskey. Now where was I? Oh right… Wounded Knee. Right after Wounded Knee, I walked for days. Despite a violent life, and a lot of bad bad things, I had never seen anything like it. I was bloody from head to toe, and I couldn’t stop walking. I couldn’t think, except to know that I didn’t want to be the person i had been before then. I hated what I had been, what I was.” His face reflected his emotions, hate and pain and loss and he drank again. “I ended up walking in on this big revival. A famous preacher, a cousin to the President, had managed to put together a baptismal set up, near the Potomac. And he offered to Baptise me.”
Booker laughed. “I was tempted. God knows… but even God had no interest in just washing away my sins. I found myself revolted by the idea. Something like what I had done, had been doing, my entire life needed penance, something to really make right what had been wrong, and there wasn’t enough to do right in all the world to erase my list of sins. So I walked away, and kept walking, until I found New York, and got me a new job. I became a Pinkerton.”
He laughed. “They couldn’t wait to have the hero of Wounded Knee working for them. Somehow, along the way, I made some allies, and met a woman, a woman who had loved me, God knows why, came along, and had a kid with me. And then they dismissed me, for being too violent, they said, and too over the lines, and I gambled, and lost a lot of money, and somehow got enough brains to start a detective agency, and do some small good, with those allies helping me.”
His face turned ugly and he hurled the bottle across the room, the noise of it shattering not stopping his ranting and near shouting of the next words. “ And then that woman? She died delivering Anna. And I drank and drank, and stupid idiot me, lost a year in blackouts and lost my business and my life in debts, and lost myself somewhere. Somehow in the depths of my madness, I agreed to lost my daughter too. “
Tears tracked down his eyes now, and anger filled him as he slapped new bullets into his gun. “And I lost her, despite getting my head back at the last minute and chasing them. Comstock's men. They had something… something out of this world, and they vanished into it, with my daughter. And despite the bill of goods his man sold me about my debts being gone, you all still keep coming for me, keep trying to bleed me like trying to get water from a stone. For ten years, you’ve bled me, and I’m done with it.”
Booker shuddered as he rose, and kicked the last bottle down and turned toward the room, eyes tracking over the bodies, until he found the one who was still barely alive, his arms and legs bound and bandaged, and laying in his own filth and blood, eyes wide as he stared at Booker from behind a gag. Booker stalked toward him, gun out and pointing at the man.
“You tell your friends, your bosses, that I'm coming for them. The drunk, the loser, the idiot, finally is sober, because of them. I'm coming for them.” He slid the safety off on his gun, turned, and lifted a tied together bundle of the other guns he had liberated from the thugs who had come after him. “And there'll be hell to pay. I pay my debts, always, and this one is coming due.”
He turned and walked toward the door, stalking almost, and between one step and another, the air itself seemed to split open. With a cry, Booker felt the footing go out from under him and he stumbled through, falling into… a boat? All around him a storm raged, and he felt like his mind was splitting. Two rain coated figures sat before him in the rowboat, and then as dizziness swept up toward him, he heard a voice. Right out of memory.
“Bring us the girl, and wipe away the debt.”
And then he knew no more...
“Something changed there, in the middle of it. Somehow, my whole self changed. Some people change in battle for the worse. Maybe that was my change for the better… sort of.” He chuckled, a dry, broken sound, that echoed through the room, and he took a long haul off of a bottle of whiskey.
“At least they gave you boys some good whiskey. Now where was I? Oh right… Wounded Knee. Right after Wounded Knee, I walked for days. Despite a violent life, and a lot of bad bad things, I had never seen anything like it. I was bloody from head to toe, and I couldn’t stop walking. I couldn’t think, except to know that I didn’t want to be the person i had been before then. I hated what I had been, what I was.” His face reflected his emotions, hate and pain and loss and he drank again. “I ended up walking in on this big revival. A famous preacher, a cousin to the President, had managed to put together a baptismal set up, near the Potomac. And he offered to Baptise me.”
Booker laughed. “I was tempted. God knows… but even God had no interest in just washing away my sins. I found myself revolted by the idea. Something like what I had done, had been doing, my entire life needed penance, something to really make right what had been wrong, and there wasn’t enough to do right in all the world to erase my list of sins. So I walked away, and kept walking, until I found New York, and got me a new job. I became a Pinkerton.”
He laughed. “They couldn’t wait to have the hero of Wounded Knee working for them. Somehow, along the way, I made some allies, and met a woman, a woman who had loved me, God knows why, came along, and had a kid with me. And then they dismissed me, for being too violent, they said, and too over the lines, and I gambled, and lost a lot of money, and somehow got enough brains to start a detective agency, and do some small good, with those allies helping me.”
His face turned ugly and he hurled the bottle across the room, the noise of it shattering not stopping his ranting and near shouting of the next words. “ And then that woman? She died delivering Anna. And I drank and drank, and stupid idiot me, lost a year in blackouts and lost my business and my life in debts, and lost myself somewhere. Somehow in the depths of my madness, I agreed to lost my daughter too. “
Tears tracked down his eyes now, and anger filled him as he slapped new bullets into his gun. “And I lost her, despite getting my head back at the last minute and chasing them. Comstock's men. They had something… something out of this world, and they vanished into it, with my daughter. And despite the bill of goods his man sold me about my debts being gone, you all still keep coming for me, keep trying to bleed me like trying to get water from a stone. For ten years, you’ve bled me, and I’m done with it.”
Booker shuddered as he rose, and kicked the last bottle down and turned toward the room, eyes tracking over the bodies, until he found the one who was still barely alive, his arms and legs bound and bandaged, and laying in his own filth and blood, eyes wide as he stared at Booker from behind a gag. Booker stalked toward him, gun out and pointing at the man.
“You tell your friends, your bosses, that I'm coming for them. The drunk, the loser, the idiot, finally is sober, because of them. I'm coming for them.” He slid the safety off on his gun, turned, and lifted a tied together bundle of the other guns he had liberated from the thugs who had come after him. “And there'll be hell to pay. I pay my debts, always, and this one is coming due.”
He turned and walked toward the door, stalking almost, and between one step and another, the air itself seemed to split open. With a cry, Booker felt the footing go out from under him and he stumbled through, falling into… a boat? All around him a storm raged, and he felt like his mind was splitting. Two rain coated figures sat before him in the rowboat, and then as dizziness swept up toward him, he heard a voice. Right out of memory.
“Bring us the girl, and wipe away the debt.”
And then he knew no more...
