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[lincoln county]
[after highways 2]
The drive across White Sands is quick - little traffic, open road, clear sky - and they don't slow down until they hit Carrizozo, and it's not too much farther until they reach Capitan.
He tells her stories as he notices landmarks, but it's really just landscape, save for the few small towns they've come across.
It's so familiar it makes him nervous and excited at the same time.
It's like it ain't changed a bit.
The road into Lincoln is only a two-lane highway, with worn pavement and faded stripes, the hills on the side of the road brown and green from mix of heat and spring rain. It's quiet (they've turned the radio off at this point) and he's shed the sunglasses, eyes focused on the landscape.
There's a two-story brick building coming into view on the right side of the street, and they're already going pretty slow (not much traffic, but there are a few other people around), but he leans back and exhales, giving a nod to indicate what he's talking about.
"That's the courthouse." A beat. "Welcome to town."
The drive across White Sands is quick - little traffic, open road, clear sky - and they don't slow down until they hit Carrizozo, and it's not too much farther until they reach Capitan.
He tells her stories as he notices landmarks, but it's really just landscape, save for the few small towns they've come across.
It's so familiar it makes him nervous and excited at the same time.
It's like it ain't changed a bit.
The road into Lincoln is only a two-lane highway, with worn pavement and faded stripes, the hills on the side of the road brown and green from mix of heat and spring rain. It's quiet (they've turned the radio off at this point) and he's shed the sunglasses, eyes focused on the landscape.
There's a two-story brick building coming into view on the right side of the street, and they're already going pretty slow (not much traffic, but there are a few other people around), but he leans back and exhales, giving a nod to indicate what he's talking about.
"That's the courthouse." A beat. "Welcome to town."
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He points to a black and white photograph with the caption 'adobe ruins at Stinking Spring', showing a run-down structure made of bricks.
"I was done. We found out Billy hadn't been leadin' us to Ol' Mexico like he said...he said that he'd be nothin' but an old gringo down south...that it was the same as bein' dead."
He's telling a story (just the facts, facts are safer) and he keeps his voice level and quiet.
"I got angry...I drew on him. Never dared to before. I was angry and tired and scared and I just...I couldn't pull the trigger. I realized he was right...so I left."
He drops one hand to his left side, fingers grazing that scar through his t-shirt.
"I went down soon as I stepped out the door...sharpshooter. They hauled me back in but it got ugly real fast. I knew...if they were gonna make it out they needed cover fire, so I grabbed a second Colt and...last thing I remember was fallin' in the dirt."
His eyes are distant, focused past that photograph.
"Woke up to Nova chewin' on my hair that afternoon...the boys must have cut him loose as they were runnin'. I hauled myself up into the saddle and rode north...sun was setting. So not overnight...just all afternoon."
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"Course it all went t'hell after Richard got cut down. Fuckin' Kid took over and sent us all straight to goddamn hell."
All afternoon.
She watches his hand fall to his side.
That's more than long enough.
"Thank god you had that vest."
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He nods.
"M'damn grateful I had that vest on."
Damn lucky.
Doc glances around the room to ensure nobody's been listening to their conversation (there's another young couple across the way) and then he continues to wander towards the staircase.
There's a bullet hole in the wall at the base of the stairs.
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She trails a few feet behind him, tilting her head at the pockmarked wall, and the couple gets a quick glance before she speaks.
"Did he really ... ?"
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Doc moves up the narrow staircase, footsteps quiet against the hardwood.
(Even with boots, he can carry himself light on his feet.)
"Best dollar-eighty he ever spent."
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"Is that how much the ammunition cost?"
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"Ollinger was a bastard," he tells her, continuing up the stairs until they reach the second floor, and he looks at her. "I mean...he was the one who told 'em to tie me up by my wrists and drag me behind the stage on the way into town, after I got arrested in New York and brought back to Lincoln."
There is no love lost between outlaw and the deputy.
"He carried a double barreled shotgun, but instead of shotgun pellets he kept the barrels full of dimes - eighteen in each barrel. He liked to talk 'bout how much damage a buck-eighty could do to a ten-dollar steer...he liked to talk really. Tried to find reasons t'pick outlaws off...hell he'd rib on me for hours when I was stuck down in the pit 'neath the gallows."
A pause.
"After Billy shot Deputy Bell...he picked up that damn shotgun...walked to the window and shot that son of a bitch. So yeah, guess you could say it cost him a buck-eighty for the ammunition. Eighteen dimes."
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Her eyes move around the room without truly seeing the pot-belly stove or the window.
"God."
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"Rough town," he offers. "Rough time. Especially for a wanted man."
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And I kind of wish I'd been the one to do it, but that is not the here or now.
"After what he did to me."
He pauses, thinking.
"I'm just saying...times have changed. To the world, I wasn't worth a penny more than the bounty I had on my head at any given moment, and for awhile, that wasn't even much."
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"Are you saying you feel worthless?"
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Eventually, he closes his eyes as he exhales a breath he hadn't realized he was holding, letting his chin tip towards his chest.
"I don't know what I'm sayin', Kate. What I do know is that there are times when I feel like...like out there..."
He lifts his gaze, focusing past the ground to the street, adding a bit of dirt, a few horses, familiar sounds.
"...like I don't matter no more 'cause I don't...I don't exist. And I know that's bullshit but I can't...not feel that way sometimes."
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It's just the truth.
She trails off and steps closer, so she's standing beside him at the window.
(She doesn't want him to feel alone, especially not right now.)
"It's how you're feeling, and you can't just ignore that."
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He's lost his wife, his young son, his teaching career and his good reputation. He's been dragged through the dust and watched his friends gunned down, hunted like a dog. Things with Katherine are worse than they've ever been. He doesn't even have his name.
"...I can't even go by Scurlock, anymore. I been usin' an alias for months. I feel like I'm losin' who I am...I know it's what I feel but the entire damn thing, I'm tellin' myself I shouldn't be feelin' this way..."
But he can't help it.
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"Nobody's telling you how to feel -- nobody can, because they're not dealing with this. You are."
She places a light hand on his upper arm.
"But you've still got an entire bar full of friends, friends who know Doc Scurlock, and I'm not going to let you forget that."
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He looks away from the window, then over at her, eyes falling from her face to her hand against his arm and then to the floor. He nods, then sighs.
"Things have got to work out, y'know? I really believe that."
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"Okay."
She gives his arm a gentle squeeze before taking back her hand.
"I think they will."
Because they have to.
(She clung to the same desperate certainty in August.)
"They'll get better, it just might take some time."
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He isn't wanted, he isn't dead...all that he's waiting on is the pieces of the puzzle to fall into place.
No matter what happens, eventually...things will get better.
They have to.
Doc pushes himself away from the window, giving Ollinger's marker one last look before he moves back towards the staircase.
(It'll take them about an hour and a half to get up to White Oaks and if the trail - road, he supposes now - is anything like he remembers it's not one you want to do in the dark.)
"I got plenty of time."