Gabe

Gabriel Townsend wasn't a very good man.

He was violent. He thirsted for the slickness of blood on his knuckles and hungered for the rush of power that a man only felt when he'd proved himself stronger, better, faster, meaner...

Gabe Townsend was an indecent man. He had taken a girl of unparalleled purity and dragged her soul through the mud. He had loved her. Sullied her. Tarnished her. And when she had left him he hadn't shied from the offerings around him. His mother had a rule about the girls in her employ, but she had no such rule about girls just passing through, or those who had chosen to leave and make their own way in the world. He'd had his share of fun between the sheets. He'd had it atop the sheets, as well. Against the wall and bent over the dresser...

Gabe was violent and indecent. He was at best uneducated and at worst willfully ignorant of society's strictures. He was gruff to 'ladies' and rude to 'gentlemen' and utterly dismissive of the simpering offspring that milled about their feet. He had a mouth like a sailor and the eyes of the devil. He wore his hair too short to be fashionable and too long to be neat, and he had no marketable skills to offer a legitimate employer beyond his proficiency at meting out justice with his fists.

On his finest day, Gabe was no gift to the human race. No beacon of propriety and worth.

But he was not, and had never been, an idiot.

At least... he had never considered himself an idiot.

How, then, did he explain the fact that he had never seen it? All those years, catching glimpses of them from afar, and he'd never wondered? Those days spent nursing Katherine, the irksome child hovering in his shadow, pestering him every moment of every day, wrapping the strands of his spirit tighter and tighter around her small finger, and he'd never even thought to consider?

What in the hell was wrong with him?

What kind of worthless moron just took a woman at her word when she was feeding him such obvious drivel? Her words-- half a decade old but still fresh and clean in his memory-- cut through him.

"It's not our baby, Gabe. It's mine. Mine and Jacob's."

And he had believed her. Not because it made sense but because she wouldn't lie. Not his Katie. Not to him. Not about something so goddamned important.

But there was no denying it, now that his mind had finally caught up with his eyes. Isobel was his. He felt it before he saw it, in that moment when she stood before him, making demands as if she had the power to command. God help him, but she idd. She had more power over him than anyone ever had, and now that he felt it how could he not see it? Her eyes, her hair, and the arch of her brows. The rest of her was Katherine, but his contribution was undeniable.

It had always dug a crater in his chest, knowing that an innocent child was living under the reverend's roof. Knowing, now, that it was his child? His little girl who had been smacked so hard she'd developed a bruise on her perfect cheek? His baby who was so quiet and timid, her gregarious outbursts the cautious exception to a hard-learned rule? His flesh and blood, a manifestation of his love, who had been a stranger to him for the first half decade of her life?

It shouldn't have been different, but it was.

He bent low over Reaper's neck, letting the cold wind drive needles into his face as they tore along the road toward town. No matter how fast they ran, he couldn't put enough distance between himself and the clawing urge for blood. No matter how hard his eyes teared at the icy wind, he couldn't blink away the image of those eyes-- his eyes-- peering up at him from beneath the edge of that stupid hat.

The flurries had settled and a sullen, still dusk was spreading dull ink over the sky as he had left the Tuckers' and headed home. Now, night had fallen, the moon full, striking silver light off the mottled snow. Reaper wouldn't have minded if it was pitch black or bright and sunny. He was a creature born to run, and Gabe, in that moment, was a creature born to cling to the horse's back and let the wind take them both.

If only the wind could take the girls as well, carry them somewhere far away from here....

He meant to ride for home, but when he slowed Reaper to a walk he realized where he'd come, the beast inside him running headlong for vengeance even while his mind wandered through happy futures in distant, sunny lands.

He slowed from a walk to a halt, and Reaper lowered his head, steam huffing from flared nostrils as the animal panted for air. The horse shifted, and Gabe let loose the reins, lowering his hand to rest on the pommel as he gazed at the view before him.

They stood on a hill at the edge of town, the landscape painted in the minimal colors of night. Grey-white snow, stretched thin over the hills. Stark black buildings, little more than hard-edged silhouettes against a deep blue sky. Orange light limning the edges of the buildings from unseen streetlights, and shining out from the odd window-- little squares of warmth in the cold.

Grey-white stars and wispy clouds.

Stark black trees, edges frayed, and rounded gravestones the color of pitch, like windows to the afterlife.

Deep blue river, winding along the edge of town.

Orange lamps set high in a cast-iron bracket outside the double doors, casting a sickly glow over the churchyard.

The place was serene, an eggshell veneer coating sinister secrets. Aside from the twin lamps that framed the entrance, the church was cold and quiet. It appeared less a place of worship and more a prison or a mausoleum, with its gray stone walls, the windows so dark they could have been liquid, inky and fathomless. Beside the church, the little white house stood innocent and neat. The narrow front porch was framed by bay windows. One was dark, the other glowing faintly.

He's home.

Gabe dismounted, boots crunching into the thin layer of snow, struggling to focus on the earth beneath his feet. The thin leather of the reins in his hands. He tried to ignore the rush of his own blood in his ears, the heat that twined around his spine. The narrow band that bound his holster to his thigh and the weight of it hanging from the belt around his hips.

One bullet.

He closed his eyes, and in his imagination he strode across the lawn. Kicked down the door. Watched with a smile as the reverend scrambled up from wherever he'd been sitting-- lounging by the fire or sitting at a desk working poison into his next sermon. Gabe chuckled darkly to himself as his imagined reverend fell back against the nearest wall, his face white, his eyes wild and wide with terror, like a startled horse.

Still standing atop the hill, Gabe stepped forward, reins wrapped loosely around his left hand, and let his right fall to his revolver. He brushed his thumb over the polished wood handle, smooth like silk against his touch. He let his index finger trace the curve of the trigger, the metal colder than ice. Teeth grinding, he imagined the report of the gun. One single, echoing crack, rending in waves through the false peace that blanketed the property. That gunshot would send a fissure through the foundation of the church and crumble the granite gravestones in the yard. It would put a dime-sized hole right between the reverend's eyes and a gaping, dripping crater in the back of his head.

The sharp bite of iron hovered on the back of his tongue as he gnawed on the fantasy, his fist wrapping tight around the handle of the gun. It would be so easy. The reverend's power lay in the herd that trampled along in his wake, his potency in the reach of his voice. Here in the quiet, with no soul around but for Gabe's, he was weak. As a man alone, was nothing.

He saw the lights before he heard the riders who bore them. Three yellow globes, casting themselves up toward the star-filled sky. Pulling in a shallow breath, Gabe moved forward off the crest of the hill, hiding himself and Reaper in the shadow of the slope. The riders should have appeared like apparitions in the ghostly light, but they appeared very much like men. They formed lumpy, disjointed silhouettes, trampling over the dark ground with as much grace as a herd of drunken bulls. Their voices cut through the stillness, sour and shrill with drink.

He couldn't make out their words, but he hadn't grown up in brothels without coming to know the pitch and yaw of brewing trouble. They rode up the path to the preacher's house, bypassing the silent church. He was too far away to make out their faces, but faces didn't matter around here. He knew every man in this town from the shape of his shadow and every woman from the scrape of her whisper.

They left their horses in the yard, the fog of the animals' collective breath forming a cloud above them. Then they clambered up the stairs and knocked on the door, an ironically respectful rap considering their drunkenness and the clamor of their voices.

The door yawned open with a distant creak, and the men disappeared inside. For a moment, Gabe hesitated. He could sneak down and listen to their meeting, but what good would that do? It would be like riding headlong towards rolling black clouds just to see if they'd bring rain. Trouble wasn't just brewing. Behind that door, trouble was painstakingly crafted. It was hewn from great blocks of marble. Molded from heaps of clay. Bent and hammered from shapeless bars of iron. He didn't need to listen to know what masterpiece of strife loomed on the horizon, and the moment of opportunity to quietly dispose of its maker had passed. Truthfully, it had never existed. Gabe turned and swung up into the saddle, drawing Reaper around hard and nudging him back into a gallop.

As he rode, he felt that he was being torn apart. His love for Katherine and his fury with her for raising his daughter in that rotten home. His love for Isobel-- and was love even a strong enough word?-- and his fear of what she could do to what soul he had left. His aching desire to be a better man for both of them, and his burning need for blood. That urge to call them his family, and that cruel little voice that insisted they could never be his.

He rode, not for home, but for the Bridge. He hadn't been back there since the night he found them, but something called him to the quiet corner of the woods. He slid once more from the saddle and hitched Reaper to a tree, striding to a boulder near the water's edge and settling onto it. The river flowed by, dashing over rocks and gliding along the banks-- glass and froth, slow and frantic, dark and glistening with starlight.

There was no order to his thoughts as he sat there, frigid damp sinking into the seat of his pants. He drifted through past and present, and against all odds, he found himself... smiling.

There were choices to be made, hovering somewhere just beyond the far bank of the river, hidden in the darkness of the trees. His choices. Katherine's choices. The reverend's choices. The town's. No decision ever went unmade, and the lot of them could only hover here in uncertainty for so long before the world just made their minds up for them. He felt the weight of those possibilities pressing down on him, but still... he smiled.

Isobel.

His Isobel. His daughter.

How was it that she made everything so much simpler? There were no decisions to be made, there. He would kill for her. Die for her. He would turn his back on Katherine, on his mother, on the girls, on his raging thirst for vengeance... he was a father. What meaning had that word carried before? To a man raised by women, very little.

Tonight, it meant everything. The second he had looked into Isobel's face and seen what Katherine had hidden all these years, all the stupid trivialities that made up his life had suddenly, catastrophically ceased to exist.

In truth, there were no more choices for him, just as he now understood there had been no choices for Katherine. There were just moments, forks in the road, where they had to sidestep onto the path that kept Isobel safe. It was compulsion, not choice. Katherine had borne the burden of navigating this road alone for half a decade. Somewhere in the not-so-distant future, there was a fork in the road where they would have to separate. She would take one path, staying with her daughter to protect her. He would take the other, leaving them for the same reason.

Until then, though, they were walking together, and for as long as it lasted he knew there was no choice but to walk as close as she would let him.

* * *

"This is ridiculous, Josh. You have a farrier," Gabe grumbled, back aching as he bent over the horse's hoof, filing away the excess around the edges of the new shoe. In spite of the chill outside, the little building was sweltering, the forge belching out invisible draughts of heat that soaked the back of his shirt in sweat. The horse didn't seem to mind the heat, nor did she give much protest to Gabe having her balanced on three legs while he filed away at her hoof. She stood with benign indifference in the little partition by the door, munching absently on a handful of oats.

"I do have a farrier," Josh allowed with a shrug, the smug bastard leaning against the open doorjamb to avoid the stifling heat as he watched Gabe work. "But he's away for a week, which is why all my men know how to do basic tasks like these. You said you wanted to learn, didn't you?"

"You're just using me for free labor," Gabe mumbled, standing up straight to work out the kinks in his back before bending back over.

Josh snorted. "Shall I reenact the conversation where you staunchly refused compensation? I can go get Amelia. She can play your part. She does a good 'Gabe.'"

And he would refuse again today, all of his bitching aside. The Tuckers were doing him a favor, letting him stumble clumsily around their ranch while Josh took valuable time out of his day to show him the ropes. Not to mention they were housing Katherine and Isobel free of charge. Hell, as far as Gabe was concerned, he owed them a lifetime of indentured servitude for that debt alone.

"You can keep your impression," he said, standing straight, the rasp still clasped in one hand. "How does that look?"

"Looks pretty good."

"Now what?"

"Now you do the other three."

A curse slipped from his mouth unbidden. He'd have to work on that if he was going to spend any time around Isobel at all. Katherine would skin him alive if she caught him cursing in front of her daughter. Their daughter. While she was unconscious he had let slip a 'goddammit' and it had taken him the better part of a day to convince Isobel to stop repeating it.

Josh laughed, stepping forward to clap him on the shoulder. "A break wouldn't hurt. Let's go cool down."

After lowering the horse's leg from the stand and leaving her to munch her oats, Gabe followed his friend out of the smithy and sank onto the narrow wooden bench along its wall. A week had passed since Isobel's birthday and the weather had taken a turn for the brisk. Cold, dry air snagged the sweat on his skin and had him cooled off in seconds, the pale blue sky a reflection of the crisp air.

"You gonna go see them after you're done here?" Josh asked, blunt and to the point.

Gabe hesitated. Yes, Katherine had invited him back. Yes, Isobel was his daughter and he desperately wanted to see her. Yes, he had no real excuse, no real desire, to stay away.

But leaving Katherine be had grown to a habit during the past few months and the past few years that came before. An unpleasant habit that brought him no joy, but a habit nonetheless. Plus, what if he went there and fell deeper for Isobel and harder for Katherine? Eventually they'd leave and he'd be so much farther back from where he'd started.

"Gabe?" Josh prodded, wariness in his tone. "She invited you back. That's a good thing, for both of you. Don't pass up the chance."

"Isobel is mine," he said, keeping his voice barely above a whisper. There were no men about in this corner of the ranch. Just trodden mud and cattle, but he couldn't chance anyone overhearing.

"Katherine tell you that?" Josh asked calmly, no hint of surprise tightening his voice.

"No, but--"

"Then don't assume it, Gabe."

"I'm not just guessing, Josh. You've seen the kid. She--"

"I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm just saying you ought to let Katherine tell you. If you come at her with your mind made up, demanding answers, she might spook."

"I know that," Gabe grumbled. Sure, Josh was a better man than him, and he was clearly better with women if their respective relationships with the women they loved was any indication. But Gabe wasn't an ass, at least not to Katherine. He'd never intended to barge through the door yelling about Isobel's paternity. He had more grace than that... he hoped.

"I know you do. Just be careful is all I'm saying. Don't set yourself up to get trampled over again. I like you better when you're not a sullen bastard."

"Funny," Gabe said dryly, pushing to his feet and rubbing his arms. "I oughta finish with this horse and get up there before noon. It's a Saturday so I need to be back at ma's by dark."

Josh glanced up at the sun. It was already near noon and they both knew it. "Go ahead and leave now," he said, rolling his eyes good-naturedly. "I'll finish up here."

"I started the job. I'll finish it," Gabe growled, shoving past him and stepping back into the smithy. Josh followed him with a laugh.

"At the rate you're going, you'll not only miss your chance to visit the girls, you won't even get home until after midnight. Plus I can't risk you rushing and maiming one of my poor horses."

"I'm not going to maim her." Gabe ran a hand over the horse's neck

"No, you're not. Because you're going to let me finish up here. I need the practice anyway."

"You're the owner of the ranch, man. You don't have better things to do?"

"Sure don't!" Josh smiled brightly, shoving him aside with a shoulder. "Get the hell out of here. As your non-paying employer, I insist."

Much as the man in him wanted to argue, every other compulsion was driving him to obey. Gabe snatched his coat from the peg by the door and cuffed Josh in the arm. "Thanks, brother. I'll be back on Wednesday."

If Josh replied, Gabe didn't hear him. He was already out the door.

***

Hey, guys! I have been even worse about responding than usual these past few weeks, and I'm sorry for that. I'm in the 'mindless panic' stage of moving. You'd think after a dozen moves in as many years I'd have figured out a way to do this without wanting to tear my hair out. Alas, it seems this experience was just made to be stressful. 

Good news is, once I clear this apartment I'll have at least a week of liminal space which I intend to spend relaxing and writing and little else. 

I hope you're enjoying Katherine and Gabe's story. As always, they are really throwing me for a loop and messing up my efforts to 'plot' and 'plan.' Gabe wasn't supposed to learn about Isobel until the last few chapters, but here we are... ah well. 

As always, thank you so much for reading. Y'all make my world go round. 

Liz 

***