It wasn’t until afterward that I understood what happened in the fight. It played out in the space of only a few seconds; the alley was dark, but not so dark that I had trouble seeing the pair of them moving.
What was hard to understand was why Baron, who needed to be on the aggressive, and needed to beat the other man halfway into Hell, waited. The silence seemed to last forever. It might have been ten seconds, but the entire fight afterward would barely last half so long.
Franklin took the first swing. It was a wide, swinging thing, and I had little doubt that it could have knocked down a full-grown maple tree if it connected solidly enough. This wasn’t the trained boxing of the man at the fair. Nor was it the controlled attack of a man who knew that he’d never be welcomed back if he broke some poor farmer’s jaw.
Baron ducked forward, into the blow. I watched with my mouth slack and my heartbeat stopped entirely. I felt like I was about to watch Baron get himself killed in one hit, like a man who had been hit by a passing train. And then at the last moment his weight shifted further to the left, outside the swing, and it sailed ineffectively past his nose, so close that the hairs on the back of Franklin’s arm must have rubbed Euler’s cheek.
Baron twisted wickedly and caught Franklin with the point of his fist. He twisted back the other way in the space of an instant, stepping even closer. This time it wasn’t the point of his fist that drove deep into Franklin Durham’s cheek. His elbow spiked into the bigger man’s teeth. I heard an awful cracking noise, and Baron stayed standing, already pulling back his foot for a massive kick as Durham fell.
It had been impossible to win. There was simply no way. Four things that had to all go right, and they had all been long shots. At least, that was what I had thought. Because as Euler brought his leg forward, I could see that there wasn’t even an ounce of worry in his eyes. Nor was there any relief, for that matter.
All that his face showed was anger. Anger at being challenged, like some kind of animal. Another crunch sounded as the knee collided with Franklin’s face as he fell. He slumped into the ground, and I felt relief flooding through me even more fully. And then it was gone, replaced with the feeling of two pairs of arms wrapping around my arms and pulling me back, off my feet.
The arms held me up. And someone stepped forward. A woman, I saw. Leanne’s voice was hard and low.
“You better cut that out, Baron.”
He stopped mid-kick. Franklin was still squirming on the ground, refusing to stop trying to get himself up. When Baron stopped he grabbed at the smaller man’s blue jeans and tried to haul himself up that way. Baron stepped back, and Franklin fell down again.
“Leanne.”
“You’ve been gone a long time,” she said. Her husky voice was harder than I’d ever heard it. I tried to struggle back to my feet, but every time I almost managed to get my weight back on my legs I was pulled back off of them. “You should have stayed gone.”
“You and Franklin?”
Her back was to me, now. She reached down and Franklin took her hand.
“We needed someone to be in charge around here. I found someone.”
“I’m in charge.”
“Yeah? For how long? How much time do we wait for you to come back? You think we’d hear about it if you were arrested? If you died?”
“It was a straightforward couple of jobs.”
“Three months,” she said. “Three months, you’re hitting banks. How long before the Federales start looking? It’s not like there’s a coward among us. But you’re going to get yourself killed, assuming you don’t get the rest of us killed.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means like what it sounds like. You take your share. We’re not here to cheat you. Take your woman.”
“You’re not going to get rid of me that easily.”
Something pressed against my throat. It was colder than the night air. And it was hard, and it was sharp. It hurt.
“You’re not going to stay, Baron. Get out of here, while you still can.”
She reached into her front pocket and pulled something free. I heard the sound of the hammer clicking before I saw the pistol in her hands. It must have been reversed for Baron, but he stood still. Maybe he wasn’t sure what to do, or maybe some part of him had decided that he wasn’t going to hit a woman. Not even if she was forcing him out of his home.
“Fine,” he said finally. “I’ll go.”
“And don’t come back,” Leanne said softly. The pistol stayed leveled at his chest, but she turned to me. I watched Baron. If he was going to do anything, it had to be now. And I wasn’t sure that I wanted him to. I was afraid. “You’re free to stay here, if you want to. I’m not condemning you to staying with Baron if you don’t want it.”
“I’m going with him,” I said. “I don’t have any place here.”
“I could find something for you,” Leanne said. Talking to me, she almost sounded conciliatory. Like she was sorry that it had to work out this way, but it was the way that it had to be.
“I don’t think so,” I said, and she nodded.
“Okay. You go. Get your things. Bring his as well. Take as long as you need, but you’re not staying here.”
“Don’t kill him,” I said. I tried not to sound like I was begging, but I can’t say that I wasn’t.
“No,” she agreed. “I won’t kill him. We all owe him that much, at least.”
Franklin rubbed at his jaw, but he nodded in agreement. The knife pulled away from my throat, and the arms holding me fast lifted me up off the ground. I got my feet under me, and I walked as quick as I could. Everyone was watching, and everyone knew what was happening. So I didn’t waste time.
I got his things, and I got what few belongings I had to my name, and I wandered over to the stable for the horses. Someone had them saddled and ready. So I shucked the stuff into Baron’s saddlebags, and I went back over to the knot of mutiny.
I should have felt bad. I should have seen everything that was going to come after. But neither one happened, in spite of myself.