Billy Rock

The longer they stayed, the more surreal this became, but Billy couldn't seem to think of a reasonable excuse to back out of their commitments now. The days leading to Christmas Eve had been filled with an air that he was looking in on his life backwards, watching all these preparations for revelry that his fingers itched to assist with because it had been his job to assist in these things the last time he had put foot in a house like this.

The afternoon of Christmas Eve, Billy lingered in the garden, smoking. People would be arriving for Matilda Robicheaux's party, very soon, and Billy wasn't entirely certain how he was going to survive. He wasn't sure how Goodnight was going to survive. But, as with all things, they would manage. They had each other in this.

Still, there was a quiet, worried part of him. A part that wanted to weigh his hips down with a pistol and a knife, a part that wanted to look everyone in the eyes and dare them to whisper about Goodnight or himself or both of them. There was a quiet part of him that feared he could not navigate this miasma, that he would get swept away at some point and treated as he had been as a boy.

Billy finished his cigarette, and continued to linger. He ought to go put his suit on and get ready, before guests arrived. It was a new one--which he didn't need--more expensive than Billy felt any right to be wearing. But it was Christmas, he supposed, and so he'd been gracious about it. He breathed in the New Orleans air, and then headed up to put the suit on. Goodnight had disappeared somewhere into the house, likely helping his mother with last minute things; Billy hadn't seen him since the end of breakfast.

He took his time, and by the time he was ready--dressed, shaved, hair pinned back--he could hear people arriving. He let himself out of the room he, and more often than not Goodnight, was keeping for the time they were here, and set out to find Goodnight.

They arrived in Reno in the early evening, the sun glinting gold and red on the Sierra Nevadas to the west. The last time Billy had seen those mountains, he had been young, and it had been from the western side looking east. Not long after, his family and he had headed north to Oregon, then Washington, until he was sold into his indenture.

To consider the mountains from this angle was to consider his traveling companion. Goodnight had already gone in to get them a room at one of the various hotels while Billy saw the horses tended to in a stable near the common. It was better to house them there, Billy knew. Reno had a reputation for thieves, and he'd prefer they not encounter that with their horses.

He made his way back to the hotel, contemplating the makeup of the city. There were more blacks and asians here than in most places they'd stopped over the past months. Billy felt considerably less out of place.

When he reached the hotel, he found Goodnight sitting out on the front porch, contemplating the street. Billy did not walk up the steps yet. He considered Goodnight from that angle, the line of his jaw and the sweep of his hair around his ear. Billy had known he was in trouble about this for weeks, at least. He just didn't know what else to do. But these past few days, working their way toward Reno, he'd been feeling it more and more.

It had been a long day. They had all been long days, since they'd arrived in Rose Creek, but this was possibly the longest. Billy didn't know how he felt about that. He didn't know what he'd do. Ever since, the night before, Goodnight telling him about his anxious, superstitious dream, the day had felt every bit of their heat, every bit of the effort they were putting into last minute preparations, every moment of worried waiting.

Now, the trenches were finished. Though the town folk had collected in front of the church to hear a sermon from the preacher, Billy and Jack had set about finishing those and making sure they were set for the inevitable siege in the morning. Billy was aching tired, his shoulders and lower back screaming for some form of relaxation--laying in bed or on the floor, having a bath to soak in, anything. They were running short of cigarettes; he had tobacco, but no more rolling papers, and nothing else he put in them. He'd just have to live with himself.

He trudged his way up to the room he and Goodnight shared in the boarding house, stretching his shoulders still as he let himself into the room.