Notes: Extreme AU.  No names (with one notable exception) in these sections.  Fictionalized accounts of actual people.  Also, a minimum of internet research, so any accuracy (yay, Wikipedia) is probably strictly accidental.

Disclaimer: WEP owns Voltron.

The Westward Journey

Utah territory, 1865

Blam, blam, blam!

Three shots sounded in quick succession, shattering the night with their reports, the echoes of which were quickly swallowed in the crackling of the fire.  Three bodies fell to the ground with soft thuds and lay unmoving.

Gun still smoking, the man turned away from the people he’d killed, and saw the rest of his troop staring at him in disbelief.  “What?” he asked, his tone harsh as if in annoyance.  For a moment, the only other sounds were the roar of the blaze consuming the small shanty and the panicky stamping and shrilly frightened noises of the horses the men held.

“Jesus,” one of the men muttered to his neighbor.  “Just as cool as you please…”

The man who had fired the gun stalked over to the speaker.  “Do you have a problem?” he demanded, holding his pistol with its muzzle pointed at the stars.  In the darkness, the leap of the flames cast eerie lights and shadows over the planes of his face, turned his pale hair tawny and red by turns, and the man who had spoken swallowed nervously.

“No, sir.”

“Good.”  Immediately, before the second man could even relax, the first swung his gun around and shot him in the head.  He crumpled to the ground, eyes wide and unseeing.  His hand was still clenched around the reins of his horse, dragging its head down, and it tried to shy away from the smell of blood and smoke.  The unlucky man’s neighbor grabbed the horse’s bridle to keep it still, easing away from the fourth body.

“Sir.”  Another man spoke up hesitantly.  He was mounted, but managed to instill the proper deference in his tone; he was long used to obeying orders, even unreasonable ones.  “Your father’s instructions were to set fire to the house and let them burn to death…”

The first man rounded upon him angrily.  “What’s the difference?  They’re dead!”

Calmly, the man continued, “If someone comes along, they’ll find the bodies, and see that they were shot, not burned…”

“So throw them back into the fire!”  He shoved his gun roughly into his holster, not noticing that there was a faint sigh of relief as he did, and strode to his horse.  “Do I have to do all of your thinking for you?”  Without a look behind to see if they were doing as ordered, he swung up and began to ride away.

The second in command glanced after him, sighed, and dismounted stiffly.  “All right, men,” he said, his tone weary.  “Let’s get at it.  The sooner we’re done, the sooner we can leave.  You five,” he gestured toward a small knot of men, clustered away from the fire.  “You’re closest.  Throw their bodies on the fire.  And McGregor,” and he swiveled around to pin the neighbor of the man who had been killed with his one-eyed glare.  “Well, you might just as well throw Jackson in, too.  Hurry up,” he added, his tone becoming stern when no one moved.  “We need the fire to burn them up so no one will recognize them, or know that they’ve been shot.”

Finally, the men he’d indicated moved, and began dragging bodies toward the fire.  He nodded absently in approval, and started to walk about, to stretch the kinks out of his legs.

After only a few moments, though, one of them straightened and said, “Hey – the kid’s gone!”

“What?” Disbelief led the second in command over to where the other stood.  There was an impression in the grass where a body had obviously lain.  Kneeling carefully, he laid a hand on a patch of ground that seemed to glisten darkly, and found his hand covered in blood when he lifted it away.  He glanced around, but the fire did not illuminate very well or very far, and beyond a few feet, he could see nothing.

“We’ve got to find him!” The man who had discovered that the boy was missing took a step away from the circle of light. 

Before he could get far, however, the second in command rose to his feet and grabbed his arm.  “No.”

“Why not?” The man looked at the shadowed, fire-cast visage in astonishment.  “He can…”

“He’s badly wounded,” the second in command said, his voice calm, rational, and showed him the amount of blood on his other hand.  “He’ll probably die before anyone can find him.  Besides, we won’t be able to find him if he’s wandered any distance – none of us brought any lanterns, and there’s no moon.  We’ll just have to come back when it gets light enough to see, to make sure he’s dead.”  He released the man’s arm, and returned to his horse.  “And for God’s sake, don’t say anything about the kid being alive.  On your own head be it if you do… just like Jackson.”

“But, sir…”

The second in command swung up into the saddle with some difficulty and settled himself.  “Just hurry up and help McGregor throw Jackson on the fire,” he ordered.  “We really should get out of here.”    He urged his horse forward a few steps, following the path that their leader had taken.

The half of the group that had not been delegated to cremating the dead also mounted up and trailed after him.  The remainder caught up a few minutes later, McGregor still leading the extra horse.

Behind them, the fire slowly burnt itself out to embers, unseen.

***

Mama… Papa…

In a haze of fever and pain, the boy wandered.  Blood still ran freely down his arm, and his shoulder was a nearly unbearable blaze of agony.  He stumbled frequently, but kept moving as fast as he could.

They killed Mama…  A sob wracked his thin frame.  And Papa… Have to keep going, or they’ll kill me, too…

In his mind, he kept seeing the men who had so roughly dragged him and his parents from their home.  When the first brands were set to the wood of the house, his mother had struggled, trying to get away, to put them out.  Then the tall man, the one who looked like the devil as the flames danced higher, told the other men to release them.  Before his mother or father could even move, the shots rang out.  He could still hear them…

The ground suddenly fell away beneath his feet, and in the darkness, he lost his balance and tumbled down the incline, crying out in pain and unable to stop himself.

At the bottom of the slope, he lay in a heap, bruised and battered, his shoulder on fire, and couldn’t force himself to move again, couldn’t do anything but cry softly into the grass.  After a while, he couldn’t do that anymore, either, and fell into an exhausted sleep.

When all was silent, a form slipped away from the shadows and across the stretch of grass and scrub to kneel by the boy’s still body.  The boy’s skin was chill to the touch, but a pulse still thrummed in his neck, and the man sagged in relief.  He ripped the boy’s shirt into strips to staunch the bleeding from his shoulder, then bundled him into his coat and lifted him up.

When the boy became aware again, weak from fever but on the mend, he was with strangers – a man and woman with two other children.  When he asked for his own mother, in a querulous voice he didn’t even recognize as his own, the woman told him that his mother was dead, and that he would stay with them from now on.  When he remembered the devil, the fire and the sound of the gun, the woman embraced him as he wept.

Wrung out, he lay staring at the beams of the ceiling after the woman left, the ache in his shoulder only a distant second to the one in his heart.

It was not long before his thoughts turned to revenge.

***

A young boy peeked out through the window from his precarious perch on one of the kitchen chairs.  The floor was uneven, not well leveled, and the chair itself was quite old and rickety.  It wobbled even underneath his slight weight and gave the impression that it might collapse entirely in just another moment.

He concentrated on that only enough to keep his balance.  The rest of his attention was consumed by what was going on outside.

It had been the door banging shut that had woken him.  He’d clambered out of the bed he shared with his brother without waking him, and then noticed that his mother was not in the tiny cabin.  Nervous, but not knowing why, he wanted to know what would draw his mother outside in such a hurry that she didn’t linger to shut the door quietly.

He peered through the pre-dawn gloom at the two figures he knew stood in the yard.  He could hardly see them.  That flash of white was his mother, though he could not make out her face.  The tall dark figure looming by her was probably his father.  He squinted, trying to bring the two into sharper focus, wondering why they didn’t come inside.  He heard the soft whicker of a horse, and blinked, seeing it now against the barn.  No, there were two horses; the second stood near the first, shifting restlessly and snorting.  He could hear them clearly now.

Then he could hear his mother’s voice, becoming higher and shriller, until she was screaming, beating at the man’s chest. 

Eyes wide and frightened, the boy scrambled down off the chair and dragged it out of the way, then stretched up to grab the latch of the door.  When it swung open, he darted out, bare feet damp immediately from the fallen dew.

His mother had crumpled to the ground, crying into her hands.  The man knelt in front of her, one hand on her shoulder.  She reached up to clasp it.

“Get away from Mama!” the boy yelled, his voice shrill, as he cannoned into the man’s side.  They both tumbled over, and he lashed out, his tiny fists battering against the man’s stomach and chest, until his mother lifted him away.

“No, darling, stop,” she said, her voice soft in his ear, and he went limp in her arms.  The man was one of his father’s friends, he saw now, the one who came by sometimes, and Papa went with him.  Mama always sat up and waited until Papa came home.

That was when he realized… “Where’s Papa?” he demanded, first of Mama, then of Papa’s friend, twisting around to look at him.  “Where is he?”

His mother sobbed softly then, and her arms constricted around him almost painfully tight.  He wriggled, but she would not loosen her hold.

“Your father isn’t coming back, son,” Papa’s friend said quietly, and the boy saw something cross his face, something in his expression that he didn’t have the words to describe.  “He’s dead.”

The boy stopped squirming then, letting his mother hold him close, while he tried to piece together what this meant.  A memory of the preacher in his black clothes and black hat came to him, and words solemnly intoned, and he asked, “That means he’s gone to Heaven, right?”

Behind him, he felt Mama shake and her sobs sounded so very loud in his ears.

Papa’s friend looked at Mama, then back at him, and the smile he wore didn’t seem real.  “Yes, that’s right, he’s gone to Heaven.”

At last Mama released him and turned him around.  She wiped her face with one hand, the other on his shoulder.  But her eyes were red, and her face was tired, still wet with her tears.  “Look at you,” she said, and she spoke differently, like she was trying to be normal but couldn’t quite manage it.  “Your feet are all dirty.  Go back inside, and try not to wake your brother if he’s still asleep.  All right?”

Now that she had let him go, he wished she hadn’t, and he threw himself back at her, clinging to her arms.  Papa isn’t coming back, he thought, and grew a little scared.  People who go to Heaven don’t come back…

“Shh, baby,” she whispered, her hand stroking on his sleep-tousled hair.  “Just go back inside.  I’ll be there in a little while.”

Reluctantly, he let go.  “Yes, Mama.”  While trudging back to the cabin door, he glanced back over his shoulder, and saw Papa’s friend was helping Mama up.

The boy lingered at the cabin door long enough to hear Mama say, “Thank you, Mr. McGregor,” before turning away.  A second later, he jumped at the sharp crack of flesh on flesh.  When he looked again, he saw Papa’s friend holding his cheek, and Mama was glaring at him.  “That’s for getting my husband killed,” she hissed, and pivoted to march back to the cabin door.

“He killed Papa?” he asked, unable to stop himself when she reached the door.  He tried to sneak past her skirts, but she took him by the shoulder and shook her head.

“No, he didn’t,” she said, her voice clipped, then added, “but he asked him to go.”

Papa’s friend – but is he really Papa’s friend, the boy asked himself, if he killed Papa? – had mounted one of the horses and was riding away into the brightening dawn.  The boy felt anger like he’d never known fill him.  One day, I’ll kill him, he promised himself fiercely, just like he killed Papa.

***

Mother was very sick.  She lay very still upon the bed, and wheezed when she tried to take a deep breath.  Her son held her hand tightly, despite how clammy it was between his own.

Mother’s husband – not his father, for his father had died, and he never called Mother’s husband Father, just Sir – had said that Mother was dying.  He had known for a long time that Mother’s husband was not a nice man; he was forever receiving a reprimand or a cuff for the smallest wrong.  But the way Sir gave him the news… it’s like he doesn’t even care that Mother is dying, the boy thought, and clasped her hand harder.  Then he revised that idea.  No, it’s like he’s glad that Mother…

He couldn’t bear to think it again, and buried his face against the worn cotton sheet, trying to stifle his sobs.

A touch, trembling and feather-light, made him look up.  His mother’s hand fell from his hair to land heavily on the coverlet.  The boy picked it up gently and held it with her other, staring into his mother’s eyes, so like his own, but for the dark circles she bore.  “Mother?” he asked softly.  “Can I get you anything?”

“No, querido,” she replied, her voice strained, and gave him a wan smile. “Let go my hand a moment.”  She hitched herself up against her pillows and reached into her nightgown when he had done so, drawing out a long gold chain with a tiny key dangling.  She handed this to the boy.  “This unlocks my writing box,” she murmured.  “I hid it in the bottom of my trunk.  Do you know where the key for the trunk is?”

The boy nodded.  Reluctantly, he released his mother’s other hand, to fetch the key to her trunk, hidden in her jewelry box.  He opened the trunk and rummaged through it until he found a wooden box, not quite a foot square and perhaps four inches tall.

“There’s a slot underneath the writing surface,” she said, trying to smother a cough.   “Open up the box.  There’s a catch on the side of the writing surface, and the slot will pop out…” She wasn’t able to stop from coughing, and her words trailed to nothing.

Her gasps and the rough hacking sound she made tore at his heart, and he dropped the box on the bed.  There was some water on the table by the bed, and he poured some out, his hands shaking as he did.

With some effort, she spluttered to a stop, face pale and blood so very red on her lip.  “No,” she ordered, her voice a harsh whisper, trying to push aside the water he offered.  “This is more important, because I will soon be dead, and I cannot bear this to fall into Lothor’s hands.”

The boy bit his lip, staring at her, his eyes swimming with tears, for she had never spoken so to him before.

She relented slightly.  “Querido,” she managed, “this is my will, and you must keep it safe until you are able to claim it.  Lothor will want it, will try to take it from you, because he and his father are greedy, and they think it’s their right.  But it isn’t, it is your right.  You are supposed to have it, not they.”

“Mother…”

“There is land, and a little money,” she said, and pressed herself further back into her pillows to better conserve her strength for talking.  “The land belonged to your father, and he gave me the deeds, to hold in trust for you.  Lothor wanted the land, and thought he could get it by marrying me, but it truly belongs to you.  He cannot take it as long as you are alive, and he cannot claim it without the deeds.”

The boy looked up at her, eyes wide.  “Then… it wasn’t an accident when he nearly shot me after you were first married?  He swore it was!”

She shook her head.  “No, it was not.  I told him then that he may be able to bribe the officials in town, but the people at the Land Office are a different matter.” This time her lips twisted in the shadow of a wicked grin.  “He did not take kindly to that.”  She coughed, gestured toward the box.  “Take those papers, and hide them, make sure that Lothor won’t get them…”

He nodded, and worked the catch for the hidden slot, then carefully removed the papers.  For a moment, he couldn’t think where to put them that they wouldn’t be immediately obvious, then inspiration struck and he tucked them in the top of his boot.

“Good boy,” she breathed, smiling.  Slowly, her eyes closed.  “Now, put everything back the way it was…”  She coughed again, gasping painfully for air, as he hurried to return the writing box and key to their rightful places.

When he had finished, he found her lying very still, but he could still hear her breath rattling in her lungs, her chest rising and falling, and relief that he wasn’t alone just yet flooded him.

He had barely resumed his seat when he heard the distinctive clomp of Lothor’s heavy boots, and then his voice carried through the door.  “… don’t care!  If that brat ran off, be sure you find him and…”

The door opened, and the boy straightened and swiped at his face, just to make sure that there were no tears visible.  It never did to show any kind of weakness in front of him.

Lothor filled the doorway, his pale hair falling loose over his shoulders, as was his preference.  He must have seen the movement of the boy’s hand, for his lips curled upward in something too smug to be a smile.  The smirk faltered a bit, however when he saw that his wife still lived.  Instead of entering the room, he beckoned imperiously to the boy to come to the door.

As wary as he was, now that he knew the truth, the boy still did as he was bid.  Once outside, Lothor closed the door and took hold of the boy’s arm in a bruisingly tight grip.  “Don’t you get any ideas about running away,” he said, his voice low but still commanding.  “As soon as your mother’s in the ground, you’ll be going to town to live with Marla.” His sneer returned, and the boy couldn’t keep himself from shuddering at the sight, though he knew it was just what Lothor wanted.  “At least until I find the deeds to your father’s property… then you might find yourself with a different problem.”

The boy felt his face blanch.

Lothor released him, pushing him away with such force that he stumbled into the door, and strode away.

Shivering, the boy leaned against the door, watching Lothor’s broad back disappear into his study.  The despair that already held his heart in its grasp clutched a little tighter.

***

The boy crouched quietly behind an outcropping of rock, unseen for there was no moon, trying to overhear what was going on at the meeting on the other side.

He was weary to his bones, more tired than he had ever been in his life.  His hands were covered with burns and black streaks, and he was sure his face was the same.  He longed to be out there, with the men, to take his place among the warriors.

But they always said he was too young, that he needed to grow some first, or that he needed to learn to handle his weapons better.  He knew none of those words were true; they didn’t trust him because he was the son of their enemy.

His mother had not been wed when she bore him; she had been the victim of some atrocity on the part of one of the white settlers.  That she’d cut the man’s throat with his own knife after he’d finished had not restored her honor in the eyes of their village.  His birth hadn’t helped, either.

When he’d finally understood the reason for the elders’ actions, he’d hated them, hated himself for not being what he thought he had been.

But not as much as he hated the white men. 

He imagined himself like the fire, burning inside with rage, consuming all his own imperfections and leaving behind a true warrior.

“I know these white men,” a voice said, drifting over the rock and silencing everything but the sound of the fire.  “I have seen them and spoke with them and dealt death to them nearly my whole life.  They did not send the supplies they promised during the winter and our people starved.  What happened today is just another way the white man breaks his promises.”

That was Chief Antonga, the boy knew.  He hated the whites with the passion of a hundred suns, had lost children to the diseases they brought with them, worse than plagues.

“They attack our women and children.”  Arapeen’s voice picked up where Antonga’s left off.  “Such cowardice cannot be borne.”

Other voices rose in agreement on the other side of the boulder, and the boy found himself nodding.

“Let us repay them for it, then,” Antonga said.  “We have already seen that by taking their cattle, their horses, we keep them from taking our lands.  There is one such herd outside Manti.  If we take enough, they will have to leave.”

“And who is to say that they will not send soldiers to kill us?” a different voice demanded.  “Their leaders are quick to take what does not belong to them, and quicker still to send out their soldiers.”

“The winter was harsh, and last year was not a plentiful one,” said another.  “We may not have the strength to fight them.”

“If we remember those we have lost,” Antonga replied, so softly his words were nearly lost in the popping of the blaze, “then we will surely find our strength.” His voice rose in power as he continued.  “The ones who attacked our camp today, who killed our women and children and our brothers are the same ones who withheld the supplies their leaders had promised us for our lands.  The devil with the white hair, the one-eyed fiend… they are the embodiment of evil.  They are the blackness that fills a man’s heart.”

Still hidden behind the rock, the boy flexed his hands, remembering the joyful way the men Antonga spoke of had slain the others, they way they had defiled their bodies, had trampled them under the metal-shod hooves of their horses.  He’d grabbed a gun from a man’s dead hands today, had fired shots that had hit home more than once, had seen a man topple from his horse and lie still in the dirt.

“That blackness must be cut out.  Tomorrow we shall start, and we will need every willing heart.”

I’m willing, the boy thought, offering his services, even though he knew they would be refused.  As he did, he did not notice the tears tracking through the black powder smudges on his cheeks.

His mother had been among those slain.

***

From the ladder into the loft, the boy watched his father slump at the table.  He had a bottle of some kind of golden liquid.  The aroma filled his nose, strong and sharp and not entirely pleasant, and his father didn’t really seem to enjoy drinking it, but he lifted the bottle again and again to his mouth.

It worried him when Pa drank that stuff, because eventually Pa would get his gun out from its holster, slung on a hook by the door, and stare at it like it held all the answers in the world… or that maybe it would at least stop all the questions.

“Pa?” he called softly.

Pa looked up from the bottle, then gestured him down.  “Come here, son,” he said, and put the bottle aside.

The boy skittered down the ladder to stand on the other side of the table, shifting from one bare foot to the other.

Pa sighed like it came all the way up from his toes.  “Your Pa has done some bad things since your Ma…”  He stopped, covered his mouth with his hand for a moment.

The boy swallowed.  He didn’t much like thinking about Ma, either.

“But I’ve got no excuse for doing what I’ve done,” Pa continued, and the boy hated the way his shoulders were bowed.  “Mr. Malcome pays well, but not well enough for what he asked us to do to that…”  He shook his head and his hands twisted together on the rough tabletop.  “’Twas murder, and all for greed.”

The boy swallowed and grabbed the chair in front of him for support.  “M-murder?”

“Yes,” Pa whispered.  “He’s evil, so evil that he taints by association.  He’s the one who killed that family – the boy survived, thank the Lord – but none of us did a thing to stop him.  I think he killed his wife, too, but I don’t know how.  And then today…” He choked on the words and groped for the bottle, still open.

“But Pa,” he said, desperate to do something, say something to make him stop feeling this way.  “You can just… not do what he says, right?”

Pa laughed, and it was a funny sound – it didn’t sound like he was happy at all.  “You don’t understand,” he muttered.  “You’re only a boy, and I’m not willing to risk your life.”

The words didn’t make any sense, but he didn’t have time to puzzle them out, because Pa was still talking.

“Mrs. Jackson is leaving in a few days.” Pa held the bottle in his hands, watching the few fingers’ worth of liquid slosh against the sides.  “She’s going back east to stay with her kin.  She can’t take care of that homestead with two little boys, now that Jackson is dead.”

This, too, felt like it should mean something, but the boy felt dizzy, like he’d felt that time that he’d slipped and hit his head.  “What does that…”

“You’ll be going with her, son.” Pa’s voice was soft, but his expression brooked no refusal.  “She’s agreed to take you with her and see you off to your grandmother’s.”

He gaped at his father, stunned by his words.  “But… you’re coming too, right?”

“No.” Pa shook his head.  “No, I won’t.”

“Why not?” he burst out.  It was beyond his understanding why his father would do this, why he would send him away.  “Why aren’t you coming?”

Pa gave him another laugh without humor.  “Because someone has to stay and do what he can,” he replied.  “Besides, if I ever get caught, I want you to be far away and safe.”  He stood at last and stepped around the table to put his hands on the boys’ shoulders.  “What I’m going to do is dangerous, and Malcome doesn’t care about anything but himself.  He wouldn’t care if he killed you to get to me, son, and I can’t bear to have that happen.  You’re all I have left of your Ma.”  With that, he enfolded the boy in a rough embrace.  “So you’ll go to your grandmother’s, and you go to school out there, a good school, and eventually you’ll come back here and keep your Pa in his old age…”

The boy sobbed and buried his face against his father’s chest.  Somehow, he knew that when he did come back, Pa would be dead.

Because this felt just like when he said goodbye to Ma before she died.