Title: The Westerner (#34, J ‘N B Series)
Author: klmeri
Fandom: Star Trek AOS
Pairing: pre-Kirk/McCoy
Summary: Comment!fic inspired by this pic post at jim_and_bones of a western!style Bones (you know I can’t resist that); loosely based on the wonderful moment in STXI when Bones turns back for Jim.
Previous Parts: Another Day, Another Dollar, and a Daily Show? | Fight the Good Fight | Don’t Touch the Rock | A Tear Worth Gold | Another Day, Another Dollar, Part 2 | Pirates Read Too | The Case of the Mondays | Today’s Topic -Helmets! | The Case of the Mondays, Part 2 | Marked | Awesome Ideas Come from Awesome Brains | In the Keeping of a Spirit | The Case of the Mondays, Part 3 | The Case of the Mondays, Part 4 | The Case of the Mondays, Part 5 | Forewarned is Forearmed | The Case of the Mondays, Part 6 | The Case of the Mondays, Part 7 | The Case of the Mondays, Part 8 | The Case of the Mondays, Part 9 | Serenade | Another Day, Another Dollar, Part 3 | Tied to You | The Amateur Pigeon-Catcher | The Amateur Pigeon-Catcher, Part 2 | The Art of Beginnings | The Amateur Pigeon-Catcher, Part 3 | Two Birds of a Feather | The Beautiful Bay | The Man in the Shed | Bad Business | A Fortunate Friend | Blind to Love

When Jim landed face-down in the dirt, he thought he was dead. He thought that car had run right over him and left tire tracks on his back. Certainly he had felt the impact of it, seen the world go dazzling white then ominous black.

Yet there was dirt up his nose, in his hair, under his fingertips. It billowed upwards in a small cloud under the onslaught of his loud, gusty breaths. Jim, still in the midst of panic (because death… he’d seen death coming straight at him and hadn’t had time to blink over it), let himself go completely limp on the ground. It was some time before his heart calmed enough that he could think about opening his eyes. It was even longer still until his limbs cooperated and allowed him to roll over onto his back.

The sky met him then, a brilliant, undisturbed blue. He slowly processed the sight, harboring only vague thoughts that it wasn’t the right color, or cloudy, or sparse between the tall buildings which crowded the city he called home. In truth, Jim could hardly think in that moment. He simply enjoyed being alive.

If he had cared to pay attention to his surroundings, he would have noted the methodical sound of jingling, like the golden hand-bells rung by charity Santas on every street corner at Christmas-time, growing closer. He might have noticed the sharp cry of a hawk and saw two tiny birds chasing the masterful creature into a dive; he would have heard the whinny of a hard-ridden horse. Instead Jim thought he was caught in a special place, where the world was only part of his dreaming and meant not much at all.

The notion of a dream was suddenly dispelled when a shadow fell over his legs and spoke. “I’m lookin’ fer a man.”

Jim’s drowsily lowered eyelids flew open. His first glimpse of the shadow’s owner, backed by a bright sun which cast any facial features into darkness, was poetic. His eyes traced the outline of a hat, a gun holster on each hip (though empty), the short cropped cut of a vest, and cowboy boots. Jim saw a man who might have had a showdown with the legendary John Wayne. Inexplicably, he remembered how he used to enjoy watching old Wild West films when he was younger.

Jim shaded his eyes. “Are you from Texas?” In his twenty-some odd years he had never met a Texan… well, not a Texan that dressed like that.

The hat tipped forward. “Not Texas, kid,” and Jim had to agree now that he could delineate the slight drawl to the man’s voice. Yes, it was a cowboy’s drawl—but with a hint of something else, something buried.

Jim leveraged himself onto his elbows. “I’m from Iowa. I mean, I was born in Iowa.” He fully sat up and rubbed the back of his neck. “I live in Los Angeles now.” It occurred to Jim then that his current location was quite a long way from Los Angeles. He frowned. “I don’t know where I am.”

The man was silent for a moment before he offered his hand to hoist Jim to his feet. “Happens to the best of us,” he said solemnly. “What’s your name?”

“James Kirk—Jim.” Jim dusted off his jeans and gave up on cleaning the dirt from his previously white t-shirt. He inspected his knuckles, caked with earth and something darker. He looked at the shadow man, who now had green eyes, a straight nose, and a cupid’s bow mouth. A brief second of deja-vu swamped him. “Do I know you?”

“Depends. You a gambler?”

Jim shook his head.

“Ever robbed a bank or stolen a horse?”

Jim choked on laughter. “What? No! Why would I do those things?” Where in L.A. would he steal a horse? Maybe horsemeat, in Chinatown.

“Then I reckon we’ve never met,” the shadow man said. “I’d ask you some questions but I’m in a hurry and you ain’t been here long enough to know much. Least ways, don’t seem like it.” His hat tipped again, this time because the man pulled it forward. “G’luck, kid.” He turned away.

Jim, surprised by the man’s sudden disinterest, lurched after him. “Wait!”

Spurs jingled on the man’s boots; they fell silent as he stopped walking. He turned his head. Jim took that as a sign the man was listening.

“I don’t know where I am,” Jim said earnestly. “I don’t know how to get home!”

“Can’t help you with that.”

Jim’s eyes fell upon a stain on the man’s vest, centered in the middle of his back. He looked at that stain and knew what it was but said, faintly, as things began to make sense, “I don’t understand.”

“Sorry, Jim, but I’ve got no explanation… not one you’d be ready to hear, I’m afraid.”

Jim absently slid a hand across his knuckles, along his arm. Halfway to the elbow, there was a protrusion beneath the skin. He swallowed hard, afraid to look at it. The stranger took his silence as acquiescence for leave-taking and plodded towards a black horse standing by a desert shrub not far away. A soft jingling filled the air again.

Jim glanced around and saw little but open, unfriendly land. He opted for the only course available to him. “I can help you!” Jim called as he trotted towards the horse and the man lifting himself into a saddle.

“I doubt that. Just keep west, the sun at your back,” he advised Jim.

“Hey, I’m alone out here! Let me come with you.” Jim had never felt a moment, a choice, mattered so much until now.

The man’s profile spoke of a hard personality but the fingers tangled in the lead had loosened, gentled. He said without looking at Jim, “The journey’s supposed to be made alone.”

Jim caught a stirrup in his hands, fingers aching as he clenched it, and made a last argument, one he hoped was not futile. “Do you even know who you’re looking for?”

Those green eyes dropped to his; they were sharp, searching, and also a touch resigned.

“I mean,” Jim hedged, fighting to keep his voice level, “he shot you in the back, right? You couldn’t have seen his face.”

“Did you see your killer?” Jim was asked in return.

White headlights, a faceless driver. The protest of an engine. The desert suddenly smelled of diesel.

He mutely shook his head. His neighborhood had been swallowed up by darkness since the city couldn’t afford to keep replacing the street lamps. Local gangs shot the bulbs out for fun. Jim had crossed the street, tracking an invisible path to his apartment by moonlight.

Not enough time to react. Not enough time to say a word.

“Please,” he said, dropping his forehead against the hard edge of the saddle. The horse did not shy. “Please,” Jim repeated, feeling tears burning in his eyes. “If this is hell, don’t make me endure it by myself. It w-wasn’t even supposed to happen, not to me.” Not like that.

“Death always happens,” the voice murmured over his head. “I’m sorry, Jim.”

He took a hold of himself and dropped his hands back to his sides and stepped away from the horse and rider. With a soft click of the tongue, the man urged his black steed forward. Jim tucked his cold hands in his armpits and made a slow, lost circle, trying to gain some bearing of where he was—or where he needed to go. He had no idea.

Too fast. How could it happen so fast?

What was he going to do now?

He felt rather than saw the moment that changed everything. Jim stilled, dared to hope, and listened intently.

It came, the sound of his name. “Jim.” Again, more forcefully. “Jim!”

Jim turned.

The man on his horse, at the horizon, beckoned him. “All right.”

Jim did not hesitate; he ran toward the horizon, his back turned resolutely from the sun.

-Fini

A Plot Above All Others

Related Posts:

• Another Day, Another Dollar, Part 4 (#40, J ‘N B Series) (40/40) – from March 29, 2013
• The Light In Which We’re Cast (#39, J ‘N B Series) – from March 20, 2013
• Playing Life to Win (#38, J ‘N B Series) – from March 14, 2013
• An Intergalactic Fandom (#37, J ‘N B Series) – from January 15, 2013
• We Fight to Win (#36, J ‘N B Series) – from January 4, 2013