Wherein The Plot Gets Lost, Maybe

"Hey Peaches." Lucky said as he patted his horse's muzzle. The horse made a happy noise. Lucky smiled, though it hurt his nose to do so.

"It's a good thing you came along when you did, Peaches, these legs o' mine are filled with a fair bit of hurt." The horse, who Lucky couldn't really see on account of the storm, flipped Lucky's hand off of it's nose and sounded a dismissive snort. "You heard that did ya?" Lucky said as his face turned a little pink. "Sorry Peaches, you know how I can carry on sometimes."

The horse didn't 'say' anything in return, it just stuck its head under Lucky's armpit and nudged him upwards. Lucky slowly took to his feet, feeling the pain howl through his lower legs. "mph." he said, not wanting to upset his horse. The horse licked his left ear affectionately. "Thanks, but what I really need for you to do is kneel down for me, these legs can barely keep me standing. They ain't gonna let me hop on your back."

The horse did as it was asked and Lucky eased himself onto its back. "Oh man! That's worlds better!" Lucky collapsed forward, eyes closed, enjoying the fleeing of the pain. He patted Peaches' neck. I don't know how you found me, buddy, but I'm glad you did. Maybe you can find us a place to wait this (Lucky's first word choice was bitch, but he demurred) storm out." Before he was even finished talking, Peaches was moving.

It was an odd feeling, the horse moving underneath him. Lucky remembered being nearly raised on horseback, but those memories seemed almost unreal. The muscles working beneath him uncovered old memories, just to have them blown away with the wind. Lucky sat up and gave his head a shake. "It seems like you know where you're going."

The wind died down just enough for Lucky to see Peaches' head motion ahead and to the right. Lucky hoped maybe the storm was dying down, but the wind picked right up again, nearly tearing him of his horse's back.

A few minutes later they were out of the wind. Peaches had brought them into a stable. Just like in the bar, the wind and dust and grit seemed to stop at the door.

Lucky was debating whether or not to get down when Peaches made the decision for him. The horse kneeled down and turned its head to look at Lucky. "Right." Lucky gingerly dismounted and was relieved to find that the pain was much more bearable. He wouldn't be sprinting any time soon, but he could walk fair enough. As soon as Lucky was off, Peaches stood up, shook out it's mane and cantered over to a dead horse. Peaches gave Lucky a meaningful look and then began tearing into the horse's guts.

"Looks like you've been busy." remarked Lucky as he walked over to join his horse. "Real busy." as he saw the other two horse corpses. One of the horses had been hitched to a railing, so its head was stretched out at a most unpleasant looking angle. It was fairly obvious that these horses belonged to the posse that had found Lucky in the bar. One (the hitched) looked like it's owner didn't take good care of it, one looked like it's back was bowed and one (the one being eaten) just plain looked like a dick. "I understand that one," Lucky indicated the jerk horse with his head, "but did you have to kill these other two?" Most people have never seen a horse shrug. Lucky was not one of those people.

Lucky hunkered down on his haunches, inhaled sharply, then plopped his butt on the earthen floor. He went through all the saddle bags. Nothing all that terribly useful. A bit more money, some bullets, a slightly chewed chunk of jerky. Lucky packed away his findings then set out to look around the place a bit. It wasn't all that big a building: four stalls, two on either side, two large, open spaces, one on each side of the stalls, one filled with a few dead horses, the other one empty but for hay. Other than outside the only place left to check was up in the loft, and Lucky's shins didn't welcome the idea of going up or down that ladder. Lucky's stomach didn't much relish the thought of staying down on the ground with Peaches gnawing away and that horse with its awkward angled head and dead staring eyes.

"Fuck it." said Lucky, in his head. He started up the ladder, quite relieved to find that his legs didn't hurt near as bad as his shins had led him to believe they would. He found three bedrolls up in the loft, along with some masticated corn cobs, plenty of cigar stumps and cigarette butts, and a half full flask of unpleasant tasting hooch.

"Why the hell were they camped out up here?"

Lucky thought the best way to get to the bottom of all this was to sleep on it, so he finished of the flask in one great gulp, rolled himself up in Steve/Dave's bed, and closed his eyes.