Big Red's Smoking Guns pt. 1 and 2

Note: I've got a feeling Snake is going to kick my butt with this one. Not a big deal, maybe he can weave a few of my ideas in his grand tale of the old west.

Snake turned his ear up to the gunfire coming from outside the dingy saloon – the kind of place where a man's boots always stick to the floor no matter how hard the barkeep and waitress scrubbed each night after closing to remove the alcohol and chew stains soaked in the oak floor boards – before dealing out the cards. He didn't think much of the commotion. It was Coleta; there was always some sort of trouble on the two dusty streets lined with honkytonks, saloons and four churches. Besides, he had more money to win from the four chumps fool enough to sit at his table an hour before.
A few minutes later, Snake ordered another shot of whiskey while staring at the pair of ladies in his hand and deciding if he could bluff his way out. Hell yeah, these guys are idiots.
The Saloon’s doors split then, smacking the walls by being thrust all the way open. A dark figure, wearing a wide-brimmed hat and a pair six-shooters still smoking in the holsters at his hips, appeared in the doorway before walking to the table.
Snake knew him. Hell, he more than knew him. In their youth, the two had run a lot of trouble together – a lot of fun. His name was Big Red. Ten years before, the wild man had put his guns away and handed his pack of lucky cards to Snake saying, "I think I'll try my hand at farming that untamed land." Snake thought it was a fool idea, but didn't try to deter him. When an idea caught in Big Red's mind, there was no use fighting him about it.
Snake stared at Big Red as he barked an order for some red whiskey. As he drew closer, Snake could see the blood dripping from Red's finger tips and the way his chest heaved in and out in exaggerated fashion. He didn't have to ask what was going on. Deep inside, Snake knew this day would come. Red was back in the gang.
"You got my cards," he said.
"Sure," Snake said. Pulling the pack he never played, heck never took out of the case, from the pocket inside his vest and placing it on the table.
"Good," he said spitting on the floor and then pushing one of the idiots out of its chair (the idiot didn't deserve the pronoun of he).
Sitting down, Red slammed his paw down on the table and lifted it. Shining on the green felt was a familiar gold star with what looked like a bite mark at the tip of one point. Snake knew the chest that star usually hung on, which forced him to look back outside toward the dusty streets bathed in sun.
"Now this is how it's going to be." Red in a gruff voice sounded.
Snake and even the idiots leaned forward. Part of Snake was scared, but he dismissed it. When Big Red came into the saloon with eyes glaring in that way, you had to listen. There was adventure (and likely trouble) in his ideas. Once one took hold of him, he didn’t let it go. Outside of that farming bit, Snake had loved getting caught up in Red's plots.
This is going to be fun, Snake thought. One hell of a lot of fun.

* * *

Big Red came to the West Jordan Home for Destitute Boys in the summer of Snake’s twelfth year. West Jordan was a square building with one classroom on the main floor with a kitchen just off it and the bedroom for the home master, the Good Man of the Cloth, Frederick Van Mussen.
A wood ladder led to the loft above where two rows of cots ran, adding up to eight, lined the length of each side of room under the eaves. There were only four boy residents before Red.
That day the Good Man of the Cloth was 10 minutes into a 45-minute droning lecture about God or Lambs or something. Snake’s eyelids were sagging, and he nearly jumped out of his skin when the big pine door burst open in the back. Van Mussen looked up in surprise and all the boys turned in the seat of their desks.
The Sheriff’s star shined off the chest of Andrew Jones as he strode in clasping a boy by the collar beside him.
“Got another one for ya, Van Mussen.”
“Like Hell,” The boy tried to wriggle away.
The Sheriff slapped the boy across the face. The boy fell to the floor and the Sheriff gave him a swift kick in the gut.
“Hit me all you want, but I ain’t going to stay.”
Snake had never seen anyone their age stand up to the Sheriff. He thought the Sheriff might just shoot him dead.
“You’ll stay, even if I have to cuff you to the wall.”
“Pah,” The boy spat at the Sheriff’s boots.
“Sheriff, I’ll handle him from here,” Van Mussen said.
“Alright,” The Sheriff was out the door as the boy scrambled to feet. He turned for the door.
“What’s the hurry, son.” Van Mussen said. “There’s a roof here tonight and it’s mighty hot out in the sun.”
“I ain’t scared of the sun.”
“I am sure you’re not, but I bet you’re hungry.”
“So.”
“So, we’ll be feasting tonight. Probably tomorrow night as well, maybe you won’t stay, but you could leave with a full stomach.”
The boy stopped in the door. He was ungodly thin and his ears pricked up at the prospect of food.
“Maybe a decent bed doesn’t sound too bad either.” Van Mussen said. The man could ramble on the most boring lectures, but he had a knack for making West Jordan sound like one of those fancy hotels in the big cities out east.
“Maybe one night,” The boy said.
“Wonderful,” sometimes Van Mussen’s words came out in a song instead of regular speak. It drove Snake crazy. “Now, what shall we call thee?”
“Pa called me Red,” he said.
“No, that won’t do. What’s you’re name in the eyes of God.”
“Big Red.” He looked back toward the door.
“No, don’t you have a Christian name boy,” Van Mussen seemed on the pit of despair.
“I told you, Red,” His face was flushed as bright as an apple.
“I will pray on it. The Lord shall tell me your name.”
“I bet he tells you, Red.”
Van Mussen ignored this last exchange.
“Let’s have one of the other boys show you to the loft. Now let’s see the hands. Who’ll show our new student upstairs?”
All four hands shot up. A chance to get out of the lecture and to pal up with this new bold boy couldn’t be passed up.
“Jericho,” He pointed to Snake, who cringed in his seat. No one but Van Mussen called him by that name. Every boy in the place had a name straight out of the bible, even if it wasn’t his real name. ‘
Snake slid out of his chair and motioned for Red to follow him. Red stood there a moment, before finally relenting.
Two boys slept on each side of the loft. Snake slept in the second cot from the ladder on the right side. Red picked the one on the far end on the right. Away from everyone, and collapsed in heap on the cot facing away from Snake.
“Look, it ain’t that bad here.”
“It ain’t that good.”
They didn’t speak and Snake shifted his weight from one foot to another knowing that Van Mussen would call up soon wanting them back down.
“So your Pa run off on you or something?” Snake asked.
Red turned his head and eyed Snake up and down. Snake was pretty sure the boy was deciding if he should charge him. Snake backed up a bit, giving himself more reaction time just in case.
“Nah, they hung’em.” Red turned his face back toward the back wall.
“Why’d they do that?”
“Cause they could.”
Snake came to learn that that was Red’s theory on the world. People did things if they could. In the coming months, Snake found that boys their age could do a hell of a lot of things, for no other reason, than they could. Snake accepted the circumstances when Red thrust the sheriff’s star on his poker table years later because he knew exactly why Red had done it. Cause he could.
Staring at Red’s back there in the loft, noticing the slump of his shoulders and the sag of body, Snake couldn’t help but like him. He wasn’t just another stupid kid out causing trouble. He was fighting a battle that at 12 years old, he was losing.
That was when Red reached into his trouser’s pockets and laid the old deck of cards on his cot. Snake’s eyes widened.
“You better keep those hid or Van Mussen will take them.”
“If he touches them, I slit his throat with a spoon.”
“Shush, he’ll hear you.”
“Shush yourself. These are my cards.”
“What’s so special about them?”
“They’re lucky. They never lose.”
Snake smiled.
“We’ll see about that.”
That made Red turn around and grin.