Tired Old Sinner

“So that’s it? After everything to do with the Freelancers, the war, and being on the run, you’re willing to just give up and die?” Sophia leaned on the edge of their dining room table with her arms crossed, bars of dim morning light falling across the rough fabric of her sweater through the blinded windows.

“I never said I was going to give up.” Reginald, the old Agent Wyoming, replied, punctuating his sentence with the snap of a pistol magazine sliding home in the dark. He set it on the table and began tightening his belt, the weapon’s holster hanging beside his leg. “I’m fighting this duel to win, but I intend to give Gavin an equal chance at it.”

A bitter laugh escaped her scowl. “You mean you’re going to go easy on him so he has a better chance to kill you. We’re finally settled down, and you’re trying to get yourself killed. Did you ever stop to think about your daughter, somewhere out there, being left without a father?”

The spite in her voice was hardly a pretense. She’d been angry since the day before when he and Gavin Dunn had calmly discussed killing each other in light of rather ugly truths that had surfaced. But in her eyes, liquid black pools twinkling in the pre-dawn glow of morning, he could see her pleading with him to back down. If only he could.

Their home was secluded even from the settlements that passed for civilization on this far-flung frontier world. They’d built it themselves; and it had been rather amusing to watch as an old combat engineer designed it, and another friend had dissuaded him from adding on missile defense systems. Reginald would take his old rifle out hunting, and trade the spoils with the colonists that had taken to farming for most other necessities. It was a drastic change from the previous lives they’d lived, as soldiers, renegades, and freelancers. They’d been content to live out the remainder of their existence quietly; the only real excitement happening when an old friend or few came by. And with friends such as theirs, it always meant something very exciting. A little too exciting, if he was honest with himself, and yesterday had proven to be no exception.

The outline of that aging freighter was unmistakable, and Reginald for one believed the Chancer V must’ve been the last Argo-class vessel still in one piece. For once, he anticipated a guest that wouldn’t ask him to join them on a mission with galactic implications, even if it was just because Gavin needed a place to hide out for a few days as he often did. But from the moment he saw the captain’s narrowed eyes and the face set in the implacable grimness he’d seen on only a select few before, he knew he’d again been too optimistic. Gavin’s purpose here was for revenge.

Over tea, Gavin had recounted for them his latest adventure, and what he’d discovered by looking into his past. The realization that Reginald had been the one who single-handedly managed the case which ended in his father’s arrest and execution. Gavin blamed him for the death, to which Reginald responded that it had been his duty and Corey Dunn had been in league with the Insurrection, but was countered with the fact that he’d then used Gavin for years, leaving him on the streets to help him gather information. The moral debates had gone in circles for more than an hour before they both had the sense to disagree.

But that didn’t change anything. Gavin’s father was dead, and Reginald was partly to blame for it. Rather than be at each other’s throats that moment, Reginald had suggested they settle it as gentlemen, with a duel held at sunup. Gavin had agreed, and chose pistols for their weapons, as was the challenged’s right. It wasn’t as though he knew how to use a more traditional weapon like a sword anyway.

Reginald addressed Sophia with the placating tone that had thus far only caused her more distress. “Valerie’s all grown up now, and a trained soldier. She’s more than capable of dealing with loss, that’s how—”

“But you’d put her through it just because you’re willing to risk getting gunned down by some smuggler?” She interrupted, grabbing him by the arm.

“Don’t make this about her.” Reginald’s composure broke, only briefly, but enough to regret. His stare softened, mournfully contemplating the polished steel facets of the pistol to keep from looking up in the direction of Val’s old room. Like it would cause him to think about what had already slipped into the forefront of his mind.

In the last recording she’d sent them, she was still waiting for news on where her deployment would be. She’d argued with them for weeks over the decision to enlist. Both of her parents had scars in memory and body from experiences of their own, and still remembered the names of friends that hadn’t survived to retire with them. Valerie was a hard one to forget. But neither was willing to subject her to such things, and so her rhetoric had won out. She left aboard a shuttle days later, joining the very same military her parents had joined, and later, fled.

He turned to face Sophia, removing her hand. “You know that if anything were to happen to her, or to you, that I would never stop hunting the ones responsible.” He caught her hand, clasping it in both of his. “I killed this boy’s father. He deserves revenge. Or at least a shot at it.”

“You weren’t even the one to kill him, though.” She was even more desperate now, seeing how Reginald’s stubborn sense of honor was compelling him, and that yielded to no amount of convincing. Water gathered and shone in Sophia’s eyes, and she dropped her gaze to avoid his. “Why won’t you fight harder for your own life? Does it even matter to you? Because it matters to me. . .”

“True, I was not the executioner myself. But I was responsible.” Reginald reached up with one hand, lifting her chin to see the first tear form in the periphery of her eye. He smiled serenely. “I can't let myself go unpunished for the same crimes I've hounded others for. I'm arrogant enough without living in hypocrisy.” His hand left her chin and slid the revolver from the table, whirling it around his finger by the trigger guard to slide neatly into the holster.

“Old fool.” Sophia pressed her body against him, shutting her eyes and squeezing the tear free to be absorbed into the shoulder of Reginald’s jacket, which had turned over the years had matched his hair in turning from white to gray. They held each other for an untold amount of time, what they wanted to believe was ages spent in dark shelter from the world, but by its end couldn’t have been more than minutes based on how the sun had changed.

A kiss was shared before they parted, the bristles of his mustache prickling Sophia’s upper lip. When Reginald turned to walk through the front room, she matched his step, the only thing so far that caused him to falter.

“You don’t have to watch this, if you wish. . .”

“Try and stop me.” She dared, one challenge Reginald knew he could never hope to win. He nodded gratefully, and walked with her through the sitting room where something upon the red brick mantle caught his eye; the span of an old military rifle, its gunmetal gray stock replaced by well-preserved cherry wood, the barrel’s bobber removed, and its scope replaced by a brass, telescope-looking civilian one.

A fanciful notion entered his head, and on an impulse, he walked to it.

Reginald opened the door, and dust that lay on the porch was suddenly swept away over the ground in the steady, low-hanging wind. It chilled the water in his eyes, making him squint even in dawn’s gentle radiance. Reginald’s fingers absently traced the molded shape of the wide-brimmed hat he held as he scanned the bare ground surrounding their home.

Set off to one side, landed with a healthy distance from the house, was the Chancer V, its metal skin a patchwork of different colors each indicating the age of the respective metal sheet that’d replaced one older still, and he doubted any still remained of the original ship. Much closer stood Gavin Dunn, a man entering middle-age with a black cap, long brown coat, and a holdout sidearm poorly concealed at his side.

The captain was staring at him with a neutral, emotionless expression, but his rigid shoulders gave away that Gavin was just as apprehensive about what was to come as he was. Sophia stepped out behind him, her sweater becoming painted in light and shadow by the morning’s colors, and Reginald donned his wide-brimmed hat and crossed the deck while adjusting the strap of Her Majesty worn across his back. Each fall of his boot in the dirt caused wisps of dust to quickly rise up and fade as he moved so neither the house nor the Chancer V would be lined up with them.

“You brought a sniper rifle to a gunfight?” Gavin asked, raising his volume to make sure he was heard, the sound dwindling into the wide open without an echo.

“It’ll take longer for me to draw. Thought I’d make things a bit more sporting for you.” Reginald called back cheerily.

“And if I’m not faster, my head explodes.” He griped. “Thanks a lot.”

Reginald stopped at twenty or twenty-one paces out, and perhaps twice that from Gavin. Both of them were ready at that moment, but he didn’t turn to face his opponent yet. Gavin’s arms hung at his sides, prepared to draw, but his own code wouldn’t let him draw early. Instead, he waited impatiently for a fair fight. Reginald took the reprieve to admire the way the rising orange star lit up the hillsides, blanketed in very dark green trees and ferns. He’d spent days on end learning to move through their shadows unseen, but had scarcely stood back to admire them since they first came to settle here. It was unfortunate he only knew how to appreciate beauty when it was lost to him.

He sighed with some regret, and turned to end Gavin’s patient waiting. Nodding up towards the hills, he asked, “Are you going to write a song about this one day, Gav?”

The smuggler grimaced. “Shut up, Reg. I want to forget about all this as soon as I can.”

“Burying your past as soon as it slips away from the present.” He remarked. “Is that really the way you’d prefer to live?”

Gavin didn’t answer. And with his silence, a mutual understanding passed between them that the time had come. For a few moments, they lingered. Not a tense moment of calculation as Reginald had experienced many times before in killing enemy soldiers. That was business. This was hesitation. Gavin had to know his chance of besting a Freelancer were slim if anything. But Reginald had no intention of winning.

“Draw.” He said, unwilling to let them be disgraced by failing to keep their word.

Gavin’s hand snaked around the side of his coat, brushing it back to reveal the holdout as Reginald reached back for his sniper rifle. His right found the weapon’s stock, while on his left his fingers unsnapped the sling holding it around his torso. With a single pull, he levered the weapon over his shoulder as Gavin found the handle of his pistol. And just as it was clearing the holster, Reginald brought up both hands and caught the rifle horizontal to the ground with its back pressed firmly against his shoulder.

For a brief instant, his one open eye could see through the rifle’s scope. There stood Gavin in its crosshairs, the pistol only halfway raised. He could’ve still taken the shot, and that knowledge alone made him curl his whiskers in a smile as his finger touched the trigger, and then left it unmoved. Then Gavin’s arm was up, and the holdout’s snub nose flashed in the same second that the force of a sledgehammer hit him in the side.

Reginald Harding, the infamous Agent Wyoming, fell to the ground without a sound aside Her Majesty thumping into the dust, and lay still with his side blood red.

Crying out in anguish, Sophia ran from the shade on the porch to his motionless body, while Gavin looked on, feeling numb. She fell to her knees beside him and started speaking to him, but whatever she said was lost to him in the increasing wind. Gavin turned away with his business done, and walked back without a word to the Chancer V.

“Reggie, get the hell up, do you hear me?” Sophia gasped out, her voice strangled by the high-pitched whine of grief she was trying to hold back. Amid the chill of wind across every part of her skin, her shut eyes burned as warm droplets formed and escaped them, jewels in the shadows of her hanging hair.

“Why the tears, my dear?” said a crackling old voice with a phony accent.

Sophia’s reddened eyes sprang open in shock, and looked down to see one of Reginald’s open in a wink.

“Reggie?” she asked incredulously, not entirely believing what she saw.

“Shhh.”

Reginald’s eye oriented down, watching as Gavin disappeared with the Chancer V’s closing ramp. After a few minutes, the freighter’s engines glowed warmly, and the ship lifted off, causing entirely new patterns in the dust storm it left below. Then it throttled up and receded into the sky, becoming a dark-colored speck as it made a break for orbit.

“Hmm. I’d bet seven-to-one someone’s tracking him right now.”

“How are you. . ?” She sniffed and tilted her head, a knowing smile coming to her. “You big faker. You’ve got blood packets and a bulletproof vest under there, don’t you?”

She smacked his crimson side, and was quite surprised when Reginald barked in pain and recoiled.

“Ahow! Madam, kindly refrain from that sort of thing, will you?”

She stared at the very real, warm blood coating her fingers. “You idiot, what were you thinking?”

Reginald leaned back down again, wincing until he could lay still. “Taking a chance, you see. Gavin’s not a very good shot, and if I couldn’t withstand a single hit that wasn’t critical, I’d be a disservice to all my fellow augmentees.”

His teeth gritted further as Sophia began applying pressure to the hole in his side, tearing some of his shirt for a temporary bandage. When he had little enough pain to deal with, he continued, “Gavin deserved real revenge, and now he believes he has it. He’ll learn from it, I think, seeing his revenge for the loss of a father had caused a wife to lose her husband. That was why I needed to be sure of a believable reaction from you.” He forced himself up to look her in the eye. “I’m sorry that I had to deceive you, but. . . well, I am known to be something of a liar.”

She only rolled her eyes. “You have a strange sense of justice. I should really make sure to take my time getting you patched up, otherwise it might hurt and teach you not to lie to me ever again.”

“You’re going to tend to me? Why that sounds rather inviting. Will you finally wear one of those nurse outfits?” the old Agent Wyoming asked, and got another rap to his wounded side for it.