Django wasn’t sulking. He was just minding his own business.
He’d not been around so many damn people for a helluva long time. The Sheriff’s building was starting to smell and feel like a flophouse. Too many bodies in too small a space. And with Deputy Day prowlin’ around, makin’ Django feel like a hunted man (which he most certainly was), he felt tense as an arrow. All anyone could talk about was food: when they’d get it next, how they’d get it, and where. If Django didn’t know any better, he’d say they were all lushed-up and monied, whinin’ and bleating because they’d missed their afternoon cup of tea. Django didn’t bother wasting his breath. He’d been longer than this without anything of substance. In fact, it might be he hadn’t eaten anything more than stale bread since Saint Clemens, when Thomas had cooked that turkey and they’d eaten like kings. Faces illuminated by a bonfire, laughing like demons, joshing and pushing each other, arms around shoulders. A brotherhood. A merry band of thieves. Thomas’ body close to his, leaning into him. And afterwards, when the rest were soused and whiskey-sour, snoring by cooling coals, they’d stolen into the mayor’s house and enjoyed the luxury of a feather bed.
The thought made Django’s stomach twist. Clenching his jaw, he tore his gaze away from the walking men outside. He leaned back against the shuttered window frame, which threw lines of hazy sunlight across the wooden floors. Between the boards he glimpsed movement from below. The others couldn’t sit still. Always pacing and jabberin’. Scared outta their minds. All except that Deputy. Django’s skin prickled with nerves.
Think about Thomas. But even that well was poisoned. He’d looked so stupid when he died. Mouth open like an idiot, those blue eyes so wide, brown skin gleaming with sweat and slick with blood. Django once saw a wolf eat an elk in a forest clearing up north. White muzzle stained red, calm and focused as it stretched a strip of meat from the elk’s rib cage. Bones weren’t white; they were red. Django wished he didn’t know that. He really didn’t.
A creak outside the open door caught his attention. Django looked up, long dark hair half obscuring his vision. He narrowed his eyes at the figure in the doorway.
“This room is taken.” That voice: slow, Southern, a long taffy drawl thanks to his dear dead Da. Django tipped his head back against the ‘sill, arms crossed, face tranquil as a pond. “Clear out. Hear me?”