#wash basin price | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ceilidho · 2 months

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take me home, country road

[ao3]

prompt: 1800s price/reader…. reader flees to his town where Price is the sheriff after a murder in her previous town only to be mistaken for the mail order bride that Price just sent for ….and he’s not interested in hearing any of her excuses when she tells him that he’s got the wrong girl (part 6) part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5

And they say if it sways, you have to cut it off at the root.

You repeat that to yourself when you catch the way you glance out the kitchen window again, surreptitiously watching John. It’s hard to pull your eyes away. He walks over to the well to fetch water for you to do the dishes, the chore you’d elected to take when he offered you the choice between that and feeding the horses. It’s a fair compromise since you balk at the thought of getting anywhere near either of those beasts.

Watching him bend over the well to lower the bucket down, his muscled shoulders tapering to a narrow waist and suspenders drawing tight against his back, makes you bite your lip. Then scowl. Then pull the curtain shut to block out the view.

You have to cut any gentleness off at the root.

When he comes back, you step to the side without a word to let him pour the water into the wash basin, hot water from the teakettle and lye soap making the water already in the pan sudsy. In a sense, it’s not any different from anything you’ve done back home; the same two pans for washing and scalding, the same cake of soap, and the same dish towel to dry the dishes off at the end. The only difference is the man that pours the cool water into the basin to make it more comfortable for your hands.

“I’ll be out back,” he tells you, before grabbing you around the waist and pulling you in close to press a close-mouthed kiss to the side of your head. You only scrunch your nose a little. “When you’re done, come get me. Got business in town.”

“Why do you need me to come with you?” you ask, lips cresting into a pout without a thought. You’d never considered yourself a bellyacher, but it’s almost second nature around John. “I can…I can stay and clean the house.”

“You saying I keep a messy home?” John asks, a teasing lilt in his voice.

You look pointedly down at the dirt he tracked into the kitchen after fetching the bucket of water from the well. “It could do with a spit shine.”

That gets a laugh out of him, a bellow from deep in his belly. It shakes you to your bones.

“Darling, I’ll be honest with you,” he says, turning you to face him before folding his arms across his chest. “I don’t trust you not to bolt like a runaway horse, and you’ll only wind up putting yourself in danger if you try to make a run for it out here.”

That expression makes your stomach twist. “Good to know you think of your wife as some scared filly.”

“You talk a whole lot for a woman who’s been over my knee. Do we need to repeat that?”

When his tone goes stern, you lose the wedging piece of candor keeping you upright. Eyes widen and then narrow. He’s been patient despite your loose tongue, but when that patience slips, you can see the steel underneath his gentle exterior. It’s the true root of him.

You clam up under his stare, sullen and begrudging. Smooth your dress down to have something to do with your hands. You’ve forgotten your place again. Side-stepped it out of intimacy or misplaced trust or naivety or forgetting, again, for the umpteenth time, that the world is not a place for women that open their mouths. So you keep it shut, trap every festering word behind your teeth.

He must not like something he sees painted on your face because his brows draw closer together, frustration brewing anew in his eyes. The longer you stay quiet, the more irritated he grows, his nostrils flaring wide.

“See that you come get me as soon as everything’s squared away in here,” John bites out, pointing a single, blunt finger at you. “Else I’ll come get you myself.”

And we wouldn’t want that, you think, surly. You hope it swims across your eyes. Blooms on your face. Perhaps it does.

The lines around his mouth and eyes grow more defined when he smiles. His whole mustache moves with his smile, every part of his face expressing his satisfaction. It’s beyond infuriating. He taps you on the nose with his knuckle before leaving out the backdoor, not sparing you a backward glance. You nearly shake with indignation.

It’s hard not to watch him out in the paddock while drying the dishes though, not with him set against the gilded sun. You inch the curtain slightly open, just enough of a gap to peer through. The Stetson shadows his face when he tilts his head up towards the sky, the hard edge of his jaw the only thing that meets your gaze. It’s not the first time you’ve seen a man out in the fields or pastures, but most of those have been at a distance, removed. Glimpsed briefly through the window while your train barreled on past acres of farmland.

John cycles through the morning tasks of guiding the horses into the paddock by a lead fixed to their halter, replenishing the food trough, and fetching more water from the well to fill the water trough. His horses are striking in the sheer size of them; muscled shoulders and legs, and well-padded flanks. Most of the horses you’ve seen out west haven’t seemed nearly as well-fed, many whittled down to rib and hip bone.

It says something about him, but you’re not ready to confront exactly what. You turn your attention back to the dishes, scrubbing the last of the dried butter and eggs at the bottom of the pan. It takes a little extra grit, but cleaning is a familiar chore—it’s one you’ve done all your life, what got you into this mess in the first place.

You don’t like what you find when you finally venture out of the house to track him down.

“I’m not getting on that thing.”

You put your veritable foot down with that, arms straight and stiff by your sides, more out of worry than annoyance. You do also give a little stomp for good measure, but you’ll chalk that up to reflexes should John inquire.

He doesn’t. Just stares down at you with unimpressed green eyes that haunt your days and nights now. Tells you without telling you that you’ll get on that horse, willing or not.

It’s not for a lack of beauty that you can’t quite shake the nervousness they elicit in you. Buttercup, the one that John saddled up and now waits patiently to be mounted, keeps her head low as if sensing your disquiet, curiosity glimmering in her coal black eyes. Not even the animal curiosity of is this a friend or foe, but the curiosity that comes with pure trust, almost intelligible that way.

John runs his hand down her smooth, buttery flank. “Did you enjoy yesterday’s walk?”

“I didn’t hate it.” Truth be told, you’d hardly been of a mind to notice it at all. Though your legs still ache from the walk back to John’s house, the walk itself had not seemed especially grueling in the moment. The mind can put aside quite a bit when it has something else to focus on.

“Well, I’m not too keen to repeat it.” He leaves it at that, tightening a strap on Buttercup’s saddle in such a purposeful way that your shoulders tense.

“I could meet you there,” you say, a touch desperately. Your stomach turns when you think about hoisting yourself up onto Buttercup’s saddle. It doesn’t seem possible. It’s not something you’ve ever done or ever considered doing. You remember horror stories of stableboys back home trampled under their hooves and stomped to death, kicks so powerful that they could break a fully grown man’s ribs or cave in his face.

“My wife isn’t gonna wander into town by her lonesome like some vagrant,” John says disdainfully, almost scoffing. Insulted by the whole idea. “And you’re sure as hell not staying here alone, darlin’.”

“Well, figure something else out because I am not getting up on that thin—” You cut off on a yelp when he circles around you and abruptly lifts you up. Your head rushes at the sudden motion, legs flailing beneath you.

“Quit squirmin’ like a damn barn cat. Little hellion,” John grits out, guiding your heel into the stirrup. “C’mon, you’re just side saddling, so you only need your butt on the saddle.” When he sets you down lightly onto the saddle, you stop wiggling around, acutely aware of the thousand pound horse beneath you. “There we go—that wasn’t so hard now, was it?”

“I hate this,” you hiss, fingers clamped tight over the pommel.

“Aw, darlin’, don’t go insulting Buttercup like that,” John chuckles, replacing your foot in the stirrup with his own.

You sit there stiff as a board, perched precariously on the saddle as he hoists himself up behind you. His sheer proximity doesn’t register right away. You’re too concerned with the moving beast under you, its ribs expanding and contracting with each breath. Unlike you, John is more than comfortable sitting astride the horse, not a smidgeon of tension in his body. You suck in a horrified breath when you feel him readjust himself before settling down more comfortably.

He reaches around you to grab the reins, a sharp whistle signaling the horse to take her first stride forward, looping around the side of the house. Even the slow trot threatens to buck you off at first. You lurch forward with each step, certain that you’ll slip right off the saddle and onto the dusty ground below until John loops an arm around your waist and pulls you to his chest.

You grow stiffer in his arms somehow. Despite sleeping in the same bed the night before and sharing far too many kisses for your comfort or virtue, being pressed up tight against a man never gets easier. Perhaps if you’d been married for longer than a single day you’d be more at ease with the notion, but as of yet, it comes as a shock to the senses every time.

You carefully avoid the thought that other married women wouldn’t be still in possession of their maidenhead so many hours after their wedding night. That’s none of your business.

The two of you navigate into town at a slow canter, allowing you to gradually acclimatize to the gait of a horse. Part of you remembers riding horses when you were younger, but that was a lifetime ago, long enough to shake the memory from your muscles. These days, you can barely remember the hands holding you steady, the ones that would’ve lifted you up onto the horse and helped you back down. Those people are faceless in your memories.

John stays silent at your back, only tightening his hand around your hip when you slip the slightest bit when Buttercup picks up the pace, heading towards the familiar sight of the sheriff’s office. It draws a quick squawk out of you, neatly masked by a fake cough. His chuckle at that rumbles through you, clearly not buying it. Another lesson in humiliation.

You manage not to flail as much when he gets off the horse and helps you down, even though you’re still not used to being manhandled so, particularly not in front of the townsfolk milling about and glancing over with undisguised interest.

“Are you working today?” you ask, curiosity getting the better of you while John ties Buttercup’s lead to the post outside the sheriff’s office.

“Don’t exactly get many days off when you’re the only sheriff in the county,” John replies. “We’ve got a few deputies in every town, and a couple here, but it ain’t an easy gig.”

“How many deputies have you got here?”

“Just the three. Simon, John, and Kyle. You met Simon the other day.”

His name draws up the faint memory of the masked deputy from your wedding ceremony. “I remember,” you say flatly. There’s no lost love between you and anyone involved with that sham of a wedding.

“Don’t hold that against him,” John smiles. “He’s a good ole boy. Can’t fault a man for following the boss’ orders.”

Watch me. You glance away lest he see that thought etched across your face.

The town is bustling with activity this late in the morning. Steps and floorboards creak under the weight of boots coming and going. A man going by in a horse-and-buggy whistles sharply when he cracks the reins, his horse puffing out a low, frustrated grunt.

Men hustle past you decked out in leather chaps and waistcoats, spats covering the half-boots of those not decked out in tall, spurred cowboy boots. There are far less women scampering about town than men, particularly not so close to the sheriff’s office, but you keep finding your eyes drawn to them.

John grips you under the arm and swiftly pulls you back when you narrowly sidestep a mound of horse droppings left uncovered in the middle of the road. The smell only hits you a second later.

“Well, that’s lovely,” you remark, deadpanned, putting your foot down deliberately a good distance away.

“Wouldn’t need to complain about it if you just watched your step.”

“You know, this really would’ve been a nice day to just stay home,” you mutter, chastised enough not to say something sharp in return.

While the smell makes your nose wrinkle, you have to admit that the air here is far less pungent than back home. In general, this bucolic town is far more pleasant in certain respects than the city you’d left behind in a haste.

“Where do you want me to wait for you?” you ask, turning to face him now at the front steps of the sheriff’s office.

He frowns. “Wait for me?”

“While you work, I mean. Surely you don’t mean for me to sit inside all day twiddling my thumbs while you work.”

His mustache twitches with a smile. “Thought I’d show you around first—get you acquainted with the locals.”

The idea of mingling with the townsfolk doesn’t appeal to you, but you also can’t think of a good enough reason to refuse. Especially with the curious glances already being sent your way. You duck your head to stare down at your boots when you spot a group of other women clustered together and whispering to each other, their eyes trained on you. Somehow you’ve gone from being furniture in a room to being a source of local gossip, and it’s almost hard to believe that you miss being ignored.

When you look back up at John, you find him still staring down at you, waiting patiently. Up close, the sunlight almost turns patches of his beard gold; he has a smattering of moles across his face, not the blush of freckles but rather a few dark spots by his nose. Aside from the tuft of hair under his bottom lip, his chin is mostly bare, and when he smiles, his whole face moves with it. You have to blink to snap yourself out of it.

Your upper lip curls involuntarily when you say, “So you want to help me make friends?”

“Well, seeing as I know most of ‘em, figured I’d be a help.”

“The job’s really not all that busy then, huh?” You really wish you could learn to shut your mouth, since it keeps getting you in trouble, but the barbs roll off your tongue so naturally. Luckily, it seems to amuse him now more than it did early this morning.

“Guess life isn’t as exciting ‘round here as it is back in the city, but it has its days,” John chuckles. “Now come on; I’ll give you the tour.”

For some reason, you hadn’t pictured the town being quite so big, but during your walk, you realize you’ve vastly underestimated the true size of it. Though not anywhere near as ostentatious as the cities back east, the sheer breadth of it eclipses anything from back home. It’s spread out on an incomparable scale, the mountains in the background stretching out along the horizon like the skeletal remains of a giant long since dead and decayed.

It’s not the ramshackle town you envisioned when you stepped off the train the other day, despite the wooden facades and their brightly painted signs. You almost wish you had more time just to admire the craftsmanship, but John leads you from store to store like he’s on a mission.

He seems most interested in towing you around like some prized mare, all trussed up and clean from your bath the night before. You meet so many people that their names and faces all begin to blur together. The worst offense of all is that it makes you lean on John for support, looking up at him again and again for reassurance whenever you can’t answer a question or your answer triggers a moment of awkward silence.

Those moments come aplenty too. The few people nosey enough to ask you about your life back in the city find themselves on the butt end of a cheerfully delivered lie from John. It unnerves you at first, seeing how comfortable he is with lying. He doesn’t even hesitate for a second when recounting your previous life as a schoolteacher in Connecticut prior to your engagement.

Perhaps it’s not a lie though. You don’t know the extent to which he and his original betrothed corresponded. Certainly not enough for him to suspect you of not being her, but maybe she’d spun him that story. Or maybe it had been the truth. All this time you’d thought that John had been swindled by some con artist using desperate men to fund her lifestyle, but maybe somewhere between here and Connecticut, there’s an unmarked grave with the corpse of the woman that John had intended to marry.

That makes you feel guilty somehow, like you’ve taken something not meant for you. Even if you hadn’t wanted it—in fact, been forced into taking it.

You swallow that thought when John leads you into the general store. Your eyes bug at the sight of a blonde haired woman in khaki cloth knickerbockers stocking the shelves, who turns at the sound of the door creaking open, the sharp look on her face melting away at the sight of John.

The warmth in her face infuriates you more than it should. You have no right to feel this way—or, some right, but you resent the fact that you do as well.

“Hi John,” she greets. Her voice is deeper than you anticipated, springtime crisp like a babbling brook.

“Laswell,” John greets, scooping his arm around your side until he can palm the side of your hip, dragging you in close. You stumble into him, catching yourself with a hand on his chest. Your neck and face go hot when Laswell’s eyes turn on you, curiosity glinting in them.

“Your lady finally showed up then,” she surmises. “I’ll be honest, I was starting to think you made her up. Told the boys to think about forcing you into an early retirement.”

John huffs at that. His fingers tighten at your waist when Laswell says your lady, as if the words alone make it fact. Speak it into being. The metal burns against your ring finger. In a sense, it is fact, despite the subterfuge. You wonder if it would hold up in court, but out here, it’s real enough.

“Well, she’s very real, as you can tell.” He gives you a little shake with the hand on your waist. “Say hi, darlin’.”

If looks could kill, yours would be pit-viper venom. You’d leave behind a festering puncture mark and a body in the throes of envenomation. “Excuse me?”

Your attitude might come at a cost this time because he looks unamused at your back talk in front of an audience. “Darlin’.” It’s said like a warning.

You bite your tongue instead of lashing out. “Pleasure to meet you.”

“Kate Laswell; I own this little shop,” she says, introducing herself and stepping forward to hold out her hand. You have to step forward to take it, pulling you out of John’s arms. It feels familiar being on your own, certainly more natural than being constantly at John’s side the way you have for almost two days now. It’s also a bit cold after having John’s warmth at your back or side at all times.

There’s a moment when you realize that Kate is the first person you’ve had to introduce yourself to, John having introduced you to everyone else you’d come across. It hovers on the tip of your tongue when you realize that you could just say your real name, and you find yourself torn between setting it free and the odd fear of John’s reaction.

You chicken out at the last second, giving Kate the same name as the one John introduced you by to everyone else in town.

“He might growl like a bear, but you’ll get used to that,” she says, winking.

You frown. Awfully familiar talk for someone who isn’t his wife. Why should she know that?

You make yourself push that thought away, reminding yourself again that it doesn’t matter. It’s none of your concern.

“He’s been a gentleman,” you croak instead, smile so thin that it might as well be a grimace.

A shout from the bar across the street startles you, drawing your attention away from the conversation. John stills too. A series of raised voices puts him on alert, and then someone inside the bar must fire a gun because the violent crack of one makes you scream, the noise pulled involuntarily from your chest.

“Stay here,” John growls, his pistol already drawn. He’s out the door before you can respond, darting across the street towards the bar and shouldering the door open so hard that it rattles in its frame. You watch everything happen through the window of the general store with your heart in your throat.

“Good Lord,” you whisper, hand over your mouth. Kate stands beside you in a similar manner, her eyebrows pinched in concern.

The thought doesn’t even occur to you that now would be the perfect time to make a break for it, with John busy across the street. Your feet are rooted in place; you doubt you’d be able to take so much as a single step towards the door.

There’s precious little that you can see through the grit-lined bar windows, not as dusty and dirty as they are, but you can hear the commotion from inside. Raised voices and the sound of breaking glass. It makes you flinch, heart galloping at an even faster pace. Like harness horses on the Freehold Raceway. It’s not long before you see a large, masked man hightailing it down the road towards the bar, dust clouding around his boots with each heavy step.

You recognize him almost instantly as the man from your wedding, the one that signed your marriage license. John’s man—Simon. He nearly takes the bar door off its hinges when he throws it open, barely in there a second before he and John come out each with a man in hand, both already handcuffed and looking roughed up They drag them stumbling down the dirt road towards the sheriff’s office, Simon half-dragging another man whose white button-down is slowly saturating with red blood oozing out of a gunshot wound in his belly.

“Shouldn’t they call a doctor for that man?” you ask Kate in a frantic voice, whipping around to face her.

She nods. “They probably will once they’ve got the four of them locked up. Doctor probably heard that anyway—he’ll be on his way, I bet.”

“On his way already?”

“There’s only one doctor around here. And not much else sounds like a gunshot.”

“Does that happen a lot around here?” You don’t know why the thought makes you nervous, but there’s a cramp in your belly and a sweat building up on the back of your neck and your hands itch to grab something. When you swallow, it almost doesn’t go down.

“It’s not uncommon. I reckon it’s not something you’re used to?”

You purse your lips. “I’ve seen a dead body before.” You don’t know why that comes out so defensively, like a slight that’s been levied against you. There’s no easy way to dispel the myth in everyone’s mind that you come from a life of comfort and ease, with delicate hands fit for delicate work. You curl your hands into fists at the thought, conscious of the old scars and calluses built up over years of scrubbing and cleaning. If she were to look down, she wouldn’t see the well-kept hands of a lady.

When Kate quirks an eyebrow, you realize that your response had nothing to do with her question. “Well, look at you.”

When John and Simon disappear into the jailhouse, the door swinging shut behind them, you sway on your feet for a second, feeling oddly unbalanced. Something about the sight of the man’s blood leaves you feeling woozy, taking the chair that Kate offers you when she sees the way you rock back on your heels.

“Let me get you something to drink,” Kate offers, brows now furrowed sympathetically at the pathetic sight you must be. “I’m sure you got a little fright thinking of your husband facing down a man with a gun, but I’m afraid that comes with marrying a sheriff. There’s danger everywhere, you know.”

What you don’t say is that your lightheadedness came not just from the sight of the man with the blood leaking from a wound in his stomach, but the grim look on your husband’s face as he carted away the man responsible, eyes hard as steel. No sympathy for the man in his hands. Only another criminal to be tossed away in a jail cell. The punishment for making another man bleed.

Your hands shake in your lap, but you don’t say that. Instead, you smile weakly and take the glass of water from her hands when she comes back from filling it at the sink. “You’re right. Just a little fright.”

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