Chapter 5: Chapter 5
Joshua spoke to the angel in his dream, the angel at his feet in the barn watching him lay there. She did not retort, only smiled and watched and listened; and then for whatever rhyme or reason he was ripped away from his peaceful slumber back into the world. There waiting for him, at his feet in the barn watching down on him, was Ivory Irons.
He scrambled to get to his feet, “Oh shit!” he blurted. Ivory was smiling ear-to-ear.
Joshua got the shirt hanging on a nail beside him and threw it on, smiling awkwardly at his guest. “Hell–hello there, Iv–Ms. Irons. What, uh, what are you doing here?”
“I am well, Mr. Barker,” Ivor said, bowing her head. “How did you sleep?” She spotted the scratches, scars, and bruises peppered all over his body.
Joshua was finishing up the last of his buttons on the shirt, looking down to avoid having to look at Ivory. “I, uh, slept–yeah, good. Was talking to an angel and here you are–oh shit, wait, nevermind, goddamn it. Yourself, ma’am?”
Ivory smiled, glancing away a moment, looking back just in time to see the last of his naked chest be covered up by fabric. She giggled as he fought to get his socks and boots on without tripping over himself or one of the many things slewn about in the barn. “I slept well, like a baby, the whole night. I didn’t speak to any angels though.”
Joshua got his boots on and finally took a break, closing the distance gently between the two. Then a lightbulb went off behind his eyes. “How’d you know where I lived–was staying last night?” His eyes darted around the barn, with the hay and the ladder upstairs and the stalls for the horses and folded up clothes spread about without any fancy anything.
Ivory decided to have a small bit of fun with him. “My father is Henry Irons, by default making me one of the most powerful women in the country. I can find anyone at anytime”
There was a grim look on Joshua’s face. “Oh.” He shuffled in place a moment, again looking at how little he had to offer.
She couldn’t hold the giggles in. “I’m kidding, you!” She reached out and playfully pushed his shoulder.
“Oh, yeah…right, ha. So how’d you do it then?”
When Ivory said “a lady doesn’t tell her secrets,” Joshua responded by saying “wouldn’t a real lady not have any secrets to hide?” Ivory told him that everybody has secrets, from children to wives to soldiers and beyond. “That’s just the way us people are, I’m afraid,” she said. Joshua looked borderline uneasy.
“So, you have secrets?” he asked.
Ivory did not look ashamed or ill at ease or even remotely bothered to be asked such a question. “Of course, I do! I’m an adult woman with thoughts and feelings and that results in secrets; perhaps I’m keeping them because I’m embarrassed or ashamed or afraid to speak. You’re telling me you don’t?”
Joshua really thought about it. “I can’t say for sure. See, I don’t really talk to people much outside of when I have to for work and such, and you can’t go around telling strangers about your problems and…secrets. Ain’t proper, makes you look weak.”
For a moment, Ivory would have sworn she was standing before her father as that is exactly something he would say. But surely he would have been louder and much more aggressive about stating his opinion he’d deemed law.
Ivory pepped up. “Enough about secrets,” she began stepping around in a small pattern, looking back to Joshua with bright eyes every so often, “you mentioned work, what do you do?”
“Bit of this…bit of that.”
She kept pacing, looking over the barn further; a few shovels here and there, odd tools made of steel, a massive metal tub filled with cloudy water, and several changes of clothes strung between two lines. Joshua spotted her snooping about and asked, almost panicked, if she’d dropped something.
“Oh, no-no-no,” Ivory blurted, extending her hands out, terrified that she’d offended him in his own home. “I was just looking around, everything’s fine!”
Joshua grew stern. “I don’t recall asking, what are you doing here?”
Not to be deterred, Ivory kept her pep, stepping closer to him. “I am in your debt, good sir and I–”
“No, you’re not.”
“And I am here to pay it. I am here, ready, and willing to make a new friend.” Her smile was threatening to jump off her face. When he stepped back, she stepped forward, and a second time.
“Could you just,” Joshua stepped back a third time.
“What,” forward again.
“Just don’t,” this time he circled out.
“Don’t what,” she matched his motion.
“That! With the following thing, stepping when I step thing, the thing you’re doin now, just don’t,” both pointer fingers were threatening to lash out at Ivory by this point. “You come to my home, you don’t tell me how, and you’re looking around at my things, and following me.”
Ivory asked what was the problem with looking at his things.
Joshua raised his voice, explaining her being Henry Irons’ daughter! She and her father’s mansion, all the fancy things and money and never having to worry a moment for the rest of her life. And there she was, in his barn looking down on the junk he has to live with. When Ivory tried to speak, he furthered, demanding to know just what she thought could come of spending time together.
Ivory was naked, exposed, soft when she spoke. “I just…I just wanted a friend. But if you don’t want anything to do with me…” Her eyes grew wet and she looked away from the face staring back at her. Her shoulders started to bob up and down, snorts and sniffles began to escape her nose and mouth.
“Oh god, please don't cry!”
Ivory was borderline hysterical. “If you don’t want to have me around, that’s fine! I’ll just go sit in my room and think of the next dinner party where I must dress up like a clown and drink myself silly at the bar. And for the next fifty years I’ll be the trophy for some blown out fat mess who’ll only have me to fuck!” Snot poured from her nose.
“You can stay, oh my god!” Joshua was juggling a nuclear device at this point.
And immediately, Ivory was back to her cheer and chipper self, ready to face the world. Smiling bright and wide through the snot and tears. “Great! What’s first?”
Three-hundred miles away, five men walked into The People’s Bank of Chesterfield. The four men, two on each side of the middle, wore plain black hoods which were tied off around the neck with rope. The man in the middle too wore a black hood over his head, except instead of plain black fabric over the face there was a crudely painted skull which stared at whomever saw it. All five were cloaked head-to-toe in black, with cowboy hats to match and spurs on their boots.
By the time the nearest patron, a woman, saw the intruders, four of them had already retrieved the revolvers from their belts and had them drawn on the crowd. There were some six people in the bank, not including the tellers, and they all froze before the first word was spoken.
The four men who played crowd control stepped forward, fanning out to control any opportunity of escape or retreat. The Fifth Man stepped forward, his spurs like little metallic cannon blasts. From his belt, a wanted poster with his face drawn on it.
He moved through the crowd, looking up a number of the women before stopping at the last gate. Silence. He slid the wanted poster through the opening on the counter, to the manager of the bank, an overweight man with glasses and fading hair. He then listened, smiling under his hood at the rattled breathing of those closest to him.
Then he spoke, sounding like the devil who seduces one into murdering their family. “I have just given the manager of this bank an opportunity to grasp in full why we are here, and what will happen if our demands are not met,” he licked at the leather glove which covered his hand, “now, Mr. Manager, please read the charges against me as written on the poster.”
The manager was trembling, coated in sweat, the smell of urine present and strong. “This–this man and his cr–cr–crew are wanted for bank robbery and…and murder.”
The crowd gasped, the Fifth Man moved around them like a snake, nodding his head slowly. “...And murder,” he said, so calm and deliberate. “You see, that manager tried to halt the very same thing we are doing here today, he tried to play god. And the consequence of his futile crusade was he and everyone else in that bank were forced to learn that god is the man with the guns.”
The Fifth Man stepped back towards the manager, leaning in real close to the bars. “Now, my question to you is: do you want to play god, or would you like to meet god?” He retrieved the revolver from his belt, on the handle was a scythe that’d been carved into the wood. He pointed it at the manager.
The manager was sobbing with fear. “I want–want–I want to go ho–home to my–my wife. Please don’t kill–kill me.”
The skull smiled back at the manager. “That sounds like a wonderful idea. Now, if you would be so kind as to hand me the keys to access the back of your fine establishment.”
The keys jingled and jangled like a wet cat as they were pulled from the Manager’s bloated stomach and handed over to the outstretched hand of the Fifth Man, who nodded and gave them off to the nearest accomplice. Within moments three of the five men were in the back, sacking up every last dollar they could get their hands on.
There in between his hustling cronies, the Fifth Man stood, breathing in and out as calm as can be. He pulled the hood from his head with one hand, revealing a head of long dark hair and beard to match, and a nasty scar which worked over the left side of his face. His eyes yellow like the serpent.
His name was Joseph Barker, the older brother of one Joshua Barker.
Gifts
-- Gift
received Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone