InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "I like him. he says okey-dokey"

Deputy U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens (i_justify) wrote in we_coexist,
@ 2011-10-16 22:41:00

Entry tags:

dinah lance, jake chambers, raylan givens

I Have Forgotten the Face of My Father [Jake, Dinah]
Raylan didn't know what to make of The City. His first full week in the expansive metropolitan bubble had been strange, to say the least. The City had provided him with everything he needed, as judged by an outsider's perspective. They provided him with a home, a motel room similar to the one he'd left in Kentucky (but thankfully not owned by that monochromatic fellow on the hill,) and a job with local law enforcement. In fact, so far as he could tell, The City was fixin' to keep him around for a while. An officer of the peace? On his first day, he jokingly paid a visit to the civil enforcers who'd left a message on his phone and was surprised to find himself greeted with a nameplate and a badge. An amusing dream, right? But then the dream lingered into a second day. And then a week. And then two weeks. Or was it that he only imagined time to have past so quickly? Raylan never pretended to be a very smart man. Quick witted and aware of his surroundings, but no genius. Maybe there was some truth to this illusion.

He'd been told on his first day that he was far too calm in his accepting on the bizarre and unexpected. He could only surmise that his reaction was half laced in shock and half in whiskey. But it spoke something of his character that he didn't have a nervous breakdown, nor cry himself to sleep.

Keep yourself busy.

And that's exactly what Raylan did. He went about his day just as he would have if he had been in Harlan County. (Except there were a hell of a lot less coke dealers and redneck drunks to disturb his work.) He wasn't really a Marshal in this place, though his badge said as much. A man couldn't really be a Marshal of one city and one group of people. That was a Sheriff. At least, in the days of his great great grandpappy, it was. As for The City, well, Raylan didn't try to make sense of anything. He took each day, one at a time. Just as his boots took their steps.

The City Shooting Range had become a place of solace for Raylan since his arrival. There was familiarity in that place. The quiet, lilting crescendo as his finger pulled back on the trigger of one weapon after another. He was a sore thumb amongst others in The City's civil employ. He held to no particular uniform, aside from that which gave him comfort. Cowboy boots, a slim fitting suit jacket that hung (almost duster-esque) beneath his hips, a light colored Stetson hat, and a loosely slung holster (canny to a different age.)

He took in a deep breath as he aimed for the paper marker across the range. The voice of his aunt, the woman who'd first put a gun in his hand and taught him to shoot (because his father was too busy involving himself in criminal undertakings,) was a coarse reminder of the teachings of revolvers: Don't aim with your hand. Aim with your eye. Don't shoot with your hand. Shoot with your mind. And killing? Well, if you're gonna kill something, do it right the first time. It wasn't poetic, but Raylan remembered it. He remembered it as if it were a mantra from some other place and time. Maybe even a place and time coexisting with his own. But that sort of thinking was beyond him, really. At heart, he was a very simple man who enjoyed simple pleasures and had minimal needs. But when he thought about Helen's words (words which he took with him when he taught firearms at Glynco,) he thought that they might have once been more poetic, maybe even hymn-like, before she got ahold of them. Of course, thinking about such things just reminded him of his father and how he would have liked to forget him. But that was another story entirely.

If he could have, he would have made the words more right himself. But language had never been his specialty. Raylan was more a man of actions and of presence.

He pulled on the trigger and the shot rang out across the length of the range, deafening to the unprepared.

I kill with my--

The bullet pierced the region of the heart on the paper target.

Raylan lowered the revolver.

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i_crylikeabird
2011-10-17 03:37 am UTC (link)

Reading those stories to Jake had made a world of difference. But something was still missing. After reading those stories along with him, Dinah was starting to realize that something had been missing ever since he'd arrived in the City.

She didn't like guns, and she never would. But Jake needed to shoot. It was a part of who he was. She understood that now.

She still didn't feel comfortable with allowing him a gun to keep at the mansion. But the shooting range was a controlled situation, one where she could keep a close eye and make sure no one got hurt.

Dinah led Jake into the shooting range, hoping that it wasn't too soon for this. Hoping that it would be just what he needed.

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i_throwplates
2011-10-19 01:37 pm UTC (link)

For Jake, leaving the mansion had been nerve-wracking. His mohawk was gone, the hair starting to grow out again, through patches of scars on his scalp. Wounds to his body had healed, and while his heart and soul were healing, there were still rough patches.

But the shooting range... it was music to his ears. As Dinah walked him inside, his tension began to melt away. During the brief safety instruction someone was giving, Jake only half-listened, his eyes watching the gun in the man's hands with a hungry look.

Don't aim with your hand.
(I do not aim with my hand. He who aims with his hand has forgotten the face of his father.)
Aim with your eye.
(I aim with my eye.)

Thoughts overlapping memories. Jake looked around vaguely before being drawn back to the gun. The man began to fumble with the weapon, and Jake wrinkled his nose. He lifted it from the man's hand with a speed that stunned the instructor, checked the safety, ejected the magazine, swapped it for a full one, and had the gun reloaded before any objections could be raised.

He'd never used a Glock before, but it wasn't so much different from the Ruger he's taken from his father's desk. In any case, he knew the weapon once he'd gotten a look at it, and the feel of it in his hand was already familiar. Putting on the ear and eye protection drew a sigh from Jake, but he put them on without fuss since Dinah would have preferred it.

With the covers on his ears, the sounds of the guns was dulled, but that faint voice echoing the Gunslinger Code was sharper, clearer.

It was right. Jake caught up the words, speaking them himself. The gun sat in the shoulder harness he'd been allowed to borrow as he spoke the words, wrapping them up in his mind to the ones being thought nearby.

'I do not shoot with my hand. He who shoots with his hand has forgotten the face of his father. I shoot with my mind.'

He remembered Roland, holding several plates in his hands, frail things of pottery and cheap but honest toil. Roland asking him to speak his lessons, and speak them true.

"I do not kill with my gun. He who kills with his gun has forgotten the face of his father. I kill with my heart."

Kill these, said the memory of Roland.

Jake's hand blurred as it lifted the gun from the docker's clutch, the butt falling neatly into his waiting hand as he braced it. There was no steady crack crack crack of shots being fired, but a thunderous roar as they seemed to be all fire at once. A full clip contained twenty bullets; Jake fired six times, leaving two small holes in the paper cutout. One was in the center of the face, the other over the heart.