Bourbon and Rust 2

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Chapter Two

The Woman at the Edge of the Oasis

The desert made you remember things — things you’d buried under enough bourbon and regret to last a lifetime. But the wind didn’t care. It sifted through everything, stripping you down to what was left.

Sheriff Silas Kincaid stood by the window of the old adobe lookout, hands wrapped around a Styrofoam cup gone cold. Beyond the narrow opening, palm trees clashed with dust and scrub, a line of green stretched defiantly across the sand. A bluff rose in the distance — harsh, flat-topped, silent as a threat. He hadn’t been back to this part of the county in years. Had hoped never to be.

But the moment she stepped out of the truck, he knew the past had come knocking.

“Still left-handed, huh? Always figured that’d get you killed,” she said, leaning against the sun-bleached doorframe like she’d never left.

“Still might,” he replied.

Banu Abbasi. Once, they were boots on the same foreign ground — deserts halfway across the world, where nothing was black and white and survival was the only moral compass. She had sharper instincts than anyone Silas had ever met. Quieter than most. Deadlier, too — though even that didn’t quite cover it. She was lethal. When she left the service, she disappeared, slipping into the shadows like a ghost. So had he.

But here she was, stirring up all the emotions he’d tried to swallow, just outside the town he was sworn to protect, looking at him like she already knew what he wasn’t saying.

“Baz, you shouldn’t have come,” Silas said.

“Si, you don’t believe that,” she replied, soft but certain. “You just don’t want it to be true.”

“You’re bad news, woman, and ju …just crazy,” Si exclaimed

“I know,” Baz said

“You gonna act right?” Si asked,

“mmmhmm” Baz replied

Silas just looked at her, knowing there weren’t but three constants in the world: death, change, and Baz not acting right.

“I love you,” Baz said

Si looked at her hard before speaking. “You love me! What the hell is that?” he retorted.

“Here we go, acting like a pussy,” she retorted

“What?” he replied

“Nothing, just saying,” she replied. Her eyebrow was raised, and her expression dared him to continue.

She had twenty things going on, and all of them good. But she looked different, and she didn’t. Her hair was longer. The lines around her eyes were deeper. The scar on the left side of her face seemed longer now — or maybe he just couldn’t stop looking at it. Every feature told the story he wanted to forget. But the calm in her voice — like a magic spell, smooth, alluring, and steadying — hadn’t changed. It built the confidence he didn’t know he still needed.

“How did you find me?” he asked quietly, not looking away.

“Mama K,” she said with a half-shrug. “Plus, Mac called me.”

He didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. Mama Kincaid always liked Baz. He never knew if it was because she truly thought Baz was good for him… or if it had more to do with the not-so-subtle hints about wanting grandchildren.

Baz stepped closer, her boots crunching on the cracked clay.

“Mama K loves me,” she said, calm as ever — and twice as sure. “And she knows you need me — even if you don’t want to admit it.”

“Mac?” Si asked, squinting.

“Mama K,” Baz said, amused. “Haven’t you figured out she knows everything?”

Baz stood on her tiptoes and pulled Si into a kiss. A slow, serious one with just the right amount of hunger. Just enough to let Si know she missed him, but not enough to get something started.

The crunch of tires on gravel broke the moment.

Mac’s old Dodge Power Wagon rolled to a stop, yellow paint fading into rust the color of desert dust. The engine coughed once, then fell silent. He climbed out slowly, like he always did — as if the truck might change its mind and roll off without him.

He spotted her immediately.

“Baz?”

She smiled. “Yep.”

Si stood, trying to catch his breath. This was always the case whenever Baz kissed him. The woman was evil, and she knew it. They embraced like old friends, even though this was the first time they’d ever met. There was no awkwardness. No hesitation. Mama K was the steady connection between them — the quiet force that wove people into each other’s lives like the blankets she knitted, one loop at a time.

“Didn’t think I’d ever see the infamous Banu Abbasi in the flesh,” Mac said.

“You just missed the parade,” Baz replied, dry as dust.

“Damn shame.”

Mac looked between them, then turned his eyes to Silas. Something passed in that look — something heavier than usual. He pulled a crumpled envelope from his jacket pocket and held it out.

“This came in this morning. No return address. Postmarked in-state. Typed.” He paused. “It’s about the Franklin girl.”

Silas took the envelope; slit it open with the edge of his thumb. Inside was a single sheet of paper.

Choir practice.
No such song.
17 hours, 42 minutes.
No shoes.
No mistake.
We’re watching.

“It’s either cryptic bullshit,” Mac said, “or someone wants us to think it is.”

Baz took the paper from Silas and read it again. Slower this time.

She said nothing at first, but the shift was visible — a subtle stillness in her jaw, the way her eyes lingered on the word “choir.” Not from confusion, but from recognition.

“Who else knows?” she asked.

“Just you two,” Mac said. “Figured I’d rather catch hell for keeping it close than watch the town lose its mind two days ahead of schedule.”

Silas folded the paper, tucked it back into the envelope, and slid it into his coat pocket. He looked out at the horizon — the desert flat and glowing under a low sun — and felt the pressure build behind his eyes.

“Seventeen hours, forty-two minutes,” Baz said softly. “From what?”

Mac lit a cigarette and blew the smoke toward the sky.

“That’s what we’re going to find out.”

Silas stepped away from the truck and took out his phone. The signal here was weak, but it was enough. He turned his back to the desert and dialed the number he knew by heart but rarely used anymore.

“Mama.”

“Silas.” Her voice came through soft, warm, and sure. “I was wondering when you’d call.”

There was a pause. A long one. The kind that says more than small talk ever could.

“I think…” he started, then stopped, the words thick. “I think I’m about to become the man I swore I tucked away a long time ago.”

There was no judgment in her silence — just waiting.

“You can’t tuck away who you are, baby,” she finally said. “You can lie to it, drink it quietly, bury it under uniforms and titles. But it waits. Because it’s you. And when the time comes to pick it back up… you don’t ask for permission. You just carry it.”

“I just needed to hear it.”

“Then I’m glad I said it,” she replied. “And Silas?”

“Yeah?”

“Whatever you’re about to do… you’ve got my blessing.”

He swallowed hard, nodded to no one, and ended the call.

A few yards away, Mac and Baz leaned against the hood of the Power Wagon, the desert sun dipping low behind them.

“When did he get this slow with decisions?” Baz asked without looking over.

“Only the ones that matter,” Mac replied, flicking ash off his cigarette.

Silas turned and walked back. Baz stepped away from the truck, arms folded across her chest. She met his eyes — calm, patient, unreadable — and said nothing.

She would not push.

Whatever this was, whatever it needed to become, it had to come from him.

And she knew it.

Silas stood still for a long moment. The desert wind moved around him, tugging at the edges of his coat like it wanted him to turn back — one last chance to stay who he was pretending to be.

He didn’t move. Just looked at Baz, jaw tight, eyes tired.

She nodded once. That was all.

Without a word, she turned and walked to her old Series II Land Rover — the kind with the spare tire strapped to the hood like it was going to war. She popped the rear door and pulled out a duffel, dark canvas, scuffed at the edges—the kind you didn’t carry unless you meant business.

She walked back toward him, the bag in one hand.

Stopped.

Held it out.

Silas didn’t reach for it right away. He just stared at it. At what it meant. At the weight inside that had nothing to do with the gear.

He exhaled.

Then took it.

His fingers closed around the strap like they remembered how.

She watched him for a beat longer than she needed to. The silence between them was familiar — the kind that always came before action.

But deep down, Baz wasn’t just here for him. She hadn’t told Mac. Hadn’t told Mama K either.

She’d seen something like this before. Years ago. Different girl. Different country.
The same look in the eyes of the people left behind.

This time, she would not disappear before it was over.

“Lord, forgive us for what we’re about to do,” he whispered, more to the desert than to them.
“And give us the strength to survive who we’re about to become.”

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