Writing a new Skytown: Hidden Stars short story focused on my friend's character Lupe! Lupe belongs to sleepykaru (tumblr)

Lupe’s standing in Roach’s gang is on the rocks at the same time he finds evidence that a dangerous cult he used to belong to is in the area. Not wanting to appear like a liability, he decides to face the problem alone...

Big hearty nod to RDR2 cause I love the gritty cel shading look and wanted to experiment. Staring at this much red in the dark wasn't great for my eyes ^^; but I'm happy with it 🤠

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“Hold up.” Lupe grunted suddenly, not turning his head where Eddie was now lodged half in and half out of a cabin window, his ginger tail lashing for balance.

“Hold on? Hold on to what!” Eddie grunted, kicking his legs freely in the air. “My hands are in someone’s frigid dishwater! What are you on about now!” he hissed.

Lupe walked away from the cabin they were meant to be robbing. The rumor he had picked up in town through pillowtalk and barside conversation was that the O’Malleys were a wealthy family who had come out to the frontier to test out their fortune on more rugged endeavors. In other words, playing the part of rough and tumble western critters that could still call it quits and live comfortably with all their money from their mining business safely in the banks to keep them afloat. They had sounded like a soft enough target to pillage some fancy wares from, although the cabin was small and a little shabby, possibly built in a hurry; but upon peering through the windows Lupe was having second thoughts. It was the cross under the stunted pine tree next to the cabin that finally made up his mind.

“Alright, get out.” Lupe sighed as he bent to inspect the wooden cross where the name ‘Edwin O’Malley’ had been deep cut and charred to stand out. “He’s dead.” he stooped to one knee and felt the soft mound of earth. “Recently buried too.” he sighed.

“Ach! Make up your mind!” Eddie’s legs kicked and wriggled before there was a clatter of broken crockery and the ginger buck flailed and fell backwards out of the window into the dust with suds-soaked sleeves.

“Do you have to make such a racket?” Kit hissed. The black and tan buck ran around the back of the cabin and spread his arms wide. “What’s going on?” he asked Lupe in a hushed whisper.

“I’m not going to rob a widow and her children.” Lupe said, straightening up and brushing the orange dust from his dark trouser knees. “We don’t need it that badly.”

“That widow has more money than the whole gang and then some, she’s not gonna miss a few trinkets!” Eddie huffed as he got to his feet. “And who knows when she’ll be back! We need to get movin’ with this if we want to get out of here before someone sees us! This town gossips and chatters to one another like a packed hen house.”

“I won’t do it.” Lupe said coldly.

Kit sighed and pulled off his hat to run his fingers through his headfur. “You heard Roach.” Kit muttered to Lupe. “He wants us to scour the place.”

“Then you do it.” Lupe said, narrowing his eyes and turning to walk back towards their quailsteeds.

“That’s not what I meant.” Kit frowned, following him briskly until he was at his side once more. “What I’m saying is we need to find a new target and it took six days to find this one. I know we ain’t desperate right now but the dry season is underway. Whether we like it or not we’re going to need to start filling up our reserves. Now, I know for a fact that this widow will be just fine, we ain’t leaving her destitute but we will be if we keep stopping for every sob story in the west.”

Lupe gave him a hard stare, then climbed up into the saddle and gripped his reins. “Then sleep with it.” Lupe snapped the reins and headed down the hill. A few minutes later as he reached the hill he heard the sounds of three quail joining him from behind.

“You’re insufferable sometimes.” Kit huffed. “Fine, so now where? You have something better in mind?”

“Somethin’ just as prime and unguarded?” Eddie chimed in unhelpfully from the rear.

“I’m sure we’ll find something, keep your hat on.” Dan, the only rat in their band of brothers, twisted in the saddle to give Eddie a shrug. “Lupe always has a Plan B.” he turned towards the front once more.

Lupe didn’t have a Plan B, his mind was working on what he could tell Roach when they got back to camp. Roach would surely take Kit’s side of the argument but Lupe had also heard Roach talking to Kit, Dan and Eddie about never harming women and children in robberies or settlement raids. Lupe’s morals, or even perhaps his pride, took that instruction even further.

“I’ll talk to him myself.” Lupe told Kit. “He’ll understand.” He led his black button quail, Luna, out of the shade of the stunted pine scrub forest into the light. Each of them gave the sky a searching look once out of cover to check for hawks and other dangers before pushing on down the path towards the town of Alabaster.

Kit dropped back to talk with Dan and Eddie, leaving Lupe to ride point a short distance ahead with only the wind and his thoughts. It was the way he liked it, but even as irksome as his three gang brothers could be sometimes, it was better than being on his own. The time before he had joined up with Roach’s gang two years ago had been grueling and rough. Parts had been terrifying. He didn’t try to dwell on them.

Something caught his eye as they neared the chalkstone bluff above the little town. Something was flashing red in the sun near the white stone and he squinted his eyes to see it better before the breeze caught it and sent it rippling and streaming through the air once more. It was a brilliant red bit of cord that appeared to be caught on the sagebrush.

Lupe’s quail slowed to a stop without him realizing he had pulled the reins. His eyes were locked on the red cord on how it snaked and danced in the air before settling, never quite still, back amongst the sage.
“Oi!” Eddie barked, riding next to him. “What’chu stoppin’ for?” Eddie pranced his masked bobwhite around Lupe’s quail.

Lupe shook his head. “Nothing.” he rolled his shoulders. “Let's go to the saloon. I could use a drink.”

“Race you there.” Dan nudged his quail against the wing of Kit’s bird and the two quail exchanged friendly pecks before Eddie spurred his bobwhite down the hill with a loud whoop and holler.

“Guess yer buyin’!” he called over his shoulder.

“No one agreed to that!” Dan called, trying to get his mountain quail to keep up. Kit trailed behind him.

Lupe waited a moment, then flicked the reins with hands like lead in the direction of the red cord caught in the bush. The breeze rustling the grass all around him seemed to fall silent as he reached the red cord and saw, much to his disappointment, that it wasn’t caught, but tied deliberately to the branch. He turned his head slowly and looked at the white chalk cliff face to his side. As much as he willed it not to be there, he saw it plain. A symbol, like a wide cross only with two horizontal lines through it. One long and another shorter one on top. It was a deep red color that stood out bright on the pale surface.

Lupe stared at it a few seconds longer, he could feel the shaggy fur around his neck start to prickle and fluff up. He snapped the reins suddenly, making Luna jolt with a squawk as he raced after his brothers.

Lupe tied up Luna outside the saloon and removed his gloves to stash in his bag. He turned his left hand over and examined the pale scar on his palm; like a cross with two marks through the middle, one long and one short. He clenched his fist and walked into the saloon, ready to order the strongest drink possible.

Kit, Eddie and Dan had taken over a table in the back of the saloon by the time Lupe had arrived. They were tossing bits of crushed peanut at one another, trying to get them in Eddie's gaping, laughing mouth.
Lupe tilted his ears in annoyance. They were loud, juvenile. He didn’t want to seem affiliated with them after the reputation he had built for himself in Alabaster. He sidled up to the bar and gave the whiskery old shrew behind it a nod of greeting as he doffed his hat and stepped up to sit on a stool.

“What’ll you have Mr. De la Cruz?” the shrew asked from the other side of the counter, where his head barely reached the surface unless he stood on the step against the base.

“Double tequila, double salt.” Lupe practically spoke over the question in his haste and ran a hand through his thick, black headfur to push any stragglers from his eyes.

The shrew bustled off to fix his drink and Lupe stared at the wooden countertop, deep in thought and trying to ignore the laughing from the table in the back. In the other corner of the room, sitting on an old fruit crate, an old ground squirrel twanged un-melodiously on a guitar trying to find a song or tune the instrument.

A flash of red almost made Lupe smile, as he dragged his gaze from the counter to the pretty brown-furred doe mouse who had walked in through the side door from outside. She had a heavily embroidered white blouse and layers of ruffley red skirts. Her dark headfur was braided and pulled up into a bun with flowers stuck in it. Lupe had spoken to her before, she had tipped him off on the O’Malley situation. Carmen Valdez, she noticed him as her eyes adjusted to the darkness and gave him a dazzling smile.

Lupe kept his face neutral as she approached the bar at the same time the shrew set down his drink.

“Lupe.” Carmen greeted him with a curtsy.

“Carmen.” Lupe responded flatly. He sighed and lowered his voice to speak in Spanish. “I went and checked out the O’Malley home, it didn’t look like much of an estate from the way you were talking last night.”

Carmen hopped up on the stool beside him and smoothed out her skirts. “I never said they showed off their wealth, just that they were wealthy.”

“You didn’t say the man was dead, Edwin O’Malley, he’s buried in his own front yard with a rickety wooden headstone.” Lupe took a sip of his drink. Carmen’s brows only raised slightly at the mention of Edwin’s death.

“I wasn’t aware, I hadn’t seen him in a few days, but that’s not unusual. The man had a family and a business to run. He couldn’t spend all his days in a seedy saloon.”

“But you can.” Lupe said pointedly and polished off the drink as Carmen pursed her lips.

“Did you not find the money then?” Carmen asked outright. “The information I gave you was fair, I do deserve my cut.”

Lupe was glad to have moved past the pleasantries and get back to business. The dancing and flirting and pillowtalk portion of getting information out of Carmen was over and finished, he just needed her to talk straight to him now. Cash would certainly have done the trick, if he had had any.

“I didn’t go in, I don’t rob widows.” Lupe turned back to the shrew and held up two fingers. “Besides, if she had money lying around she would have bought him a decent headstone.”

Carmen frowned. “I see, so you will be looking for a new target then? I’m sure I can find someone up to your standards. Can’t have you robbing and cheating the poor rich woman now can we?” She said bitterly.

“I suppose not.” Lupe nodded a thanks to the shrew as he brought over two more tequilas and reached out, sliding the second over to Carmen slowly, but kept his hand over the top of the glass as she reached for it. “I don’t like having my time wasted.” he said shortly. “So tell me what this is going to cost me up front and I’ll decide if it's worth it.”

Carmen gave him the prettiest smile, any fool could have believed she was completely innocent. She accepted the drink as he relinquished it and tossed it back, squinting at the amount of salt she coughed gingerly into her wrist before she slid off the stool.

“Beggars can’t be choosers.” she dusted her hands at her sides. “I gave you a good mark, you turned it down for your pride. If you want another score, you can pay what my cut would have been from the O’Malley house. I’ll be in the same room tonight and tomorrow. After that, who knows.” she batted her dark doe-eyes at him then swished her skirts and left the saloon.

Lupe groaned and tossed back his own drink. Just what he needed, being jerked around by Carmen on top of everything else that had happened that afternoon. He needed to talk to Roach.

“Lupe you lady-killer!” Eddie threw an around Lupe as he bounced up onto Carmen’s vacant stool. “That doe was all over you! How do you do it?”

Lupe made a face at the ginger buck and batted his arm away. “By not acting like a complete fool in public.” he brushed his hand on his knee as if dusting the ‘Eddie’ from his fingers.

Eddie just laughed in reply and spun around on the stool top, gripping the seat and leaning back to make it go faster.

“Will you grow up!” Lupe snapped and slammed some coins on the counter for his drinks before jumping down from the stool and headed for the door.

“What’s eatin’ him?” Eddie asked as Kit and Dan reached the bar.

“Wish I knew.” Kit furrowed his brows and exchanged a look with Dan. They both turned hearing a sudden thunk as Eddie toppled off the stool and hit the ground.

“Oof! I’m alright!” Eddie scrambled to his feet, stumbling from dizziness and grabbing Dan’s leg for balance.

Kit rolled his eyes and led the way outside into the sun, by the time they reached the hitching post they saw Lupe was already riding down the street, heading back to camp without them.