31_days | [August 21st] [The Wild Wild West] Too Late for "I'm Sorry"

Title: Too Late for "I'm Sorry"
Day/Theme: August 21st - In this world / love has no color / yet how deeply / my body is stained by yours.
Series: The Wild Wild West (specifically, The Poisonous Posey episode)
Character/Pairing: Snakes Tolliver/Chita McCarthy (she's an OC; he's in my icon)
Rating: T/PG-13

Continued from prior pieces.

By Lucky_Ladybug

Everybody we've ever met leaves some kind of mark on us. I'm not sure what it says about me and my life that the people who've made the biggest marks on me were all negative.

People like the guy who hated me in the Army and Posey left physical scars as a reminder of our encounters. The one from Posey's faded, but sometimes in the right light, I can still see it there. And of course the snake scar, carved by a burned knife, will never fade. In this day and age I could do something about that, it's true, but I don't really feel like it after all these years. I've lived and died and lived again with it this long and it's been my dubious trademark for years. Maybe in the past I would've been willing to pay some doc to magically make it disappear, but not now. Now I just feel like giving the finger to anyone who has a problem with it.

People like Chita, though, even though she never physically hurt me, left a pretty big mark too. The stain she left could only be felt, not seen, but that didn't make its effect on me any less horrible.

Sometimes I wonder how much to blame her and how much to blame myself for what happened, since I really started the whole thing by being stupid enough to propose after our crazy few hours together. I gave that gold-digger an offer she couldn't bring herself to turn down. I still wonder why she didn't, though. I mean, how would she know I'd make it big? Why didn't she say No and go find somebody who was already a big shot?

I guess part of me still, even now, likes to think that maybe she liked me for me just a little bit. That maybe she got caught up in the moment like I did and she liked the thought of being with me. But I know that's really unlikely and she probably already told me the reason she married me: because she wasn't enough of a big shot to get in with any and I was all she thought she could get back then. When I got big, she got her foot in the door. Not a very happy reason for a marriage.

I'm really confused too, because of what happened the last time I ever actually saw her. She tried several times to see me after we ended it, because she wanted more money or her current big shot kicked her out or whatever. I never let her in. By then I was big enough that I had dozens of lackeys to keep people out. But I kept tabs on her, and when I heard she was destitute enough after blowing her money that she was considering being a woman of the night, I pulled strings for her to get a job in a restaurant in one of the towns I owned. She never knew I was involved.

It was stupid of me to do that, I guess, especially after she'd been with probably half the guys in New Orleans, but somehow I just couldn't stand to think of her falling into the world's oldest profession if I might be able to change her fate around. I guess it just proves that no matter how much I fought against the idea and denied it up and down, I was really nothing but a softie.

Eventually I fell in with the blonde lady of doom, just like that creepy black magic guy said. I thought it was made to order at first, being part of a board of directors in an organization that was going to spread consolidated crime all over the world like a business. I didn't even remember that eerie prediction about the lady causing an early death for me until I started seeing what she did to people she wanted out of the picture. Then I started wanting out myself.

I didn't know what to do for the longest time. I actually ended up helping the Mexican Secret Service when they came to me wanting information on the Latin member of the board, but I was too terrified to take it any further. I was sure Posey knew what I'd done and I'd probably be dead come the next board meeting. I asked the Mexican Secret Service for help then and promised I'd give them more. But when there was no reply, I figured I'd have to take matters into my own hands.

Of course, as most people probably know, I failed. Posey realized I was trying to kill her with a bomb and she killed me. What most people probably don't know is that I was stuck in that stupid one-horse hick town along with the rest of the board when they got killed. And we were all stuck there for three years, until crazy Dr. Faustina figured out how to bring back the dead without pumping the bodies full of extra strength first.

Being dead was horrible. The worst part was that torture could go on and on; there was no relief. And after your spirit mended, it could start all over again whenever the sadist felt like it. The sadist in question, Posey's Little Pinto, never got tired of mutilating me. By the time I was brought back to life, I was pretty much a bundle of nerves wrapped in post-traumatic stress disorder. But this entry isn't about any of that.

It was early into that Hellish three years when I got a funny feeling as the stage rolled into town one day. I headed over there to see what was happening, making sure to keep as far away from the other board members as possible.

The last thing I expected to see was Chita getting off the stage. She was all dressed in black, but that was usual for her, so I sure didn't associate it with any mourning. One thing about Chita, she always did whatever she wanted, even if it went against the mores of the time. The huge hat with a dyed ostrich feather made it so I couldn't really see her eyes, but I saw enough of her to still realize it was her.

I just stood and stared at her for a long moment, dumbstruck. What was she doing there? Why? This was exactly the kind of place she'd always hated, so small and pretty much devoid of culture and fun. She held her skirt up enough so that it wouldn't trail on the wooden sidewalk as she headed for the sheriff's office. I hoped he or his idiot deputy wouldn't arrest her for indecent exposure as long as it wasn't high enough that her ankle was visible.

"Hello?" she called as she arrived and pushed the door open.

"Well, good morning, ma'am," Sheriff Cord said from inside. "What can I do for you?"

"I came because I heard about what happened the other night with Lucrece Posey's criminal gang," she told him. "I wanted to claim one of the bodies." She shifted. "He doesn't have anyone else who'd do it for him."

I was still staring, just completely shocked. I wasn't sure whether to feel creeped out or not. She wanted to claim my body? Why? It almost sounded like there was a lot of guilt in her voice. Did she really feel bad for what she'd said and did to me? That was hard to believe.

Then Sheriff Cord was talking again and I was dragged back to the present. "I'm sorry, ma'am. What didn't get in the paper was that all the bodies mysteriously disappeared that night. Somebody stole them."

"What?!" Chita yelped. "Who'd be that sick?!"

"All of us here in the law-abiding town of Justice have to wonder that ourselves," Sheriff Cord said. "I'm afraid all I can do is direct you to the place where he died. Which one of the varmi-er, misguided crooks was it?"

"Snakes Tolliver." She paused. "How did he die?"

"He was the first one to go. He died in the old funeral home at the end of the street. The gang had their headquarters there. He tried to murder their boss and she finished him off." He raised an eyebrow. "If you'll pardon me for asking, how does someone like you know scum like Snakes Tolliver?"

"I haven't known him for a long time." Chita turned away. "Thank you, Sheriff."

"I can walk with you, if you'd like," he offered.

"No, thank you. I'd rather be alone." With that Chita left and started heading back down the sidewalk.

I walked with her. It was eerie, how I'd sensed her coming, but she didn't seem to have any idea that I was right there with her. I don't know whether to say there was any significance in that or not.

I hadn't seen her at all since the break-up. She was looking really good. I doubted she still had that restaurant job, but life seemed to be agreeing with her at that point. I wondered what poor sap she was conning then. I doubted she'd made it big again on her own. Gold-diggers just aren't that type; they always have to be syphoning off of somebody else, like a parasite.

Being around her again was strange and eerie in general. I realized to my chagrin that somewhere in my heart, I'd still missed her. Or maybe I missed the vision of her that I'd crafted in my head, the one she'd wanted me to see until she got caught cheating.

Part of me was angry that she had popped back in again after all those years. It'd been a long time since she'd even tried to see me. But since I still missed her, it wasn't like she'd opened a wound that'd finally healed. More like she'd tore the scab on one that had never really healed. But it was so amazing to see her there that I was willing to wait and see what her reason was before I got really angry.

She got to the funeral home and stopped. The door was locked, so she peered in through the window. Then, sighing, she just stood there with her hand on the glass.

"Snakes?" she whispered after a long moment. "I guess you're not really here, but . . . I don't know, I heard old stories about people coming back to where they died, so I thought maybe . . ."

If she only knew.

"I felt awful when I read the paper. I knew you'd been doing really well, getting into all kinds of different rackets and being in control of towns all up and down the Mississippi River. And just like you, you're in control of the towns by making them better and getting people to like you. You never did try to control people with fear, did you? Well, not unless they probably deserved it. And yet you never tried that on me."

She sighed again. "I was horrible to you. I know it now and I really knew it then, right when it was happening. I should have stopped myself. I could have, but I just . . . didn't. I wanted it all, no matter who got hurt. I never actually meant to hurt you, though. I never wanted you to know what I was doing.

"But that's all over now and there's no point talking about it. I guess I just . . . wonder if you'd really be dead now if I hadn't ruined our marriage." She turned away. "I'm sorry."

I just stood there after she left, not even trying to follow her back to wait for the next stage. I was shaken and stunned. I couldn't even think about leaving that spot for a while, not until I saw Cyril setting a wagon on fire and I wanted to get away from him.

For the first time in my life, I had to wonder if I'd left a mark on Chita that wasn't just monetary. And that made me wonder yet again if maybe the marriage really could have worked out, somehow, someway. It wasn't really a happy What If to carry around with me in my afterlife.

And yet, I couldn't help it, but I was glad Chita had come for me. It was one of the only nice things that happened to me during those years.