villagelogs | Watch that your match doesn't hit that bridge

Entry tags:

Watch that your match doesn't hit that bridge

characters: Raylan, Doc and Malcolm
location: 1306 and then, the Chasm
date/time:Afternoon of day 20
content: Bridge building and possibly bad ideas

If there was one thing that Raylan had that didn't get enough love, it was redneck ingenuity. Ever since he'd seen the chasm and what lay beyond, Raylan was plagued by the best part of humanity, curiosity. People had yelled across the crack, thrown things, god knows what else, but Raylan failed to see a single attempt to cross it. He was sure he wasn't the first to have the idea - not with as many smart people around, but he had the goods to act on it. The wood that he'd collected with Max and with Doc separately, hadn't been a small amount of boards, some of which came with their own nails. A little destruction of a framed wall or two gave up little chunks of 2x4 that he figured would work well for support and several hours in the garage with Malcolm had produced a 'bridge' that was about 14 feet long. He wasn't sure it was long enough but they could see.

"Okay, set your end up on that bucket," he instructed Malcolm with a nod at the reinforced wood that they'd nailed together, lifting his own onto his carefully placed bucket. Malcolm had been a big help, making things move more quickly than he could have alone and he'd well put the man to work holding and hammering. "We just gotta see how much it bends under weight."

He hadn't really laid out what the glorified gangplank was for but that didn't matter, right? Didn't matter that he was going to cross the chasm into unknown territory.

"How much do you clock in at?" he asked Malcolm with a jut of his chin. "We can start with you then go onto me. I figure I got at least a good twenty pounds on ya." No, he really didn't.

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Doc is not very familiar with this term 'redneck' and all its connotations. 'Cracker' was more common during his time. Raylan's neck only turns red after 2 bottles of moonshine but nonetheless he is happy that Raylan has found something of a project for himself and Malcolm has been tasked with assisting, imbuing him with a sense of importance that he was in short supply of as the garage stirs back to life again after what must have been a long time of disuse.

It is no Noah's ark, but a bridge to greater understanding is no less important than a means of escape. Doc has been of the opinion that they should try to parlay with their new corporeal and not-so-corporeal friends, not antagonise them by throwing things across the chasm or trying to pry the lanterns away from the spirits. Maybe if he had his six shooters he might say something different, but they have a small community here of men, women, some barely older than children. It is not in their best interests to be antagonising anyone.

Mostly he has kept out of their hair. The moonshine needs to be monitored. The willow bark does not replenish itself. He has tended to a few injuries over the last couple of days. Looked for more missing persons. He happens to be in the house that cold afternoon, and he makes himself useful bringing hot drinks to the garage.

"Coffee and tea, gentlemen? Before you walk the plank?" he teases.

Malcolm had been more than happy to help with the project.

With any project.

It kept his mind off of his problems and, frankly, it was nice to be around someone who assumed he could do something like building a project with their hands on an afternoon when Dean down the road assumed he must listen to showtunes because he suggested Blue Oyster Cult was a little thematic. He set his end on the bucket as instructed.

"About one-fifty-five," Malcolm told him. "You want me to stand on it?"

He looked over as Doc came in. "Tea, please," Malcolm said, slightly distracted as he examined the plank.

Raylan straightened, bangs hung wildly in front of his face without his hat or hair product to keep it in its place and he looked up and over at Doc with an inhale and a nod before stepping over to take the cup with a breath as he surveyed what they'd done.

"Thanks," he said with a bob of his head as he took a sip, nodding at Malcolm with a faint lift of his chin and a gesture of a finger from his free hand. "Yeah. From end to end if ya don't mind; I wanna see how it does under our lightest weight."

Hazel eyes moved back over to Doc curiously. "What about you, Mister John Henry, how much you weigh?"

Tea and coffee are made, handed out without fanfare. Except for Doc watching Malcolm out of the corner of his eye in case it's unexpectedly hot or he has a moment and drops it. Just because he hasn't said anything doesn't mean he hasn't noticed that there are fewer cups in the cupboard than when they had first moved in. And he doubts Raylan has been using them for target practice.

With his hand on his hip, lingering close enough to the doorframe to be unintrusive but not near enough to lean against it, he tilts his head and gives Raylan A Look.

"Enough to smack that impolite question out of your mouth," he teases. "Probably closer to 200? I haven't looked since uh... I haven't looked."

Malcolm carefully set his mug on the workbench and all but hopped up onto the end of the board, his weight over the bucket, then took a few steps, moving out into the middle, looking down at the board then looking from Doc to Raylan.

"What do you think?"

Malcolm was steady on the board, his balance honed by years of yoga.

"There's barely any bounce," he reported, giving it a little jump for good measure.

Raylan's immediate smirk broke into a grin as he diverted his eyes back to watching Malcolm and his display of balance. It was awfully rude and the internal question of how one might feel as man getting asked that question was swiftly answered. But it was for a good reason. His eyebrows lifted briefly with a faint nod as Malcolm jumped and walked over and around to eye the supports they'd nailed in with another approving nod.

"Takin' you without much of any complaint. Good. I see two spots where it could use a little more, bent more than I'd like and frankly, I don't trust this wood as much as I would any other. Don't know if its treated or anything." He stopped and looked over at Doc with a lift of his chin.

"C'mon. You walk 'cross it too." He reached out and patted Malcolm on the lower back, an indication that he'd done well and it was time to get off now, making room for the good Doctor to have his turn. Nevermind that he was gauging his weight in between the two men, being the middle most as far as that went, or why.

Doc shows his confidence in their handiwork by stepping on up without protest, still holding his cup of 'coffee' in one hand while the other is shoved in his pocket. Funnily enough his coffee smells like he might have accidentally spilled just a finger of paint stripper in it. Whoops.

He climbs onto it and starts walking, pausing briefly in the middle where it would get the most strain. No creaking or splintering noises. But he's not going to try bouncing on it. He'll be heavier layered up and wearing boots, but if it all turns to shits he's going to be running anyway, not standing around.

"You two should have a little more faith in your workmanship," Doc muses as he makes it to the other side and steps off. It's not this reinforced oversized plank he's worried about; it's the fall into the crack that sets off the internal screaming.

When Raylan patted his back, Malcolm hopped down happily, moving to pick up his tea as he turned to watch Doc make his walk.

“Not even a creak,” Malcolm remarked. He looked at Raylan. “Should we still shore it up more?”

Raylan was the foreman on this job and also asking questions about it distracted him from the heat he could still feel where Raylan’s hand had met his back.

Good, good. Raylan liked how little the difference in bend was between the two of them - it was promising.

"Not bad." He glanced over at Malcolm before nodding again. "Better to over engineer that under engineer. Quite a bit of length we're tryin' to cover." Nodding for no reason at all, Raylan stepped forward and gestured Doc off the platform.

"Will y'all help me carry it to the gap? I figure I might be able to manage alone with the wheelbarrow but extra hands would make shorter work of it all."

"Oh well I suppose I had better clear some space in my busy schedule for that." Someone has to be there to yell 'I told you so' when Raylan throws down the bridge and invites the plagues of Egypt over.

"Let's do what we need to, and then we best set off. Better to go while it's still light out. The snow's gotten worse over the last two days."

“Sure, I can h....” He paused. “What ‘gap’?” he suddenly asked. “....The chasm?” he clarified a little uncertainly.

Raylan snorted and nodded, turning to head into the house with a gesture at Malcolm. "Get your jacket; it's cold outside."

Bless having friends like these, trusting enough to say yes before their brain processed all of the information and no, Raylan was not going to stop to explain to Malcolm. Having veered off early in the morning to go 'shopping' in the new clothing store, Raylan returned a few minutes later with a new flannel under a new jean jacket, under his thigh long black wool coat. It made a total of six layers, but Raylan knew how to dress for the cold, now that he had enough clothing to actually do so.

He downed his cup of coffee somewhere along the way and abandoned the cup on the first flat surface he found before returning to the gangplank and rubbing his hands as he waited for the others to come back around.

"Y'all take middle and end, I'll take front."

"Yes Malcolm. Now go get dressed," he nudges gently. At least, Doc had assumed that was what the Marshal had had in mind all this time. Raylan had not yet explained how they were going to lure the mysterious figure to cross the plank over to their side - if he needed a plate of warm cookies to be waved around, he had failed to mention it - but he obviously has a plan when they get there.

Long coat, check. Hat, check. Boots, check. Gun belt, with all the accoutrements in the holsters, check.

"You can have the middle," he offers to Malcolm. It should be lighter and he's got cover from his front and rear, should he need it.

Malcolm hadn’t been able to find boots, but he had his coat and sweater and he abandoned his tea to pull them on. His dress shoes would have to do. He didn’t need less weight, but he took up the middle as directed, still concerned about the plan. Something about the shadowy eyes on the other side of the chasm made him.... uneasy.

“Are...are we going to the other side?” he asked as they walked. Obviously, if the plan was to cross, it was for all of them to do it.

With the three of them lifting, the gangplank felt like nothing though Raylan imagined that it was quite the sight for two hats and a New Yorker to be moving through town with a 14 footer over their shoulders. He didn't anticipate anyone stopping them to ask what they were doing.

"It'd be better if only one of us went. Safer that way," he answered over his shoulder. "It'll just be a look around, assumin' this thing is even long enough to cross it. I only eyeballed the distance, looked to be about 12 or so feet." As much as he wanted to long step it through the streets, he kept them at a steady pace, getting as close as he could to it.

"Don't get your hopes up yet."

He can't really hear Raylan from standing quite a ways behind him, but he thinks he heard Raylan saying one of them will be crossing it.

"Why are any of us going to the other side?" That wasn't the plan, was it? "No, we should try and get our new friend to come to our side." They don't know what's on the other side. Doc is pretty sure the fissure is not meant to be crossed, after what had happened to Five. It's far too dangerous for them to be attempting it.

Malcolm was going to ask how they’d decide who went, but Doc made a good point.

He looked back at Doc. “Lure him over here?” He looked at Raylan. “Can we do that? Can we do that?”

"What? Bring him -" Raylan turned around, shifting the weight to his other shoulder so he could walk backwards. The road was straight enough to make it a possibility in the first place so he wasn't worried about veering.

"Lure him with what? Our handsome faces? Good conversation? If that's the thing that's runnin' this place, we don't have anything to offer it except what, ourselves? Hell no."

Sacrificial lambs were NOT in the agenda.

"I thought you had some idea to bring him over here!" It's hard not to sound annoyed when he's forced to raise his voice just a little to be heard from the distance.

"We can't go over there. You saw what happened to Mister Five. I can't be cutting into anyone with a butter knife to screw plates to hold broken ribs together."

“Wait, what happened to Five? How is one of us going over there not a sacrificial lamb? How do we even decide who goes?” Malcolm ramble questioned.

"Broken ribs - I thought you said he was drunk!"

This felt comically stupid, them having this argument while they were moving an equally comically large plank, like they were out of some old slapstick cartoon.

"Let's get this where it's goin' first, then we can talk," he dismissed with a gesture. Their questions would hold. They were all too sharp to forget them.

"No! That was- that was- just code for broken ribs! I told you to tell that to Mister Klaus so he wouldn't worry about Mister Five's encounter with the damn spectre on the other side!" Doc gesticulates almost wildly enough to be dropping the plank, but he quickly puts both hands on it to hold it steady. They're at least not far from the chasm so they can make it there and drop it into the growing pile of snow, and then they can stand around and argue why this was a supremely stupid idea to have come here without a plan.

"Nobody's going over there! Not even you Malcolm Bright so don't you start, son."

“I wasn’t starting anything,” Malcolm said, flexing his shoulder after they got the makeshift bridge on the ground. “I just think that if someone has to go, I’m the most expendable of the three of us. You’re both... useful to everyone’s survival.”

And ‘beloved’, as Dean had pointed out. Not least by Malcolm Bright.

“I’m borderline a liability. Logically.”

Having turned around to watch where he was going, Raylan opted to keep his mouth closed til they had unloaded the bridge from their shoulders. It wasn't all that heavy but he was glad to not be holding it anymore and promptly turned back around to face his companions.

"Alright," he started with gesturing index finger at Malcolm. "You're not goin' anywhere. And neither are you," he continued, moving that finger towards Doc. "I'm goin' over because no matter what happened to Five, I'd bet money he didn't do it by any natural, mechanical means. There's no bringin' him over to this side without someone goin' over to talk to the damned thing."

"What is this expendable talk? I'm convinced after today that if I stuck that otter...outer...ostoscope inside Raylan's ear I wouldn't be able to see his damn brain." Nevermind that that's not how that tool works.

"And what're you gonna do, Raylan? Walk on over there and flash your badge? Ask it nicely to come over and join us for dinner? After some other folks been unnaturally, unmechanically trying to go over, throwing things at it? I thought you had a plan to get it to come over here!"

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