Archive of Our Own ^beta

“So you do know him?” Art had asked, and Raylan confirmed.

“We weren’t what you would call buddies…” It was true enough. Raylan didn’t know what he’d call Boyd Crowder, exactly, but they had never been particularly close. He was one of those guys in school who you weren’t really friends with but who you didn’t necessarily dislike either. Acquaintance maybe would’ve been the right word, except that they came from the same background of having lowlife criminal daddies and they’d dug coal together, and both of those experiences had given their relationship a kind of weight that it likely wouldn’t have otherwise had.

Raylan sat at the little table in his motel room, nursing a beer as he looked over the file Art had left with him. In front of Art he’d glanced at the photo in the file with casual curiosity, noting the years reflected in Boyd’s hairline. Now he studied it more closely. The face was harder, eyes focused and angry. He’d seen Boyd angry, but most of his memories evoked the image of manic grins and eyes full of life. Of promise. As soon as the name “Boyd Crowder” had come out of Art’s mouth something inside Raylan had plummeted in disappointment. He’d always hoped Boyd would get out of Harlan and do something better with his life than the legacy his daddy had wanted for him. But it seemed Harlan hadn’t let him go.

Raylan was eight years old, sitting on unfamiliar porch steps after having been dragged along by Arlo to “meet a friend.” He’d been told to wait outside, like a dog being given a command. As he’d silently fumed, the screen door had creaked open and slammed, and he turned to find two kids about his age.

“Hey,” the one nodded at him, “you want an RC?” He held out the can in his hand, and Raylan took it with a mumbled “thanks.”

“I’m Johnny,” the boy—Johnny—said, “this here’s my cousin Boyd.” Boyd smiled, a gap-toothed grin from where his adult front teeth still hadn’t come in yet, but he remained silent.

“Raylan,” he offered before taking a long drink of cola.

“That your daddy? The fella meetin’ my uncle?” Raylan had nodded. “They might be a while. You wanna throw a ball around or something?”

“Sure,” Raylan smiled, grateful for something to do.

Johnny went and dug around in an old metal chest sitting on the side of the porch and pulled out two gloves, then handed one to Raylan.

“He ain’t playin’?” Raylan nodded toward Boyd.

“Nah,” Johnny scoffed. “He don’t like baseball. He’ll just sit there and watch, like a creep.”

“I got a book,” Boyd glared and pulled a worn folded paperback from his back pocket. It wasn’t a thick book, but looked like something more advanced than what most kids their age were reading. Raylan liked comic books, and Boyd’s book looked like it didn’t even have pictures.

Johnny and Raylan played catch for a while as Boyd sat on the steps reading, but every now and then Raylan would glance up to find Boyd looking at them rather than at his book. He didn’t think it was creepy like Johnny had said, not exactly, but there was something about being observed by the other boy that made him feel a little like an animal at the zoo.

At fifteen, Raylan had found himself hunched over in a chair outside the principal’s office, a bag of ice cubes wrapped in a towel pressed to his swollen cheek.

“Raylan Givens,” a voice said, and Raylan gingerly lifted his head to see Boyd Crowder sitting in a chair across from him. “What happened to you, you walk into a door or somethin’?”

“Something like that,” Raylan snorted.

“Well didja win, at least?”

Before he could answer, the principal’s door opened and out walked the junior who’d been stupid enough to think picking a fight with a freshman meant an easy win. The boy had a bloody nose and split lip, and had glared at Raylan as he’d limped by.

“Givens!” the principal shouted. “Your turn.”

Boyd had whistled, impressed. “Well shit, Raylan, I’d say that door learnt its lesson and will swing right open for you from now on.”

“Quiet, Crowder,” the principal sighed, “I’ll deal with you next.”

“Yessir, I’ll be waitin’. No rush.” Boyd grinned, his smile somehow full of charm despite the large crooked front teeth making up most of it.

Raylan later learned from a friend in the class who had witnessed it that Boyd had passionately argued with their English teacher about the interpretation of the book they’d been reading, crossing the line when he called the teacher an “ignorant fucking troglodyte.” Raylan had laughed when he’d heard. That teacher was a dumbass, and most definitely deserved Boyd’s ire. He’d also heard that Boyd had apparently stopped saying much of anything in class after that.

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A year later they found themselves in the same position, once again in opposite chairs outside the principal’s office at the same time.

“It’s been awhile, Raylan, whatcha in for this time?” Boyd asked.

“The usual,” Raylan shrugged, flinching as the movement jarred his shoulder.

“That pesky door again?”

“Nah. This time it was an asshole who needed a little help figuring out how not to be an asshole.”

Boyd grinned. “You tear him a new one?”

“Sure tried. He looks worse off than me, any rate.” He nodded at Boyd. “What about you?”

“Oh, I’m here because I merely suggested to a few of my fellow students that the dollar amount of the funds distributed to our school’s lunch program by the great state of Kentucky does not in fact seem to reflect the quality of the food being served. I may have passed around a few copies of said budget.”

“How’d you even get that?”

“It’s a public record, Raylan, sometimes the library has those, but if not you can just write to the state board of education and ask.”

“And they just gave you a copy?”

“Raylan, what part of ‘public record’ ain’t you grasping here?”

“But…why?”

Boyd shrugged. “Maybe I’m tired of bein’ treated like just because I’m poor I deserve dry gristley hamburgers and soggy french fries and expired canned carrots.”

“The carrots are expired?” Raylan frowned. He’d eaten those carrots.

“Hell, I dunno, probably,” Boyd waved a hand dismissively. “Have you seen ‘em? They’ve got a greenish-gray tinge around the middle.”

“But you don’t actually know.”

Boyd looked at him with a lazy sideways grin, eyes sparkling with mischief. “Well it’s less about what I know and more about what folks are willin’ to believe.”

“So you’re here for bullshittin’?”

“Not entirely.” Boyd smirked. “I’m here more because I convinced half the cafeteria that the best course of action necessary to protest this great injustice was to stand on the tables and dump their food on the floor. I believe the words ‘inciting a riot’ were thrown around. As was the food.”

Raylan had his lunch period before Boyd’s. He was almost sad that he’d missed out on seeing that. Almost. He gave Boyd a long look before shaking his head. “You’re so full of bullshit, you know that? Do you really even care about the food, or do you just like to stir shit up?”

Boyd just grinned, leaning back in his chair proudly. “Well, now, I don’t see why those things have to be mutually exclusive.”

“Why do you talk like that, anyway? All the big fancy words, like you gotta convince everyone you’re smart. Like you got somethin’ to prove to the world.”

The grin faded from Boyd’s mouth. He looked away, eyes flashing. “Maybe I do.” When he looked at Raylan again, his eyes were cold. Hard. “Why are you always gettin’ in fights?”

Raylan met his eyes, suddenly feeling like they looked familiar. Like he’d seen the same expression on his own face in the mirror. “Well,” he conceded, “maybe I got something to prove too.”

“Yeah,” Boyd nodded, looking away again, and Raylan thought that maybe he understood.

Cigarette smoke curled around Boyd’s head as he slowly exhaled. He held the cigarette out to Raylan in offering, but Raylan declined.

“Those things’ll kill ya, didn’t you listen in health class?” Raylan said with a crooked smirk.

Boyd snorted and leaned back against the porch railing. They were at Boyd’s house while Arlo and Bo had some “dealings” inside. Arlo was supposed to pick Raylan up from practice and get him home for dinner, but as per usual they’d had to make a few detours. Raylan thought about just starting to walk toward home and seeing how far he could get before Arlo caught up to him, but figured the ass-whooping he’d get for being disobedient and not staying put probably wasn’t worth it. Goddamn, he needed his own car. He thought Boyd would probably give him a ride if he asked, but asking felt like an imposition, seeing as how they weren’t really friends or anything. Next time he’d just try to bum a ride with someone else on the team, Arlo be damned.

Boyd exhaled smoke with an audible sigh. “Something’s gotta kill me. It’ll be the mines or gettin’ on the wrong side of someone’s gun. I don’t expect it’ll be old age. Might as well be cigarettes.”

“You’re gonna dig coal?” Raylan had asked, ignoring the bit about the gun.

“I don’t know. Maybe. There’s not much else to do around here.”

Raylan had no argument for that. “I’m gonna get out of here,” he said through gritted teeth. “Play college ball or somethin’.”

“You get any offers yet?”

“Nah. Your cousin Johnny says recruiters don’t come down this way very often. But I’ll be ready when they do.” He nodded toward Boyd. “What about you?”

“Well, Raylan, I think you know that I don’t play baseball.”

He sighed, shaking his head at Boyd’s annoying attempt at being funny. “Not that, dumbass. Scholarships. You’re smart.”

“Which is it? Am I smart or am I a dumbass?”

Raylan raised his eyebrows as Boyd smirked. “Well, you know, I don’t know why those two things have to be mutually exclusive.”

That earned him a genuine full-buck-teeth Boyd Crowder smile for a second, before he dropped his eyes and scoffed. He took a long drag on the cigarette. “No, Raylan. ‘Smart’ don’t get you scholarships, grades get you scholarships, and to get the grades you have to actually give a shit and do the homework. You also gotta not have a file thicker’n War and Peace in the principal’s office.”

Raylan frowned. “I have a file.”

“Ha!” Boyd laughed. “I hate to play a game of ‘whose is bigger’ with you, Raylan, but I’d win. A few schoolyard scraps and scuffles ain’t enough to keep a talented athlete such as yourself out of college if they want you.” He took a last drag of the cigarette and dropped the butt, grinding it into the flaking paint of the worn porch steps with his boot. “Nobody wants me.”

Raylan didn’t know what to say to that, so he said nothing.

“Besides,” Boyd added, “I don’t know if I trust that college is any different from high school. Nobody at our school wants to do anything radical like teachin’ you to think for yourself, they just care about gettin’ all the good little sheep to memorize and regurgitate the right answers to standardized test questions so we do well enough to look good to the state dickheads in charge of funding.”

“Now, you say clever shit like that and you don’t think anyone wants to give you a scholarship?” Dry sarcasm dripped from Raylan’s words. Boyd shot him a good-natured glare, but remained silent.

“If digging coal is all I can do, that’s what I’ll do,” Boyd finally said, resigned.

“I don’t wanna go down the mines,” Raylan said with a grimace, “but I’ll dig coal before I’ll do any of Arlo’s dirty work.”

“I ain’t gonna do what my daddy does neither,” Boyd agreed, eyes narrowed in resolve. “He might not like it, but I’m gonna make my own way. The right way. Bring some honor to the Crowder name.”

Raylan gave him a long, calculating look, considering what he knew about how much Boyd seemed to thrive on causing chaos, before deciding not to bother bringing it up and nodding instead. “Yeah.”

“Well look at us!” Boyd said in almost a shout, raising his hands to gesture dramatically between the two of them. “The next generation of Givens and Crowder, giving up the family business and goin’ straight.”

The smile Boyd gave him was warm, almost fond. They weren’t friends really, they just knew each other through school and their daddies, but in that moment Raylan had felt a deeper connection to Boyd than he’d ever felt before, and he couldn’t help but smile back.

They’d both ended up in the mine together after all.

It was hard, dirty work, and while Raylan wasn’t opposed to hard work, it wasn’t the sort of thing he was suited for and he knew it. Every time he stepped out into the open again at the end of a shift it felt like his whole body finally relaxed from the tension of being cooped up underground.

They’d been working the afternoon shift and most of the guys would go out for a beer or two after work before the bars closed. Raylan, Boyd, and a couple of the others were still underage, but most of the bartenders around operated under the belief that if a man was old enough to crawl down into a hole and dig coal, he was old enough to have a couple of beers, and local law enforcement usually looked the other way for much the same reason.

Sometimes Boyd would join them, and sometimes he’d decline, claiming with a wink and a grin that he had a girl waitin’ for him, or that he was tired and wanted to get home. Raylan thought the excuses sounded thin—he’d known of a girl or two that Boyd had dated in school, but he’d never heard of him having much of a reputation as a ladies man, and small town gossip would’ve surely caught up with him by now if there’d been anyone he was seeing on the regular. Raylan let it go, but the mystery of it ate at him.

When Boyd did join them, he didn’t often say much. Raylan had seen him come alive when he had an audience—a natural charismatic speaker who could charm the stink off a skunk and convince almost anyone that what he was saying was what they needed to hear—but the rest of the time he was much more reserved. Always quietly observing.

One such night found them at the local dive bar with a few of the other guys, shootin’ the shit and decompressing after a long shift. Raylan had noticed Boyd seemed a bit more distant than usual, but chalked it up to exhaustion.

“Well, well, well, is that Boyd Crowder?” A voice came from behind them, and Raylan noted how Boyd stiffened. A very big and very drunk man sauntered up and slid onto the stool next to Boyd, leaning entirely too far into his personal space. “You got a lotta nerve comin’ here.”

“Well, now, what sins do you feel I’ve committed that make me unfit to throw back a beer or two at this fine establishment?” Boyd replied, and Raylan could practically see the moment he slipped into a false air of calm nonchalance. There was a performance to it all.

“Bein’ a Crowder ain’t enough?” The man sneered. “Your daddy screwed me out of a lot of money.”

“I don’t doubt that’s true,” Boyd nodded, “but my daddy’s business is no business of mine.”

“Yeah?” The man leaned closer. “Well I think all you Crowders are lowlife scum. Ain’t no good Crowder alive. I wonder if Bo might be more inclined to gimme a refund if his kid ends up having a little accident.”

Raylan moved to stand at the implied threat, but before he could even get up from his stool he watched as Boyd leapt up—quick as a striking snake—grabbed the back of the man’s head by his hair, and slammed his face down directly into the bar.

“Son of a BITCH,” the man growled as he got up, blood pouring from his nose, and whirled around to face Boyd, only to stop short at the gun being pointed at his head. The gun in Boyd’s hand. Raylan hadn’t even seen him pull it.

“My daddy barely gives two shits about me, dickhead, but you think he’s gonna give you money if you hurt me? You’re more likely to get a bullet between the eyes for your trouble.” Boyd nodded toward the gun. “But seein’ as how my daddy ain’t here right now, we could go ahead and resolve this ourselves.”

At that point the other guys from the mine had stood to get behind Boyd, joining Raylan. “Jesus Christ, Boyd,” Raylan exhaled slowly. “Maybe put the gun down, huh?”

“Hey!” The bartender had noticed the commotion and came up to them wielding a shotgun from behind the bar. “No guns! You wanna kill each other, you do it outside! Put it away and get out!”

Boyd glared, eyes colder than Raylan had ever seen them. The other man took his hands away from his bloody nose long enough to raise them in surrender. “Hey man, let’s just call this a misunderstanding, okay?”

Boyd didn’t respond, just continued to glare, before he finally lowered the gun and tucked it into the waistband of his jeans behind his back. With raised hands to show the bartender he was complying, he slowly walked across the floor and out the door.

The other guys were standing around keeping an eye on the asshole with the bloody nose, so Raylan figured there wasn’t much chance of him going after Boyd. “I’ll go check on him,” he said with a sigh, picking up his beer and Boyd’s unfinished bottle as well before heading out the door.

Raylan found Boyd sitting on the stoop in front of the bar, staring at the gun in his hand as he slowly rotated it.

“What the hell was that?” Raylan asked as he sat next to him and held out the beer. Boyd didn’t look up, but put the gun away and took the bottle.

“You heard him.” Boyd’s voice was quiet, tired, like all the fight had gone out of him.

“I did,” Raylan nodded. “He was bein’ an asshole, and he deserved the busted nose. But Boyd, why do you have a gun?”

Boyd turned and looked at him. “You know who my daddy is and you think I don’t carry a gun? Raylan, I’m surprised you don’t carry a gun.”

Raylan honestly hadn’t felt the need. Arlo had plenty of enemies, but he’d never been threatened because of the shit his daddy did. He wanted to ask Boyd if this sort of thing had happened before. If he lived his life in fear that his very name would be enough for someone to pick a fight with him, or worse. But he didn’t. He just sat there and took a swig of beer.

“I knew there’d been a deal go south recently,” Boyd said as he fiddled with the label on the bottle. “I knew some of the guys caught up in it frequented this bar. I didn’t want to run away or hide from it, I just brought the gun because I thought, you know, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of not gettin’ shot in the head.”

Raylan snorted out a laugh from around the bottle in his mouth, glad he hadn’t yet taken a drink.

They sat in amicable silence for a while, the ambient sounds of music and voices from inside the bar washing over them.

“You think a man can ever really rise above his station?” Boyd broke the silence to quietly ask, his tone serious. “You think there’s more than whatever shitty birthright gets passed from fathers to sons?”

Raylan sure hoped so. “I think if he wants it—really wants it—a man can do anything he puts his mind to.” It felt like a cheap platitude, but he looked over to Boyd to find his eyes shining and the smallest of smiles on his lips.

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A few days later Boyd once again turned down an invitation to the bar after their shift ended, throwing out another excuse about a new girl. The rest of the guys nodded and laughed and clapped him on the back before heading out, but Raylan stayed behind, making an excuse of his own. His burning curiosity had gotten the better of him as he regarded Boyd, watching as he slowly and methodically put away his equipment.

“Where do you go?” he found himself blurting out. “When you don’t come out for a beer with us? If you were really going on all these little ‘dates’”—Raylan lifted his hands to put air quotes around the word—“or whatever, you’d surely have run out of girls in Harlan by now, and I know you ain’t the type to be frequenting Audry’s. I also know you sure as hell ain’t in any more of a hurry to get home than I am.”

“Why, Raylan Givens, are you insulting my love life? You think I can’t get a girl?”

“Sure you could,” Raylan shrugged, “but a different one every other night? Who you never mention by name? The other guys might buy it, but I don’t.”

“You jealous?” Boyd asked, grinning, and Raylan sighed and shook his head.

“Fine, you don’t gotta tell me, I was just curious. But it’s none of my business, I’ll leave you be.” He moved to leave, but Boyd stepped in front of him, stopping him.

Boyd seemed to study him for a long moment, not bothering to further deny he’d been caught in a lie. His head tilted, and the tiniest quirk of a smile turned up one side of his mouth. “Follow me,” he said. “I’ll show you.”

Raylan followed Boyd’s old pickup up a winding dirt road until it pulled off into an open field and stopped. He parked next to the truck and got out, watching as Boyd took a blanket from behind his seat and tossed it in the truck bed before dropping the tailgate and hopping up. Boyd spread the blanket out and reclined back, disappearing from view until Raylan came closer.

“This is my favorite spot,” Boyd spoke from where he lay, one hand behind his head and the other resting on his stomach. “On a clear night, you can lay back and all you see are stars, like bein’ in outer space itself. Sometimes I even sleep here.”

Raylan looked up, taking in the night sky. It did look pretty good up here, without any lights to ruin the view.

“You can’t really appreciate it like that, Raylan, you gotta lay down,” Boyd lifted his head and patted the spot next to him. Raylan was about to decline, saying he could see it just fine from where he was, but he found himself feeling curious about how it looked through Boyd’s eyes. He’d sometimes thought that Boyd had a different—sometimes good, sometimes bad, but always different—way of seeing things, so he climbed up and lay back, careful to avoid being hit by Boyd’s elbow.

“See?” Boyd smiled softly. “Nothin’ but stars. I like to lay here and imagine that I’m just floatin’ through them, free of any earthly cares.”

Raylan could see the appeal. They stayed that way for a few minutes without talking, only the sounds of crickets and cicadas piercing the silence. It was a cool night even with the ever-persistent humidity clinging to everything, and he felt more relaxed than he had in days.

“Hey, Boyd?”

“Yeah?”

“I got a question for ya.”

“Well, Raylan, I’m all ears.”

“This blanket stinks, you ever wash this thing?”

Boyd leaned up on one elbow to stare at him, incredulous. “Raylan, you stink. I’m surprised you can smell anything else over the stench.”

“You stink too,” Raylan returned with a laugh.

“We just spent ten hours in a hot dirty hole in the ground, ain’t nobody gonna come outta that smellin’ like a bed of roses.” He flopped back down with a huff. “Now shut your damn ass up before I ask you to leave because you’re ruinin’ the atmosphere here.”

“You know what’s ruinin’ the atmosphere?” Raylan laughed, near giggling at this point. “The godawful smell of this blanket.”

Boyd elbowed him hard in the ribs and sat up fully. “Boy, get out my goddamn truck! This is what I get for tryin’ to show you something nice?” There was no real bite behind his words, Raylan noted as he sat up, still laughing. Boyd’s eyes were shining with amusement rather than the intense hardness they held when he was angry. “Damn, Raylan, I thought I could trust you of all people to appreciate this, you always look like a squirrel in a trap ready to gnaw its own foot off to get out the whole time we’re down there.”

Raylan stopped laughing, eyes dropping. He hadn’t realized he’d been so transparent. Boyd must’ve noticed, because of course he had. Boyd had always had a way of making him feel a bit like a bug trapped in a jar, always being observed and dissected in every way but physically.

“I don’t think it’s obvious to the others, if that helps,” Boyd added with a shrug, “but I know what you’re like, Raylan Givens, and I know it kills you that you can’t fist-fight a mine.”

Raylan frowned, and lifted his eyes back up to Boyd’s, his gaze challenging. “You think you know me, huh?”

Boyd didn’t answer, just continued to meet his eyes before he finally said “we ain’t gonna die down there. Not if I can help it.”

“You gonna hold up the whole mine yourself if somethin’ goes wrong?” Raylan shook his head. “It’s dangerous down there. You blow that shit up, you know better’n most.”

“I know it is.” Boyd gave him a long look, eyes serious and intense. “What I’m trying to say, asshole, is that I got your back. Like I hope you got mine.”

“Sure,” Raylan shrugged, like it was obvious. It was, to him. None of the guys might’ve been particularly close outside of the mine, but in it they were a team, and Raylan supported them all as best he could.

Boyd was giving him that calculating look again—the one where Raylan wasn’t at all sure what he was looking for, but he felt like Boyd hadn’t been particularly impressed with his answer.

He was saved from having to figure out what else he was supposed to say by a shooting star briefly lighting up the sky as it soared by, catching both their attention.

“Whoo, that was a big one!” Boyd exclaimed. “Make a wish, Raylan.”

It was stupid, Raylan knew. There wasn’t any part of him that actually believed in silly superstition, but he squeezed his eyes shut and wished with everything he had that he’d get out. Out of the mines, out of Harlan, out of Kentucky itself.

He opened his eyes to find Boyd looking at him. Boyd smiled and turned his gaze back to the sky, and Raylan wondered what it was he’d wished for.

The danger of the mines made itself known soon enough.

Raylan hadn’t been sure exactly what was happening at first. Boyd’d been drilling to set explosives when he’d suddenly stopped, and the next thing Raylan knew Boyd had grabbed his sleeve and was tugging him forward, shouting at him to go. He went along unquestioningly, letting himself be dragged through the tunnel until he could feel the rumbling himself and tried to pick up his pace, stumbling along the uneven ground as Boyd—steady as ever—insistently yanked on his arm.

They’d been too far away to get to the main entrance, so Boyd had pulled him toward the alternate escapeway that came out further down the mountain. Dust and rocks were raining down around them as the rumbling got worse, but still they ran, Raylan being half-pulled by Boyd, whose hand was now gripping his as he led the way out. Raylan marveled at how Boyd had so easily kicked into evacuation mode while he himself was struggling to stop panicking long enough to recall his safety training.

It seemed like they ran for miles before finally reaching the end of the escapeway tunnel. The dust had gotten so thick that they could barely see with the shaky light from their helmets, but Boyd expertly unlatched and turned the hatch-like door and shoved it open. He then grabbed Raylan and pushed him out first before jumping out after him.

The cool night air hit Raylan and he gasped it down in gulping breaths before doubling over to cough up all the dust he’d inhaled on the way out.

Boyd’s own coughing turned to laughter, the sound starting out quiet before becoming almost maniacal. “WOOO-OO!” he shouted into the air, still laughing.

Raylan was processing the joy of being alive a bit more subtly. It was such a relief, being free, being in the open, that he nearly collapsed from the shock of it all, legs suddenly turning to jelly.

But there was Boyd, holding him up with an iron grip and pulling him into a tight hug. Raylan grasped at the back of Boyd’s coveralls like a lifeline, trying to express gratitude for the rescue when he didn’t yet have words. “Told you I had your back, asshole,” Boyd said quietly, his lips close enough to Raylan’s ear that he could feel the breath from the words as well as hear them.

Boyd pulled back a step, giving him a little space, but kept a grip on Raylan’s arms as he looked him over, making sure he was okay, seeing if the shock was wearing off and he could stand on his own. Boyd was still grinning wildly, still high on adrenaline, and as Raylan met his wild, shining eyes he couldn’t help but grin back.

They stood like that for a long moment, just grinning and staring at each other, until something seemed to shift in Boyd’s eyes. His grin began to fade as his eyes turned intense in a way that Raylan hadn’t seen before. He couldn’t look away.

Never breaking his gaze, Boyd took a step closer until he was practically pressed against him. Raylan didn’t take a step back. He felt frozen in place by the look in Boyd’s eyes, like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming truck. He didn’t know if he was about to be splattered across the highway, but something in his gut twisted in a way that didn’t feel like it had anything to do with fear.

“Crowder! Givens!” a voice shouted, causing Boyd to turn his head and break his gaze. Raylan leapt a couple feet to the side, out of Boyd’s grip, just as their chief and a few other men approached. “You two okay? Thank God you got out this way.”

“We’re okay,” Raylan spoke up, finally finding his voice, “thanks to Boyd. He felt the collapse starting and got me out in time, or I never would’ve made it.” Raylan looked to Boyd, who had turned to face him, expression seemingly surprised by the praise. “He saved my life,” Raylan added, meeting Boyd’s eyes as he spoke. Boyd smiled softly and looked away.

“Excellent work, Crowder. Now let’s get you two checked out and cleaned up.”

They walked up the hill to the waiting crew of paramedics and mine officials, and in all the chaos he and Boyd got separated as they were each pulled in different directions. Raylan let the paramedic look him over as he almost numbly repeated his recollection of the event to multiple people, feeling like a broken record as all the adrenaline wore off and he was suddenly bone tired.

When they finally let him go, Boyd was already gone.

That was the last time Raylan had seen Boyd. He left without saying goodbye to anyone, the accident in the mine the fuel his Aunt Helen had needed to insistently push all she’d saved at him so he could get out of Harlan and on to better things.

He’d heard Boyd had gone off to war not long after, deciding to blow shit up for the Army instead of in the mines, and he wondered if that was Boyd’s own way of trying to get out. He’d also heard he’d taken some flying debris to the face and had been sent back to Harlan with a set of shiny new teeth and, apparently, a newfound disdain for the U.S. government.

At some point he stopped hearing anything about Harlan, having cut all ties with anyone there but Helen, who had eventually stopped telling him any of the local gossip when she called. He didn’t know if it was because she sensed that he didn’t really care, or if it was out of a desire to let him only focus on where he was heading instead of where he’d been. After a while even her calls became less frequent, though he supposed that was mostly his fault for never being the one to call first.

He thought he’d well and truly put Harlan behind him.

Raylan took a swig of his beer and closed Boyd’s file. They hadn’t been friends, not really, and at some point Raylan had stopped thinking about him at all except for when he recalled the night of the mine accident. Truth be told Raylan had always found Boyd to be a bit odd, albeit in an interesting sort of way. Too smart for his own good sometimes, and strangely charming in a way that could be disarming to those not expecting it, which most didn’t. His smile was also often full of bullshit. Raylan wondered how much more charming that wide smile would be with straight perfect teeth instead of the crooked over-large ones he remembered. Charming enough to amass an army of white supremacist dumbasses, seemed like.

Raylan thought about what he’d known of Boyd, and something didn’t add up there. He’d buy that Boyd had succumbed to his family legacy and become a criminal, there was always something lurking behind his insistence that he wanted to get out that made it feel a little like a denial, but Raylan had never pegged him as racist or antisemitic. Years could change a person, sure, but something about the whole thing seemed off, and Raylan wondered if Boyd was playing a different game than the one everyone assumed.

He also wondered what it would feel like to see Boyd again after twenty years, and this time on opposite sides of the law. How it would feel to be the one who had gotten out instead of the one who hadn’t.

Well, he thought as he mentally ran through his plans for the next day, he supposed he’d find out soon enough.