Work Text:
The newcomer is in town for less than a day when Swenson shows up to escort him to Hatcher’s office.
Mariana is reading behind the bar, watching from the corner of her eye as he slides into a seat. He is weary and dirty from travel but full of a vibrant, buzzing kind of energy.
He drops his lone pack onto a barstool and slides on one next to hit. He announces, “Hi, I’m Travis!” He speaks with a wild smile on his face. It’s almost unnatural, but it works for him. And he talks with the energy of a child and tells her that he’s here for archaeological purposes.
He mentions that he plans to camp in the jungle while he’s here and she offers to rent out the room over the bar for a small fee, smaller than anything Hatcher would offer. She listens as he goes on and on about the ancient tribes that used to inhabit the area. She listens because there is nothing better to do and she is tired of what Hatcher’s men consider conversation.
When Swenson enters the bar just twenty minutes after Travis sits, the bar goes preternaturally quiet. It’s not often Hatcher’s upper echelon come into town, but it is never good when they do. Particularly not when it’s Swenson. He approaches Travis with single-minded purpose, and she sees naked fear on Travis’ face but only for a fraction of a second before he covers it with a grin and a sarcastic remark. His body drops back against the bar in a practiced illusion of ease. Much later, she realizes that the fear is not because of Hatcher or Harvey, but because he thinks his father’s people have finally found him.
When he finally makes it back to the bar hours later, bruised and slightly disheveled, he doesn’t mention what happened, but she pours him a drink anyway. This is the first time she realizes how closely he holds his private self, his fears, how guarded he is when it comes to his wants, his emotions, his desires.
In a strange way, it reminds her of herself.
He is there for several weeks, taking trips into the jungle for days at a time. It’s a matter of when, not if, that she thinks he won’t come back. But every time, just as she begins to suspect the jungle has claimed another victim, he returns, unscathed but disappointed by whatever he didn’t find. She also thinks, it’s only a matter of time before he makes a mistake and stumbles upon one of the freedom fighter camps and then they both will have bigger problems.
---
They dance around each other for a while. Travis flirts with all the subtlety and grace of a pubescent twelve-year-old, but he is sincere and bold and funny, she would be a liar if she said he wasn’t attractive. Besides, she rationalizes, he clearly doesn’t intend to stay for any length of time.
Finally, she caves into her own desires, and they fall into bed together. This is not a long-term relationship. It’s a fling, a purely sexual relationship, and she reminds Travis of that constantly, but if he feels any which way about that, he doesn’t say so. At night, when they have reached completion, he curls around her in a way that causes an ache in her chest. It’s sweet, and it’s vulnerable, and it’s gentle. It’s also the only time either of them speaks of anything personal.
He tells her about his mother. How she passed away. He tells her about his father and all of the horrible things he’s done to Travis. He speaks about the abuse he endured; the electric cords used as whips that broke his skin. His voice hitches as she traces the light, practically invisible scars along his back with gentle fingers while she thinks about the wounds that the miners receive from Hatcher’s men. He tells her about the beatings he received if he was too emotional and the way his father locked him in closets when he was tired of dealing with him.
She thinks about the casual assaults the women quietly endure from Hatcher’s men. But she can’t give voice to those, so she speaks about her great dream – of finally being independent and free from Hatcher’s reign. She doesn’t talk about el lutadores de liberdade. She does not forget that Hatcher had gotten to Travis when he first arrived. She knows when a deal has been made.
She is not foolish, so the rebels she keeps to herself. She talks about how beautiful the land was before Hatcher’s mine destroyed it; she talks about the community and how they looked out and supported each other. She talks about the great celebrations they had together before Hatcher cut them all down, ground them into miserable, exhausted beings.
Travis listens. He listens with quiet earnestness and whispers quietly about how beautiful and wonderful it sounds and how sorry he is that Hatcher has done that to them. He says Hatcher reminds him of his father – always about what’s good for business, and how much money he can make. He says that these people are what’s wrong with everything in the world. Profits over people. Money over the planet. At the time, she is not certain he believes in what he’s saying, and that maybe he only says it because he thinks he must – he is, after all, just another white westerner come to take from indigenous peoples. She doesn’t say that, and she forgives him, in the moment, for lying.
It’s not until much, much later that she realizes she is very wrong.
When they’re finished talking in the quiet dark of the night as the bugs trill and monkeys whoop in the distance, Travis lays kisses on her bare skin, from her belly and down to her mound and the soft skin of her inner thighs. As if he could kiss away the anguish, kiss away their heartache, he puts all of his energy into bringing her to completion again and again. As she climaxes, something between them changes. Travis licks her clean and then kisses his way up her body until he meets her mouth with a passion she doesn’t think she’s ever known and she tastes herself on his lips before she climbs atop and rides him again.
---
She knows it can’t last, so she enjoys it while it does.
Eventually, he tells her, while they lay naked together, what it is he is searching for – gato de diabo. A priceless artifact. Another lie she lets go, for the moment. He tells her how he discovered the first clue, in a long-forgotten history book, that he picked up out of curiosity while at Stanford. At first, it was just a fable, a line in an old book, about a golden cat – thought cursed, and hidden, lost forever. But then he researched it, learned about the tribes that lived there. How he spent months pouring over photo after grainy photos of ancient hieroglyphs, of a nearly forgotten language, and stories. About how the Maraj people hid it to protect it from invading conquistadores.
She memorizes what he says about the hieroglyphs, “The great chief declared that once el gato de diabo is restored to its rightful people, to its rightful owners the rivers will run deep, laden with fish. And the trees will grow tall, bringing shade for thousands of hammocks...”
The lines turn around in her head and it feels like a folktale her grandmother may have told her once. She remembers what Travis tells her, but pretends she does not. It’s a nice story, a nice thing to imagine, if only it were real. What it might do, what it might mean.
Travis doesn’t tell her how he intends to find it, and she doesn’t tell him that it could save her people.
He is sweet, but he is a man, and money makes men do horrible things.
---
Two months or so go by, and he is growing increasingly excitable, and anxious, or even paranoid. She believes he is getting closer to his find.
A stranger appears in town, and disappears just as quickly. Rumors are that he is a journalist. Taking photos of the town and its people. Hatcher’s men go on high alert and she keeps an eye on the news just in case something comes of it but is not surprised when nothing happens.
When Travis hears the rumors (she tells him over the bar as he slides her a bowl of feijoada that he managed to charm from Tia Antônia (a curmudgeonly woman whose husband Roberto died in the mine when it first opened, six years ago), he stiffens in his seat. His eyes drift over the patrons in the bar. It’s empty except for three of Hatcher’s men playing poker and smoking up by the billiards table, and Benicio and Salvador who work the airfield are near the door, drinking and complaining about that oddball pilot with the indecipherable accent.
When he’s done surveying the bar, he relaxes, but barely, and then leans forward so his face is inches from hers, and she can feel the heat coming off his skin and the brush of his hair against her cheek. Without meaning to, she leans in closer as well.
“Did anyone ask around about me?” he asks, quiet, earnest, as he is in all things. She pulls back and laughs lightly.
“Do you owe someone money?” she smiles, almost fond, “Someone other than me anyway?”
He grins then, more of the tension bleeding from his limbs, and she thinks maybe her tone was more fond than she meant it to be, “Something like that.” He holds up a spoonful of the feijoada, and she rolls her eyes and accepts the bite – never one to turn down Antonia’s cooking.
“Dios, this is good. Did you harass that poor woman for this?” she asks taking another bite as soon as she swallows the first.
“Of course, I didn’t!” he says, hand splayed across his chest in mock affront, “She offered!”
She laughs as she imagines how he must have talked and conned Antonia for the stew. But later she learns from Tia herself, that she did offer after Travis had taken it upon himself to help the old lady fix her broken door, repair a broken pipe, and chop wood for the roast pit. This is not the first, nor the last time, that she has to reevaluate her assessment of Travis.
He shares the stew with Mariana, and then grabs his bag, and disappears into the jungle.
---
This time, he is gone for nearly two weeks. For some reason, she suspects he stays gone because of the photographer. When he returns, he’s fatigued, scratched up, and starving. He scans the bar as he limps in, and looks over his shoulder again and again.
Travis asks again, “Did anyone come looking for me?” White knuckles grip the bar, and the shadows under his eyes are stark against the pale of his face.
“No, Travis. No one is looking for you.” She says and this time she says it firm, but gentle, with no trace of a laugh.
Almost as soon as the words leave her mouth, he collapses onto the bar. A cousin of hers, Paolo, is across the street in the diner and she calls for him to help Travis to bed. Antonia appears carrying a giant bowl vatapá and a stack of empadão with strict instructions to feed Travis every last bite.
When he wakes, still deliriously tired, he says softly, “Sometimes, I feel like fog. Once the sun rises, it disappears – poof - forgotten. Like it was never there... I just want something of my own. I want to be remembered.”
She brushes a sweaty curl from his forehead, and tuts softly, “Oh, Travis, you are very memorable.”
…
After he recovers, he begins to pull away from her. It’s as if the truth he told her was too much and the exposure leaves him vulnerable. They still have sex, sometimes, but it’s never as sweet, and their quiet discussions in the dark of the night end.
She accepts the change in their relationship. After all, it was never going to last. There are only two ways the story ends. Either he never finds what he’s looking for, and he retreats for America, never to be seen again. Or he finds it. If he finds it, then she must reevaluate. It is her people she fights for, her countrymen. It is freedom, not just money and fame that she is after.
Once Travis has regained his strength, he asks if he can borrow her car. She rarely uses it, so she lets him take it into the jungle.
When he returns, it’s with frantic apologies and a convoluted story about monkeys and a stray tree branch. The windshield is completely gone, and she cusses and threatens to throw him out and he tries to give her what money he has left. But she thinks about he came with a single bag, how he had more books than clothes, about how she never saw him eat unless someone set food in front of him. Once the anger fades, she tells him to keep his money, but has him work shifts at the bar and clean up when he isn’t in the jungle.
Her brother's scooter goes the same way as the car, and she vows to never let him any other means of transport.
---
When she is not managing the bar, she takes food and supplies to the lutadores. For now, she is not under suspicion. After all, she serves Hatcher’s men when they come to town. Sneaking away is easy enough. Hatcher’s cameras only extend as far the gate around his compound and over the mine. The town is safe from his watchful eyes.
Escapees from the mine often flee straight into the jungle, oftentimes with skin split open, festering wounds, suffering from starvation. It’s known that the lutadores are there in the jungle, waiting for the escapees, and Hatcher’s ire grows with every missing man. It’s only a matter of time before he sends death squads for them. She spends too much of her time in the jungle stitching up and gluing wounds, the only medical care these people will ever see.
Once the escapees are healed, they either join the fight or disappear. Maybe back into the mines, or maybe as far from Hatcher as they can get.
The lutadores are stealthy. They must be, attacking cameras and fences from afar, damaging vehicles and equipment when they can. But Hatcher has money to replace everything. And an all-out war cannot be won by the rebels, not without money.
The thought sits there, as Travis says he is getting closer to the gato. He pours over maps and texts in his room, increasingly paranoid. When he speaks with her in the bar, it’s with hushed tones, always looking over his shoulder.
She spends one long night in the jungle, disinfecting wounds from a man’s knuckles, a whip brought across his hand when he grew tired of Hatcher’s games. It makes her sick, seeing the white of the bone. The split open flesh. She is angry and tired, and the man’s cries of pain echo in her chest as if they were her own.
And then Travis comes to her in the morning, asking about a boat.
Without thinking, she finally asks him the question that has been on her mind, always.
“How much?”
At first, Travis splutters, taken off guard, because never before has she expressed an interest in the gato. His answer disappoints her because it’s obfuscation, and she knows he wants the money too. So, finally,'they' agree to 50/50, although, she knows when the time comes, she cannot trust him.
She thinks of his threadbare clothes, his dwindling wallet, and wonders if he has thrown his life savings into this, or if he’s a gambling man in debt and drowning in desperation or some combination of the two.
Because he cannot go without her, he waits around the bar, flitting nervously from his room to the bar, to the bathroom. He packs and repacks, as if he knows something is nipping at his heels.
---
This is when Beck arrives.
He walks into the bar as if he were summoned. Wearing an outfit more suited for a Miami nightclub than for this Brazilian jungle. He is sweating and clearly uncomfortable, and overwhelmingly large. He could not have looked more out of place than if he wore a sign. There’s a lot about him that doesn’t fit here. He doesn’t look like one of Hatcher’s, doesn’t have that seedy hatefulness.
From her seat, she watches without watching, unsurprised when he makes a snarky comment. There’s some satisfaction when she slowly walks by him to step behind the bar. A barely suppressed eyeroll on his side, but this is her world, not his.
He says, “I’m looking for a man.”
The bar feels like it goes still, but the men are still playing billiards and pinball, and joking and laughing. There is truly only one man that he could be searching for, here, and she wishes that he had just come a few days later after they had the gato. Desperately, she tries to remember where Travis was last – the bathroom, she realizes a moment later, and she tries to get Beck’s complete attention when she asks, “What’s your type?”
But her weak attempt at distraction is useless as Travis comes walking out from the bathroom. From the corner of her eye, she sees him step out. He looks Beck over, and dismisses him, walking back to head to his room, unaware that the giant stranger is watching him in the mirror over the bar.
Then Beck gives his spiel. She sees the concern on Travis's face morph into curiosity and then trepidation. She listens, as she pretends to clean the counter, and when Travis asks, “What’s in Los Angeles?”
Beck answers, “Your father.”
She looks over, unable to stop herself, and she sees the naked fear in his eyes before it transforms into that crazed bravado that makes her question his sanity.
She bites her tongue through the exchange, as Beck gives Travis his options that aren’t options. Although he can take a hit and keep moving, Travis is not a fighter. She suspects his pain tolerance is related to the abuse he suffered at his father's hand. Whatever he endured, and whatever his pain tolerance, he never bothered to develop skills necessary to defend himself. His lack of skill never stopped him from trying. Not when he thought she needed rescuing from one of Hatcher's handsy men, and not now as he faces down Beck.
Her first impression of Beck is this: he is strong, fast, and experienced; he’s a hired gun, a city boy, and he is inflexible. If he sees the fear on Travis’ face, he doesn’t care.
When Hatcher, his brother, and his other men arrive, she is not surprised. Nor is she surprised to learn that Hatcher was apprised of Beck’s presence, or of Travis’ discovery. She has not forgotten when Swenson took Travis to Hatcher on his first day. She knew a deal had been reached; however out of Travis’ control it had been. She is only partially surprised when Beck mentions his payment to Hatcher as if it were nothing. What kind of trouble had Travis gotten into that warranted this effort? This money? Thrown about as if it were nothing.
Travis crows at Hatcher’s appearance as if it’s an actual rescue. This, she thinks, says a lot about how much he doesn’t want to go back to his father.
The bar begins to empty as the impending fight becomes clear. A man who has never been denied against a man who refuses to take no for an answer. She thinks about the money she has put into the bar, and she thinks about how the gato will not be the answer to her prayers. Travis will not get out of this one. If Beck wins this standoff, he will be dragged to face the father who had left those scars on his body, on his mind. If Hatcher wins, he will lose the gato, and the entire town will suffer.
The fight begins, and she silently wills Travis to get up - to escape while he can.
But Beck does win.
And he takes Travis with him.
Hatcher’s men recover slowly, and Hatcher throws cash on the bar for a second beer. She hands it over, still silently watching, hoping that Hatcher will reveal some part of his intentions. But he just shakes his, “Wow! He was a big guy.” Then he takes the beer and barks at his brother and Swenson to get in the trucks.
In the afternoon, her cousin will watch the bar, and she will go into the jungle to find where the lutadores have made camp.
Beck has taken Travis without any of his belongings. So she goes to see if she can find anything that will reveal where he thinks the gato is. The boat is still waiting for her after all. But when she goes into his room, the maps are empty of markings, creased and worn, and beginning to fade at the folds, but he has not written any notes, no ‘x’ marking the spot, no indication of places he has checked, or places he needs to go. There are no notes in his books – nothing.
It’s clear he has memorized everything. She is as impressed by this revelation as she is disappointed.
His wallet and passport have been left behind too. She checks the wallet. There is a California drivers’ license, $63 in U.S. dollars, and a photograph. The picture is of a pretty, young woman, slight with a smile, as she cuddles a boy on her lap, about five with disheveled hair and a gap-toothed smile made of pure joy – Travis and his mother. Other than a spare set of clothing, several pairs of socks, a jacket, and toiletries, he has nothing else.
She packs his things into his bag, and wonders if she will ever find a way to return them.
---
Then she finally makes her way to the camp, it is to find Beck and Manito embroiled in a fight. Once the shock clears, she loses her mind. Learning that Travis has orchestrated the entire conflict is unsurprising, although she can’t really blame him for using the opportunity.
The look of confused surprise at her appearance is satisfying, “Barmaid by day, rebel leader by night.” Travis says in awe, and then he lights up a little, “You are good. The whole time l was working you, you were working me.”
She doesn’t think that assessment is fair. Nor does she believe he does either. Although there is something in Travis’ eyes when he asks whether any of it was real. She thinks of how he spoke softly to her in the night. About how his vulnerabilities made him pull away. He tries to play it off, but the betrayal in his eyes lingers. A feeling he has no right to, she thinks, when he admits to using her too.
Once she clears everything up with Manito and the others, they set up camp for the night. Travis is back under control, handcuffed at the fire. He is surprisingly quiet as Mariana tends to the injured, and Beck talks with Manito.
For a moment, there is a certain of kind peace.
But peace doesn’t last in the jungle.
Gunfire erupts, and she leads the way to the boat.
Manito is cut down by the vicious gunfire and it rips a hole in her chest. She lets loose a primal scream. How many of them killed? How many cut down by Hatcher as if they were nothing more than rats? And here on the boat, Beck and Travis who don't even belong to the jungle, are somehow alive, somehow spared.
They float in shell-shocked silence as the sun slowly rises. The adrenaline has faded, her heart rate has settled. She no longer shakes.
Travis is as far away from her and Beck that he can get on the little motorboat. His head is bowed and he shoots occasional glances toward her. There is something in the hunched set of his shoulders, something in the furrow of his brow, and the down-turned corners of his mouth. But her grief burns sharp in her throat, and she cannot decipher his expression. Much later, when her mind has cleared, when the pain is not fresh, she will realize it is sympathy and sorrow and fear.
But for now, her own grief takes precedence. Her friends have been killed, murdered in cold blood. Cut down for doing nothing but protect themselves.
Finally, she swallows enough of her anguish to look at Travis and say, “This is the way it's going to be. You're going to take me to El Gato do Diabo. And you're going to take me now.”
And then Beck says, “Calm down.” As if she were irrational, as if he hadn’t just witnessed the slaughter himself, as if she wasn’t holding back her rage and her despair, as if there wasn’t a tidal wave of tsunami proportions thundering against a thin wall of control. His aggravating tone, his shortsighted words, and her fury overtake her grief at the goddamn gall.
“Don't. You saw what they do. Don't ever tell me to calm down.”
And then Travis snaps back, because he’s Travis, because he’s contrary, because he always has to try to exert some control or get some leverage.
They argue and Travis bites, “Oh you’re breaking my heart!” And the sharp remark is the last straw that unlocks the flood gates and she’s on her feet pointing the gun before she even realizes what she’s doing. Beck catches the firearm at the last moment and she falls back onto the bench, disgust curling her lip at Travis’ casual disregard, as he sputters, eyes wide.
While she and Travis stare each other down from opposite ends of the boat, Beck breathes and then speaks, voice tightly controlled, “The deal is this. He'll take you to the Gato. You just show me how in the hell l get out of this jungle, so l can take him home. Deal?”
She thinks on it, still watching Travis, who is still slack-jawed, in shock. Now that her rage has cooled, she is sorry, but not so sorry as to ignore the fact that she needs the Gato, the town needs the Gato, and the only way she can get it is Travis. She doesn’t know what awaits Travis in L.A., but she knows what awaits the hundreds of people in the mine, the thousands of people in the town. So, she nods, “Deal.”
When Travis looks away, she knows it’s to hide the pain in his eyes, and he says, “Let me get this straight. She gets what she needs, you get what you need, and l get the shaft.” There’s a bitterness in his tone, but also, resignation. She hopes this means he will stop fighting the inevitable.
For the rest of the journey, Travis speaks very little. He has shut down – at least for now. Beck and Mariana follow behind as he leads the way through the jungle. The intense fight or flight has faded, leaving an aching exhaustion. The trek, the act of putting one step in front of the other is meditative. She loses sense of time, of her grief as if the forward momentum has soothed a balm over her heart.
Eventually, she has reached a state of mind where she can think on Beck and she is curious to learn more about him. Beck – who is dangerous, principled, and persistent. She watches him as they pause at the top of the mountain, and finally, he asks, “What?”
“l was just wondering how it is you came to do… you know, whatever it is you do.”
He tells her, “I grew up in a very rough place. One thing led to another, that's all. Just like you.”
She almost laughs, incredulous, “Like me?”
His expression is serious when he says, “Yeah, you get pushed, you push back. Well, with me, l pushed so hard that word got around. Before l knew it, l was standing in a room full of the wrong people with the wrong money.”
“So, you think I’m standing in a room full of the wrong people?” Her eyebrows furrow, as she tries to imagine how he could think their situations are even remotely comparable. Her people are the victims, suffering through an injustice. The only wrong people in this room are Hatcher and his men, and none of what they do could be considered pushing.
“Yeah. Something like that.”
“l like you, Mr. Beck.” She says, surprising even herself, “Really. But you and l are nothing alike.” She shakes her head, disbelieving.
She thinks about the scars on Travis’ back, the wounds on the bodies of the miners. She thinks of money and desperation. Of freedom and slavery. She thinks of how Travis wears his crazed bravado and ego like a shield, and she thinks of the fake persona she puts on in the bar when she needs information.
She thinks maybe Travis and she are more alike - each of them doing what they can to escape someone else's control.
---
Travis leads them to the Gato. He whoops and cheers when he finally has it in his arms, when he’s proven himself right. When he’s finally done it. There's a joy in his face that reminds her of the little boy she saw in the photo. A part of her is almost sad that she has to take it from him.
At the fire that night, as the Konlabos takes effect, and she carefully wraps the Gato, she sees the look on Travis’ face, as he realizes. It’s nothing more than what was going to happen anyway, she was always going to take the Gato.
But there is fear on his face, and she explains that the effects are temporary and the fire will protect them, but it doesn't alleviate the terror in his eyes.
In the light of the fire, she sees the wetness on his lashes and tries to reassure him, as best she can, “You did find it, Travis, just like you said. No one can take that away from you. And l will send you the money to buy your freedom. l meant that.” She presses a kiss to his temple, remembering for a moment, those moments together.
---
It’s only three hours later that Hatcher’s men catch up with her. Two four-wheelers and two motorbikes. She is very outnumbered. She hears them coming and raises her weapon.
She shoots first.
One shot. A bike drops. Another shot. A man falls slumps off the four-wheeler. And then a motorcycle swings behind her, slamming her to the ground.
Somehow, she is taken alive. Her hands are zip-tied, and she is quickly divested of the firearm and then the Gato. She doesn’t have time to mourn the loss. Because suddenly she is dragged to stand at Hatcher’s gate. There is no fear. Only the anger. For Manito, the workers, her family. She wants the opportunity to spit in his face, but she never gets close enough.
Hatcher starts to ask her about the lutadores, but then he runs out of time too. There’s a flurry of activity and then she is rushed away. She knows there’s only one thing, or rather, one person who could be causing all this chaos, all this panic.
She’s dragged into a jeep with the Gato, and then Travis is there, too. He drives into Hatcher's jeep and sends it crashing into the water tower. The tower creaks, and she jumps clear just before it comes crashing down, running until water and wreckage slam into her. And the world goes dark.
---
When she comes to, Travis and the Gato are gone. Beside her is Harvey, still unconscious, facedown in the water. She scrambles to her feet, and pulls the machete from Harvey’s belt loop, cutting the ties from her wrists as gunfire sounds. Then she pulls the pistol from Harvey's holster and goes to find Hatcher.
She is full of rage, propelled only by momentum. She steps into the street and sees Beck, bloodied, but standing, and Hatcher, leaning down for his dropped weapon. She shoots.
The townspeople begin to gather. Tension builds.
Hatcher’s men are dead or injured and retreating. He is outnumbered, and the people are out for blood. Years of abuses and mistreatment and enslavement culminating in the only natural conclusion. She stands back and lets nature take its course.
Beck comes to stand next to her, while relief floods her system. The Gato is gone, and so is Travis, but she still feels like they won. It’s hard to feel anything other than satisfaction and relief. But even if Hatcher and his people are gone, the money will be needed from another rich interloper from taking over
This is the last time that Travis surprises her.
He comes back with the Gato, and he gives it to her. “I'm impressed.” She says and means it.
He says, “Yeah, well, make sure they spell my name right. l told you it wasn't about the money.” For the first time, she believes it. She knows what it means to him, what finding the Gato meant, and what it meant for him to return it and himself to Beck. There is pride in his eyes as he hands the Gato to her, and hope and trepidation when he turns to Beck, “Well, big boy, l guess it's your move.”
His expression crumbles when Beck closes the cuffs over his wrist, “I’m taking you home, Travis.”
She watches silently as Travis’ expression shutters close. She wonders if Beck can see it, if he even cares at all that Travis’ father has hurt him. To her, it seems so obvious now. That Travis is a man of contradictions. He is bold and brash, and cocky, but he is also sweet, sensitive, principled, and smart. He is loud when he wants to protect his private self, quiet and subdued when he is truly hurting.
There are no tells on Beck’s face when he puts the cuffs on Travis’ wrists. She doesn’t know what Travis is going home to but she does know that soon, she will have the money from the Gato, and she will send him the money to free himself, just as she will free the town.
She stops him before they walk away, and promises him, “l will send you your cut.”
The look in his eyes says it won't be soon enough.
Travis turns and begins the walk to the airfield, and only then does she see it; a brief softening in Beck’s gaze as he watches Travis walk away. There's a warmth in his eyes, and a pinch in his brow.
She hopes it means what she thinks.
But for now, she holds up the Gato and then the only thing she knows is the palpable joy and the electric relief in the crowd as her people come together as one to celebrate.