Make Me No Grave

by Hayley Stone

  “We can’t keep stopping,” I said. “They catch all three of us out in the open…”

  “Yeah, I know. Just feel sorry for the kid.”

  I flexed my fingers which were going stiff inside my gloves, losing circulation from holding on so tightly to the reins. “So do I, but being comfortable ain’t always in the marshal’s purview. Best he learn that hard fact now. Might help him get over any romantic notions he has of the job.”

  “Well, if that ain’t the pot calling the kettle black.”

  “How do you figure?”

  Wade exploded with laughter. “Apostle Richardson, you’ve got to be the most damnably romantic man I know! What with your god-fearing and your Southern graces. You look at an outlaw and you see a man who’s made a few bad choices in his life. A man whose life’s worth sparing merely by virtue of his being alive, and I’d wager you think about saving his soul. Turning him back to the light.” He held his arms up in a fake gesture of worship, his voice booming with pulpit fervor.

  He dropped his arms back to his lap, shaking his head. “Want to know what I see?”

  I smiled tolerantly. “What do you see, Wade?”

  “Job insurance. Money to get me a nice new hat.” He fingered a bullet hole in the high crown of his black Stetson. I thought the hole gave the hat some character. Wade didn’t share my sentimentality.

  “Well, I ever find myself on the wrong side of the law, I’ll be sure to remember that.”

  “You ever find yourself on the wrong side of the law, I’ll be too busy admiring the flying pigs and enjoying the nice breeze coming up from hell to bother with you.”

  We rode in silence for a time. The measured clops of the horses, their snuffling breaths, and the sound of the wind rushing over the grass was enough to put a man to sleep, and I was just beginning to wonder whether or not Wade had succumbed to slumber when his entire body rumbled. Took me another moment to realize he was chuckling.

  “What now?” I asked him.

  “Nothing,” he said, a toothy grin spreading beneath his moustache. “Just imagining the look on those bastards’ faces when they ride up on us, expecting an easy take.”

  I glanced back for the twentieth time this trip.

  “Won’t have to imagine much longer,” I replied, slipping my revolver from its holster and resting it on the inside of my thigh, just behind the flap of my coat. “Looks like we’re about to have company.”

  Wade angled around to get a better look past my shoulder and the empty luggage piled high on the top of the coach.

  The strangers were cutting through the field quickly. With the bottoms of their animals submerged in the grass, it almost looked as if the bandits were gliding toward us on boats, moving with the wind. The horse heads bobbed like the prows of Viking ships. I counted four riders all together, though they rode in a broken line—some gaining at times, others falling back, like they were racing each other, eager to be first to the prize.

  I banged three times on the roof of the carriage, warning Dempsey.

  His responding knocks were more solid than before.

  “Now, remember,” I told Wade who was double checking that his gun was properly loaded, “It won’t do us any good if they’re all dead.”

  Wade snapped his break-action shut with a business-like click. He made a noise I hoped meant he was in agreement. He wasn’t smiling anymore, and without that smile, the lines around his face made him look old and grim, like all those portraits of Union and Confederate officers taken during the final years of the war. It was a strange thing, seeing a man age before his time, watching the grizzly effects of a decade crammed into the span of a few short years. Wade hadn’t even hit forty yet. I couldn’t picture him at fifty.

  “I mean it, Wade. Watch yourself. Won’t do us any good you getting yourself killed neither.”

  Wade’s burnsides lifted some. “Managed all right so far.”

  No more could be said on the subject. The thieves were upon us.

  Two of the riders reined up in front of the coach, forcing me to pull my team to a stop. Another rider circled round the back, eying some of the boxes in the rear boot before taking an interest in the coach’s passenger. The man swung around a couple times, trying to get a better look inside, but was unable to see past the drawn curtains. Instead, he spat on the ground and kept his animal moving, slinking like a coyote among cattle.

  The fourth, presumably the leader, sat back in his saddle and smiled at me. He was dusky, maybe Italian, and I think he meant me to take his stillness as non-threatening. “Where are you folks heading to?”

  “Cherryvale,” I told him, allowing a nervous glance at the man’s companions, letting him think he had us on the ropes.

  Every few seconds, the wind pushed a few strands of the man’s dark hair across his forehead. “In this weather?” His eyebrows bunched together in a convincing look of concern. They were patchy, like someone kept plucking at them, and I noticed a thin line that bisected the left one, a scar where the hair wouldn’t grow back.

  “Our passenger here’s got family there. Sick uncle or some such, I was told.”

  “Of course, of course.” The man nodded, staring down at the ground thoughtfully. Some of the horses threw back their heads and stepped in place, scenting a storm in the air. The riders themselves looked glib, excited. When their leader looked up again, all pretenses of friendliness were gone from his pale green eyes, something sharp and greedy replacing the kindness. “He wouldn’t happen to be a Du Pont, would he? Your passenger?”

  “We don’t want any trouble now,” I said.

  The man was already indicating that one of his men should check inside the coach. The remainder had their hands near their leather, closer than I’d like. I clutched my hidden revolver, feeling my vision narrowing to a fixed point. Wade had a joke he liked to tell when he was in a mood, especially after indulging in the hospitality of a barkeep. How do you kill outlaws? he’d ask, and before you could answer, he’d hit you with the punch line. One at a time.

  Wade raised his shotgun at the rider ahead of us, freezing the man’s hand on the butt of his piece. He didn’t say anything, but then he didn’t have to. Staring down those massive twin bores, the outlaw understood what was required of him.

  The rest of it happened about the same time: The leader pulled his gun—an older model of the one I carried. I recognized it immediately as an officer’s weapon from the war.

  I revealed mine from the flap of my coat.

  It began to rain.

  The man sent to investigate the coach started to move the curtains aside with the nose of his gun and the coyote-looking fella restlessly steered his horse around in the background.

  I had just opened my mouth to announce we were federal marshals when the air rattled with the sound of thunder. It might as well have been a gunshot.

  Dempsey opened fire through the slit of the curtain, killing the investigator point blank. The rider ahead of us decided to take his chances and drew; Wade blew him out of his seat with a single pull, and whether by accident or intention, also caught the horse’s flank with the buckshot. The animal went down, falling backward in panic and rolling onto the already injured man.

  The sudden percussion startled our team, and the horses bolted—with us still attached.

  Both the leader and his surviving man fired at us as we tore off, but it took them another minute to catch up, given the objections of their own animals.

  I ducked as balls splintered into the wood around me, a couple punching through the cheap leather luggage. Throwing the reins at Wade, I turned to return fire, hoping to catch one of the men in an arm or a leg. Somewhere that would slow them down, but not kill them outright. This was going bad fast.

  I must’ve hit the coyote because he reined up, clutching his shoulder and cussing me all to hell. The leader was still coming on when Dempsey opened his door, hanging partially out of the coach, gun in hand. He still looked a bit queasy, especially from the present jos
tling, but I admired his determination.

  “Hold your fire!” I yelled back—to both him and the outlaw.

  Wade finally managed to get the team under control, pulling us to a sudden stop. The outlaw overshot the coach, and I expected he would turn back for another run at us—but instead, he kept on going, bending low over his saddle in a full gallop.

  “Shit,” I muttered. “He’s running!”

  “I see him,” Wade said, entirely calm as he reached back for a Sharps rifle nestled between the ripped luggage. One of many guns we’d brought along for just such an occasion.

  “Think you can hit him from here?”

  The man was already two hundred feet away, at least. It’d take a hell of a shot.

  Wade raised his iron sights, settling the stock in the crook of his shoulder for balance, making himself comfortable. “I can get him.”

  “Better hurry,” Dempsey said.

  The outlaw was three hundred feet now.

  I covered my right ear as Wade fired.

  And missed.

  He cursed and reloaded, closing the breech with a sharp snap. Fired. Missed again. The bullet bit the dust. By now, the man was a shrinking dot in the distance, and I knew there wasn’t any way a bullet was going to reach him. Wade lowered the gun and straightened back up. “Huh,” he said, looking more confused than angry. “Guess I’m a bit rustier than I thought.”

  Meanwhile, I could still hear the plaintive moans of the coyote coming from a ways back. He couldn’t seem to get his horse to cooperate, no matter how he kicked its flanks and urged it on, cursing desperately.

  Maybe today wouldn’t end up a complete wash, after all.

  Chapter Nine

  The storm proved a boon. The sudden deluge of wind and rain cleared Coffeyville’s streets and pushed most of its seedier element indoors. It was practically biblical, given the town’s evil reputation. Between the press of bodies in the dancehalls and the slurring calls for more whiskey in the saloons, no one was going to pay much mind to a couple of cowpunchers coming in out of the rain. Especially when they were in the company of one of Coffeyville’s own.

  A few precautions never hurt, though. Only me and Dempsey followed our coyote friend into Coffeyville. Wade waited outside town with our poor pockmarked stagecoach and some grumbling words about Kansas weather, wet and miserable when we left him. Of the three of us, Wade was easily the most recognizable with his burnsides and his habit of putting holes in any man whose name followed the words, WANTED DEAD OR ALIVE. For better or worse, news traveled fast on the frontier, and Wade was a legend in the outlaw community for all the wrong reasons.

  I wore my hat low as we passed a general supply, dancehall, feed store, and a handful of saloons. The doors of the drinking establishments were all open, stopped by either a large rock or chair, each ejecting a blade of saffron light into the gutter. All the hooting, hollering, and laughter freely advertised the grand times being had inside, while the rich aroma of good smokes hovered like a fog near the entrances, smothered only somewhat by the musty smell of rain and earth. I couldn’t help peering inside every saloon we passed, each time feeling a peculiar stab in my gut. That sensation of being an outsider looking in. It was stupid, knowing the sorts that visited these establishments, but still. Sure looked warm and friendly.

  Dempsey didn’t seem to share the attraction. He was too busy skirting puddles and watching out for the occasional cow pie in the street. The complete lack of concentration in his expression made me wonder if he was aware of how ridiculous he looked, taking such dainty steps like it was the most natural thing in the world for him to avoid getting his boots dirty. Maybe it was, given his background. I tried not holding his wealthy upbringing against him, though I must confess to intentionally distracting the poor kid once or twice with a word or sudden gesture so he would misstep. I held back a smile as Dempsey frowned and shook chunks of mud and slime from his boots, never once complaining. I liked that about him. He might’ve been moody, but at least he wasn’t a grumbler.

  “You know where you’re going?” I asked, keeping close behind the coyote. He’d given his name as Owen Fairly only after Wade threatened to give him another friendly pat on the shoulder where he’d been shot. With his lanky frame and jittery gestures, I thought coyote suited him better.

  Fairly nodded. His hair was a sloppy mess of black, growing long around his ears. The rain matted it against his face, which was white with strain. I couldn’t tell whether it was from the blood loss or a healthy fear of Almena Guillory. Probably a mixture of both.

  “Shouldn’t we be checking the saloons?” Dempsey asked, glancing back just as piano music exploded from one of the open doors. I immediately recognized the jaunty tune of “The Old Chisholm Trail.” My instincts were confirmed by a chorus of saloon goers, all singing along: coma ti yi youpy, youpy yea, youpy yea, coma ti yi youpy, youpy yea.

  “I hear they sometimes have gambling rooms in the back,” Dempsey went on, ignoring the music. “I’m no criminal, but it seems like the kind of place a fugitive would be drawn to.”

  “My friend’s got himself a point,” I said to Fairly. “Mind explaining where we’re headed?”

  “The church,” Fairly said.

  “The church,” I repeated dumbly. “You sure she’s there?”

  “You know that fellow I talked to when we first came in? The one outside Kellerman’s Goods? Well, he told me she was up at the church. So we’re going to the church. That all right with you, Lawman?”

  “Hey,” Dempsey said. “Don’t get testy.”

  Fairly blinked more times than nature required, and his hand went to the area of his shoulder. “Your beau here put a fucking bullet in me,” he hissed. “How am I supposed to be?”

  “We took the bullet out,” Dempsey said. “Now it’s just a nice hole. Maybe next time you’ll think twice before robbing someone.”

  “Or next time, I’ll just fire a whole cylinder into the coach, no questions asked.”

  “That kind of talk’s not going to earn you the chance for a next time,” I told him, pressing the mouth of my revolver against his back. “Mind yourself.”

  “What?” he scoffed, trying to appear braver than I knew he was. “You going to shoot me again?”

  “I might. Or I might just package you up and send you off to the district court with a bow attached. State judges don’t normally take kindly to men threatening their marshals—and you tried to shoot two of them.”

  A barroom brawl spilled into the street a few feet in front of us. Men swung at each other, barely connecting, too sluggish with drink. A few others who possessed the better sense to stay out of the fight sat back on their heels and slapped their thighs, hawing about the scene from the warm doorway.

  Dempsey looked at me for a cue, resting his hand inside his coat on a gun I couldn’t see but knew was there. I clicked back the hammer on my own revolver, keeping the gun close to my vest, out of view of the brawling men. I continued to watch Fairly. If he started caterwauling, he could draw serious attention, especially if the words he shouted were “marshals!” they’d be on us in seconds, and I didn’t fancy a gunfight with two dozen drunk outlaws.

  But Fairly didn’t say a word. My estimate of his character paid off. Sometimes there was honor among thieves, and a man would sacrifice himself for the survival of his friends. Fairly was not one such man, judging by the way he’d abandoned the friend Wade’d shot and trapped beneath his horse, and hadn’t bothered trying to catch up with his gang leader when things started going south. He could’ve cried out an alarm just now, but only at tremendous personal cost. He genuinely believed I’d shoot him.

  I wouldn’t have done. Course not. I’d never fire on an unarmed man, but Fairly didn’t know that, and I let him think what he would.

  Dempsey remained tense the whole way, keeping his hand low and near his piece until we finally reached the steps of the church. No more than a few feet from the bottom steps, Fairly stopped cold, planting his hee
ls like a donkey on the edge of a cliff.

  I placed a steadying hand on his good shoulder. “Easy,” I told him.

  “You don’t get it, do you,” he said, staring at the entrance to the Lord’s house with wide eyes, his expression ashy and afraid. “She’s going to kill me.”

  The rain continued to fall. Due to the wind, it cut in at just the right angle to hit my face. I squinted at Fairly, holding my arm up in a vain attempt to block the weather. “Look, I’m not going to let her shoot you. You have my word on that.”

  “Your word?” Fairly repeated, voice climbing in pitch. He laughed, hysterical with fear. “Your word? Well, thank goodness for your word. You know what? Fuck your word. Your word isn’t going to do fuck all when you’re dead. And that’s what you’ll be, you step foot in there.”

  “That there is a house of worship, in case you haven’t noticed.”

  Fairly laughed again. “You think that’ll stop her from drawing blood?”

  “I trust it’ll give her pause.”

  “The hell it will. I thought you said you’d met her.”

  I told him to get on, nudging him with my foot.

  “Come on, Marshal,” he whined, turning around completely to face me. He held his shoulder gingerly but talked animatedly with his other hand. “I haven’t made a fuss. I’ve kept my end of the bargain…”

  I raised my brow.

  “I’ve shown you where she is. Why don’t you just let me go? Bygones being bygones, and all that.”

  My hands found my hips, and I sighed, looking at him from beneath the brim of my hat. “I apologize if I gave you the impression that letting you go was ever going to be an option, Mister Fairly. It ain’t. The only thing your help has bought you is my gratitude, and a recommendation that you not be hanged. That’s more than most marshals would give you, and maybe more than you deserve, given who you’re running with. And what you all did in Baxter Springs.”

  “What?” he said, sounding confused.