Make Me No Grave

by Hayley Stone

  “You all right there, friend?” I asked as he started to right himself.

  He waved me away. I was about to oblige when he glanced up, and I finally saw his eyes. Like magic, the rest of his features instantly snapped into recognizable angles. Familiarity sank into me like nails.

  “Jed?”

  “So we’re friends again, are we?” he slurred, in between more coughing. A blast of liquor-sweet breath assaulted me, causing me to lean away. “News to me.”

  I hadn’t recognized Jed without his beard. The thin bar of hair above his lip hardly compared. Without the thatch, his chin appeared naked as a baby’s rear end, exposing a liver spot on his jowls. His hairline marched backwards in full retreat, baldness on the horizon. It’d been less than a month since I’d seen him last, but he looked years older, and sickly, to boot.

  “You two know each other?” the Halverson sheriff asked me.

  “Strickland started it, Sheriff,” Bart said.

  “Shut your hole, Bart. I wasn’t speaking to you. And I don’t much care who started it. This fellow here—I didn’t catch your name.”

  “Apostle.” Almena and I planned on lying about our names, but with Jed standing right there, it would’ve seemed suspicious had I supplied anything other than the name he knew me by.

  The sheriff’s sleepy gaze raised a little. “Apostle? You a Mormon?”

  “No, sir.”

  “You know there haven’t been any apostles since Christ’s day.” His eyes narrowed. Did he think I was making fun? Or worse, acting out some kind of sacrilege? Fact was, I’d never really given it much thought. Doubted the men who’d started the name had either. But I wasn’t going to worry about it right now. After all, I’d been going by Apostle for years. If I offended God by wearing the name, I figured He’d have let me know it by now.

  “Not making any claims to the contrary, sir,” I answered respectfully, though I struggled to hold back a smile at the old dog’s mistrust. “Just what they call me.”

  “What they call you… You some kind of important, boy?”

  Before I could reply, Jed piped up, saying in a falsely honorific tone, “Why, Sheriff. Don’t you know who this is? This here is Apostle Richardson. Big time U.S. Marshal. Thinks he’s God’s goddamn gift to the law.”

  “Jed,” I started in warning.

  Halverson’s sheriff looked between us, blinking steadily, and then he cleared his throat. “As I was saying, I don’t much care who started the fight. Mister Richardson finished it, and I’m happy to leave it at that. Bart, go clean yourself off before Mary catches sight of you.” Bart went. Grumbling. “And Jedediah… this is the third time this week I’ve caught you starting trouble. Happens again, and I’m gonna have to point you out of town.”

  Whether Jed had any response to that or not, I’ll never know. At that moment, he doubled over and emptied the contents of his stomach onto the street.

  Chapter Twenty

  As Jed climbed into the tin tub—donated graciously by hotel management only once I agreed to pay a small fee for the water—the former sheriff tried for the fourth time to convince me all he needed was a little hair of the dog and he’d be fine. Right as rain. Fit as a goddamn fiddle. I told him I could look for the dog, but how would I know if it was the one that bit him? Predictably, Jed found this about as funny as an open grave.

  “When did you get such a smart mouth?” he asked, grunting as he settled into the water. I’d asked that the water be heated, but on a cold day like today, it wasn’t likely to stay warm for very long.

  I stood with my back to Jed out of common decency. “I don’t know. Bet my daddy could’ve given you an exact date though. He often accused me of the same.”

  Jed quieted. He knew my relationship with my father. Knew it’d been mostly bad. I told him the story once, after I’d shot a man up near Emporia, near Jed’s town. Wasn’t the first man I’d killed, but whatever his crimes, the outlaw had been a solid family man, and he’d made me put him down in front of his kid. I was all broken up about it; my hands wouldn’t stop shaking. Jed had sat me down, helped me through it. Maybe that was why I felt the need to do the same for him now. Timing couldn’t have been worse, but he was a friend.

  Or had been. I hadn’t forgotten Asher. That was also part of this.

  “What are you doing here, Jed?” I took a seat on the bed across from the tub.

  “Soaking.”

  “You know that’s not what I was asking.”

  He didn’t flinch from my gaze. Despite the fact he was buck naked where I was fully clothed, I felt more vulnerable. “Let’s see now. After you took me to court and Judge Foster relieved me of my duties as sheriff, I couldn’t exactly turn back home, could I? The town had suffered enough from Guillory’s visit. Didn’t need the added injury of a disgraced lawman hanging around its neck.”

  I clenched my jaw, prying it back open only long enough to say:

  “I’m real sorry about that whole business, Jed.”

  “Well, as long as you’re sorry.” His smile was particularly nasty without his beard. Jed’s lips were swollen and raw, his face whipped by dirt and sun. “Makes everything fine and dandy. Never mind the fact you let Guillory get away. Never mind the fact you chose a criminal over a friend. Sorry? You damn well should be!” Muddy spittle flew from his mouth, shooting over the rim of the tub.

  I kept silent.

  Jed’s anger drained quickly, and he slumped down into the water. “I have a cousin agreed to take me in. That’s why I’m here. Why are you here?”

  “Just passing through. I didn’t know you had family in Halverson.”

  He cupped his hands full of water and cleaned the mud from his moustache. The deep grooves around his mouth and chin provided an easy avenue for the dirty water to travel, but also made his frown more profound. “What is this, an interrogation?”

  “We’re having a simple conversation, is all…”

  “Stop beating around the goddamn bush, boy.”

  “I’m not—”

  “Sure you are. You’re pussy-footing around like you always do. Too afraid to say what you mean. All niceties, no substance. Either say what you came here to say to me”—his voice pushed into me like a horse backing into my chest, the pressure mounting—“or get the hell out.”

  I shot to my feet. “Dammit, Jedediah! You nearly got me killed!”

  Jed huffed. “You gave a whole lot worse than you got. Seeing as you’re standing here, and most of my posse ain’t.”

  Thanks to Almena, I thought. But I couldn’t tell him that.

  “You forced my hand. You forced me to kill those men.” Their deaths weighed heavier on my conscience than I’d like to admit.

  Jed pulled himself up from the tub, gripping the edges with pale fingers. “No one forces a man to do anything but what he wants to do in the first place. He sure as sin can’t make him pull the trigger on another man. It’s called agency, Apostle. Look it up. You made the decision to kill those men. You chose one life—a sorry one at that—over half a dozen others. That was all you, son.”

  I couldn’t look at him for a long moment, and when I finally did, the reality of what I saw shocked me. Jed didn’t look angry, or even righteous. He just looked like an old man in a tub—small and sad and wet. A shriveled-up changeling. This is where his hatred of Almena had gotten him. Made me wonder where I’d end up, given my own complex relationship with the woman.

  Made me wonder about a lot of things, really.

  I sank back down onto the bed. “How come you can’t see I was only doing what I felt was right?”

  Jed shook his head. “You know what your problem is, son? Pride. Thinking your fine moral judgments are infallible. Believing your truth is the only one. Face it: the only difference between you and me is I thought Guillory should swing then, and you thought she should swing later. And for that, good men died. How’s that make you feel?”

  A knock came at the door. A voice I dimly recognized as belonging to t
he hotel owner chimed in, chasing my thoughts in different directions like a hunter scattering a herd of buffalo. “Mister Richardson?”

  “Yeah?” I replied, staring at my hands. They were shaking. I hoped Jed couldn’t see.

  “Your wife’s downstairs asking for you.”

  Jed’s glance said it all. Wife?

  For one wild moment, I thought he meant Lilah. “Tell her I’ll be right down.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Well? What are you waiting for?” Jed asked when I continued to sit there like a bump on a log. “Bad manners to keep a lady waiting.” The way he stressed the word lady made me fear he’d somehow read my mind. Knew who I was here with and what I was up to.

  “You’ll be all right on your own here?”

  Jed sniffed in offense, gesturing at his waterlogged body. “I’m not drunk enough to drown in a couple inches of bath water, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

  I headed for the door, stopping just before it.

  “Jed…” There was more to say, but the words escaped me. A lump formed in my throat, hard as granite. Sometimes you couldn’t make amends; sometimes when something broke, it just stayed broke. “Take care of yourself?” It came out almost a question, like I wasn’t sure he could anymore.

  “Course,” he grumped. “Who else is going to?”

  As I trudged downstairs, my boots felt leaden, my head a little woozy. Might’ve been on account of that punch I’d taken earlier—or not. Ideas darted through my brain too quick for me to catch, like birds startled out of a dense fog. For the best, I told myself. Reckoned my thoughts would’ve just proved dark and loathsome.

  I was still checking my nose for a break when Almena came into view.

  She stood a little out of the way of the hotel’s mullioned front window, near the corner of the room, her nose in a newspaper. Her attention was wholly absorbed by whatever article she was reading, and that small, thoughtful line she got when something puzzled or intrigued her had just begun to manifest between her brows when she looked up and saw me approaching. She folded the newspaper down with a snap and met me halfway.

  Somewhere between thoughts of Jed—the way his shoulders hunched, chest noticeably concave, as though when Foster took his badge, they’d scooped most of the rest of him out along with it—and mixed feelings about being summoned by a wife who wasn’t my wife, it occurred to me that Almena wasn’t wearing one of her gloves.

  As she reached up to investigate my nose, I reared back instinctively. We both glanced around to see if anyone had noticed my strange reaction, but the only people present were a woman with a port-wine stain on her neck sweeping near the entrance, and the hotel owner behind the front desk, too busy counting something out on his fingers and tallying it in a book to be concerned with our marital affairs.

  Almena drew me back into the privacy of the corner, speaking low. “What was that about?”

  “I don’t want you getting hurt on my account.”

  Her smile appeared then disappeared, quick as sunlight between the dark leaves of a tree. “I can touch without bruising, you know. I control it. You can’t hurt me unless I let you.”

  She tried for me again, and again I leaned away, though less aggressively than before. Part of me wanted to feel proof of her concern—proof someone else in this world cared about me. Lilah surely didn’t. And while I wasn’t surprised to learn of Jed’s sour grapes after what went down between us in Asher, his loathing still stung.

  “I mean it, Almena. I earned this.”

  She held me fast by the arm while she used her free hand to probe the bridge of my nose, ignoring my wishes. When she touched on just the right spot, pain lanced out in sharp branches through my head. I gritted my teeth, showing my misery, not all of it owing to my nose. She let her hand fall, but not before tracing her thumb over a cut on my upper lip, which had also been caught by Jed’s elbow. I felt it vanish, the tiny edge of pain gone in a second, and watched the cut curve across her own lip. Just couldn’t help herself, could she?

  “The nose is good and swollen, but I don’t think it’s broken. Should I ask to see the other fellow?” She smiled, trying to encourage my good humor. When I gave no indication of perking up, Almena switched to a frown. “All right. What is it? What aren’t you telling me?”

  Hell of a lot of things. My lip still buzzed from contact with her finger. “I think we should abandon Halverson.”

  “Please tell me you’re joking.”

  “’fraid not.”

  Probably thinking I was merely suffering from nerves, Almena tried to reassure me, which might’ve been sweet, leaving aside the fact she was trying to talk me into robbing a bank. She talked about how everyone got cold feet the first time, and how everything would be fine if we just stuck to the plan…

  I held up a hand. “I’m going to stop you there. Almena… Jed Strickland’s here.”

  “The sheriff?”

  I nodded. “Met him in the street. He was one of the men fighting, and he was drunk. Probably went looking for it.”

  “Is that why you were upstairs just now?” She stepped away. “You were with him?”

  “Not in the way you’re thinking, Almena. I’m not conspiring, if that’s what’s got you fearful.”

  “All right,” she said, seeming to accept my word. I guessed maybe I was finally earning her trust. “Well, does he know about us?”

  “He knows I’m here. Wager it won’t be long before he discovers you, too.

  “Shit,” Almena said.

  “Agreed.”

  Almena considered the situation for a moment, before shaking her head. “We can’t quit Halverson. Not until we’ve done what we came here to do.” She unfolded the newspaper in an angry crunch and thrust the front page at me. “See there?”

  I read. “‘Good business suits from 15 dollars. Pants from four—’”

  “No. There.” Her finger stabbed the page.

  “‘Reward of five-hundred dollars for the capture or killing of Almena Guillory and any Association.’” I stopped, looking up with a frown. Almena insisted I continue. “‘Known by many as the Grizzly Queen of the West for her part in robberies across the greater plains territories, Guillory is described as being of medium height with a fair complexion, brown hair, and steely grey eyes. Acquaintances tell of the woman’s cunning nature and canorous speech—’ Canorous. That even a word?” I tried to make light, but truth was, my bad feeling was getting worse.

  “Skip to the bottom.”

  I noticed the woman with the birthmark had moved her cleaning a little closer to us, quietly scraping the floor with the bristles of her broom. Eavesdropping, no doubt. Couldn’t blame her. The hotel proprietor probably paid her for information pertaining to his guests, or anything else of profitable intrigue. Still, I cleared my throat and gave her a polite, but firm look that persuaded her to take her chores elsewhere.

  “‘The Helena Daily Herald says there is no truth in rumors that Guillory has moved her operations to Montana, from the fact that Guillory is now and has been for some time in Kansas. A short time ago Guillory was credited with a bloody robbery at the First National Bank in Baxter Springs, and more recently she and members of her gang were spotted robbing a train at a pass near Newton. It is the opinion of the Wichita Eagle that she, along with other members of her gang, have taken temporary residence in the area of Newton. On behalf of the governor of Kansas, the Eagle appeals to its readers for further information regarding known sightings of the outlaw and—’”

  “They’re heading to Ellsworth,” Almena interrupted.

  “Where’s that written?”

  “Don’t be cute. They’ve been moving north since Baxter. With the amount of heat on them, it’s not surprising. They’ll spend some time in Ellsworth, and then probably make for Nebraska or Iowa.”

  I massaged my jaw. “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because it’s what I would do. Ellsworth is basically a northern Coffeyville. If they need a pla
ce to lie low, that’s where they’ll go. Don’t you see what this means?” She cut her eyes toward the proprietor to make sure he wasn’t suspicious about our prolonged conversation, and moved closer. “We know where they are now, Apostle. This is our chance. Maybe our last chance before they split the state. The money from this… endeavor will buy a lot of friends in Ellsworth, and trust me, we’ll need a lot of friends in that town. Especially if we’re going to find my impersonator and bring this whole thing to an end.”

  “And how exactly does this end, Almena? With you giving her the second barrel? Swell. Then what?”

  “Then I’ll buy myself a drink.”

  “Will killing her make you happy? Will it put you at peace?”

  Laughter spilled out of her like I’d said something funny. That tipped me off. I glanced over in time to catch the proprietor watching us. He smiled at us, and I returned the expression, albeit leanly. Still smiling, Almena said, “What business is it of yours whether I’m at peace or not?”

  I shrugged and handed the newspaper back to her. “You do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always got. Maybe this is your chance for a clean break. To go a different way than you’ve gone before.”

  “Same could be said for you, Apostle. You’re wasted as a lawman.”

  “How d’you figure?”

  “I don’t let just anyone ride with me.” She paused, and I could see her struggling against the instinct to run, gaze constantly returning to the stairs. The fact she was taking time to address my fears meant something—to me, at least. “If you’re so worried, I’d love to hear a better idea. The way I see it, this is our only option. There’s no way we get another chance at this in some other town and meet the deadline of Ellsworth.”

  She wasn’t wrong, though I desperately wished she was. “No, I don’t have a better idea.”

  “All right then. Let’s go make a withdrawal.”