Make Me No Grave

by Hayley Stone

  “Seems we’ve arrived at an impasse, Casella,” I said.

  “I could always shoot you.”

  “Could do. But then there’d be no one to stop the mob outside from finishing the job the Baxter men started in Coffeyville.” He flipped his head again to get those two strands of sweaty hair out of his face. “Come on now. You don’t strike me as a fool. Am I wrong?”

  “Marshal? You in there?” The sheriff again.

  With a sharp nod, Casella gestured for his partner to come forward. He dragged the teller’s boy with him, holding him by the scruff of the neck, a shiny derringer threatening the boy’s throat. Small as the piece was, it’d do the job. The boy panted with fear, his eyes round as dinner plates. His father called out, pleadingly, for Casella’s man not to harm the child.

  “Please. Please, he’s my only son. He’s a good boy. Please—”

  At the same moment, Almena shot to her feet. There was a red mark at her throat that had replaced the fading rope burn, and her cheek was swollen to twice its size just below her left eye. I clenched my jaw, easing off the trigger, if only because I was afraid I’d do something stupid.

  “You touch one hair on his head, and I swear to God, Casella, I will end you,” Almena threatened. Casella swung his rifle toward her, backing up a step. The muzzle waited mere inches from the point of her nose, but you wouldn’t have known it by the fierce set of her mouth and the fearlessness in her eyes.

  “I imagine it might be difficult with a few bullets in your head,” Casella said.

  “You’ve seen what I can do, Dante. You really want to test me?”

  He continued to watch her but spoke to me. “Here is what’s going to happen, Marshal. You are going to put that pretty pistol of yours down, and any other weapons you have. You are going to come with me, and we are going to walk out of here together.”

  “With me as your hostage,” I concluded.

  “And the boy. Just as a little added insurance. Once we get some distance away, I’ll release him, unharmed. You have my word.”

  I noticed he made no mention of my own fate.

  “Bullshit,” Almena said.

  “How do I know you’ll honor your word?” I asked.

  “You can’t be considering this.”

  “You will just have to take it on faith,” Casella answered me. “So, what do you say, Marshal?”

  My mother used to tell me stories about brave, honorable men, hoping it’d rub off on me. I like to think some of it did. Since stepping foot into the bank, I’d been hoping for some sudden burst of inspiration like in the stories, but seemed I was less creative than those noble heroes. Weren’t no chandelier I could crash upon the villains’ heads, no barrel full of gunpowder conveniently placed to explode. There was simply a boy’s life, his father’s life, Almena’s life—and mine. I had to choose.

  “All right,” I agreed. “I’m going to come through the door now, and set the gun down there on the floor.”

  “Slowly,” Casella warned while pressing the gun against Almena’s chest.

  “No need for that,” I said in a hard voice.

  “Apostle.” Almena gripped my arm urgently as I went by her, prepared to step out in front of Casella. “He’s going to kill you.”

  “I reckon he’ll try,” I answered, “but no man’s managed yet. Or woman.”

  Her hand lingered—until Dante grabbed me backwards by my jacket.

  “Not through the front,” he said with some exasperation. “Out the back.”

  “They could be covering the back, too,” I pointed out.

  “Perhaps, but we know for certain they are out front. Now, move.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  The saddlebags, stuffed with bonds and cash, slapped against the horse’s flank as we departed Halverson. We got maybe a few miles outside of town before one of the animals threw a shoe and Casella’s man was forced to stop to survey the damage.

  I sat atop my borrowed horse while Casella kept behind me on his own mount, making sure I was within shooting distance as we rode. On the horse with the bad hoof, the teller’s boy slouched forward in the saddle without another body to prop him up. He watched everything with a dull, tired expression, unable to maintain a constant state of fear. I gave him a small smile when he glanced my way, hoping to reassure him some, but he didn’t return it.

  “Well?” Casella asked hurriedly.

  “Not good.” The man grunted. “She’s not going to get anywhere fast.”

  “We’re far enough out,” I said. We’d made a wide loop around the town to mislead any would-be pursuers before taking off at a high lope, and now Halverson wasn’t even a speck in the distance. Any light you’d have seen from it at night was invisible against the harsh glow of the sun going down. “Why don’t you let the boy go? Give him the lame horse, he can walk her back.”

  The man looked to his boss. Casella rolled his fingers along the handle of his piece, seeming to consider it. “You know how to get back from here?” he asked the boy.

  It was a reasonable question, given that we’d abandoned the trail and veered into wild country almost as soon as the bank disappeared beneath the hip of the horizon.

  The boy nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  “Go on, then.” Casella gestured vaguely. “Get out of here. Wait.”

  The boy waited, hanging off the side of the horse, one hand still clutching the saddle horn. I itched for a weapon. From here, I had no way of defending the child if Casella went back on his word. My mouth went prickly with dread.

  “Mark, get the bags first,” Casella said. “Throw them onto the marshal’s horse.”

  Casella didn’t bother to hop down and lend a hand, not even when it probably would’ve made things go faster. Instead, while Mark slaved over the load, Casella remained on his horse, sitting comfortably above his colleague’s struggles, like a plantation overseer. The comparison made me dislike him just a bit more.

  Meanwhile, I was made to get down and stand aside with the boy. He was tall for his age, with light hair and a smattering of freckles that left him looking like he’d been out playing in the fields and needed to wash up. Reminded me of all the times I came in after a day spent tromping around the farm, when my mother would cluck, tip my chin up, lick her thumb, and attempt to scrub the filth from my cheeks.

  “Is it true?” the boy asked me, while we watched Mark huff and puff, piqued even in the shoddy heat of the evening. Someone was out of shape.

  I looked down at the boy. “Suppose that depends on the question.”

  “Are you really a marshal?”

  “Last I checked.”

  He seemed skeptical. “If you’re a marshal, why don’t you have a badge?”

  I thought about what I should tell him, the truth versus what would satisfy his curiosity. “I let someone borrow it.”

  His brow wrinkled. “You can do that?”

  “Probably not,” I admitted.

  The boy moved his puckered lips around in thought. I tried not to smile. Suspected he wasn’t aware of the childish tic, and wouldn’t take kindly to my amusement. He seemed like such a serious child. “Are you famous?”

  “There’s a question. How might I qualify that?”

  “Well, you can tell me your name, and I can tell you whether I’ve heard of you.”

  “Sounds fair. Name’s Apostle Richardson.”

  He opened his mouth. “The Apostle Richardson?”

  “You’ve heard of me?” Pride wasn’t something I liked to indulge in, being a deadly sin and all, but I couldn’t deny that I was tickled by the idea of having my name recognized in the Territories, or even just Kansas, synonymous with law and order.

  The boy cracked the first smile I’d seen from him. “No, but you should have seen your face just now.”

  Yep. I liked this kid.

  “What about you? What’s your name?”

  “Charles. Charles Wilmott. You wouldn’t have heard of me, either, I expect.” He stared sullenly at
the ground.

  “Maybe one day,” I said, and he looked back up at me.

  I tried not think it, but the thought came anyway. He’s got the same color eyes as Lilah. Golden brown, albeit guileless, where hers had always been thoughtful, and sometimes sad, like the world was constantly disappointing her and she didn’t know what to do about it. Or maybe it was just me who was disappointing her. Charles was far older than any child we could’ve had when we were together, but still, I imagined our boy might’ve looked something like him. A lump came to my throat. Regret resurfaced at the oddest of times.

  Mark finished his task after a few minutes, not without exchanging a few words with Casella I didn’t hear—I assumed it was probably less than friendly encouragement for him to hurry up. When it was all done, Casella motioned for the boy. “All right. Come on.”

  Charles looked at me, as if for permission that it was indeed all right. I nodded. “Go on. Get back to your father now. He’s probably worried sick.”

  He started walking, but stopped and glanced back at me with those Lilah-colored eyes. “What’s going to happen to you?” he asked in his high-pitched child’s voice, full of anxiety.

  “I’ll be fine. They’ll probably just rough me up a little. Don’t you worry about me.”

  Mark offered the boy the reins to the lame horse, and Charles obediently took them. With growing relief, I watched the boy and the horse turn back toward Halverson. He looked back a couple times, as if we might disappear on him, or worse. But Casella just sat frowning and sweating, contemplating the back of his horse’s head. Mark appeared occupied with adjusting one of the saddlebags.

  I stood watching Charles the whole time, so I didn’t see Casella quietly draw his pistol.

  Instead, I stared, first in confusion, then in horror, as the boy was laid flat by a single bullet to the back of the head, never knowing what hit him. It almost looked as if he’d simply tripped and fallen forward, but I knew better. His hand still clutched the reins as he collapsed, yanking the horse’s head down. The horse tried to rear; probably smelling the blood.

  “No!” I yelled, or I think I did. I must’ve done. However, it came too late.

  My ears were still ringing when I turned toward Casella. He’d already turned his gun on me, but I launched myself at him, miraculously reaching him before he fired. I took hold of his suspenders and dragged him from his horse. A sharp pain exploded in my shoulder, but I ignored it in favor of slamming a fist into the outlaw’s face, as many times as I could before he started to give some back.

  We wrestled over the gun. I heard the soft click of the hammer rolling back again. Slapping my hand down on the wrist holding the gun, I turned my whole body around on top of the man and took his arm with me. Pulled until a bone crunched, maybe his elbow or his wrist. Casella blasted me with such hollering as could raise the dead.

  At that moment, Mark stepped back from the saddlebag, and I glimpsed his pistol.

  So they were both in on the plan to kill me from the start. I wasn’t surprised. Only sorry their bloodlust had involved the boy.

  When Casella fired in a moment of flailing panic, I aimed his gun for Mark and put one between the outlaw’s eyes before he could do boo about it. I used my free hand to cock Casella’s gun and forced him to fire it once more at his partner’s chest, for good measure. He’s out, I thought, dimly aware of the carrying capacity of the revolver. Though that didn’t mean he wasn’t carrying spare ammunition, or that he couldn’t use the empty piece as a bludgeoning tool.

  Before I could rip the weapon from his grip, Casella got his other arm free from beneath my knee and boxed my ear, throwing me off of him. I suddenly found myself facedown, head pounding, and jagged grass poking at my eyes.

  “I had no choice,” Casella said, the same moment his hands came around my neck. “He saw both our faces, and he could’ve told the town what direction we’d gone—”

  “He was… just a boy,” I choked out.

  “Rough world we live in.” His hold tightened, bringing a slight fuzziness to the corners of my vision. “Isn’t it?”

  “Only on account… of men like you.”

  I slammed my head back, creating a new point of agony between us. But it was enough—enough to send him sprawling backwards, anyway. He held his nose and cursed me in what I guessed was Italian. Gasping and coughing, I clutched feebly at the ground, trying to drag myself away from him. Catch my breath. Just needed to catch my breath. I touched the skin at the base of my throat, fingers coming away with dots of crimson where his filthy, unclipped fingernails had drawn blood. I could still feel them digging into my flesh. I coughed a few more times.

  My reprieve lasted only seconds before Casella’s hands burrowed into my hair, and he yanked my head back, exposing the vulnerable line of my neck. I imagined my Adam’s apple bobbing like a lure as I swallowed.

  Before Casella brought his knife to my throat, I reached up and grabbed onto his shoulders, digging my thumbs into his pits, and gaining what I hoped would be enough leverage to flip him over me.

  At least, that was the plan.

  My gunshot filled my shoulder with white-hot pain, and I only performed the maneuver partway. I extricated myself from the mess of tangled limbs, scrabbling to my feet, and when he reached to grab me, I kicked out at his face with the heel of my boot. I’m ashamed to admit, his obscene cry gave me that same visceral jolt of pleasure you get from hearing bacon sizzling. It wasn’t enough, but it was a start.

  When I finally had the chance to look him straight on, I saw he’d dropped his knife. That alone filled me with the confidence to tackle him again.

  “He was just a boy, you son of a bitch,” I said. Those words, he was just a boy, were the only words that made sense in the whole wide world. The only truth I had. I latched onto them like a drowning man to a piece of driftwood, floating down the current of my anger.

  If Casella said something then, I didn’t hear it.

  Too busy driving my knuckles into his jaw.

  We wrestled a little more, rolling over one another, hitting and grabbing and scratching, like a pair of rabid dogs. Blood dripped into my eyes. I don’t know how long this went on, us tussling in the middle of nowhere, but finally, I got the upper hand. I sat on his stomach, pinning both of his arms beneath my legs, and proceeded to pummel his face into pulp.

  I kept on roaring, “He was just a boy!”

  “Stop,” he pleaded, but I didn’t hear him.

  No, that’s not true.

  I heard him.

  I didn’t care.

  “P-please…” Teeth dribbled from his mouth, along with the blood. And as he looked up at me, I swore he was grinning, even with his cut lip and messed-up teeth. And suddenly, he looked so much like the man who’d come to Topeka and smiled at my wife, I couldn’t bear it.

  And I couldn’t stop.

  “He”—right fist—“was”—left fist—“just”—right—“a”—left—“boy!”

  He’s just a boy, Nathaniel. Leave him out of this.

  He’ll be a man soon enough, and I’ll be damned if he grows up showing such disrespect to his father.

  I wasn’t being disrespectful, sir. Honest.

  Nathan. Don’t say another word.

  I’m the judge of that, and I say you were.

  Nathaniel, please. He didn’t mean anything.

  Get out of the way, Sarah.

  For God’s sake, Nathaniel! He’s just a boy!

  I watched Casella’s head go back and forth with every punch, feeling nothing.

  Nothing at all. Except maybe rage, which at first, felt hot and righteous and rang out in my head like a battle cry, this is for Charles, and this, and this, but in the end, it burned fast, like molten iron rushing into my hollow shape.

  “Apostle!” Almena’s voice tore into me like a whip, and I suddenly snapped back into myself so quickly I felt I was gonna be sick. How she’d found us, I wasn’t sure. Maybe it was some magic power she’d neglected to tell
me about, or maybe, more likely, she’d guessed Casella’s route, given how closely it resembled the one she and I had planned to take.

  Almena jumped down from her horse and silently assessed the scene, her gaze traveling from me to Casella, beaten, bloody, and breathing wetly, before finally landing on the bodies of Mark and Charles. She seemed to understand in mere seconds all the events my mind was still struggling to make sense of.

  “That’s enough,” Almena told me, and I wasn’t sure what she meant until I looked down at Casella, who’d done passed out. He wasn’t dead, but had I landed a few more punches…

  I lowered my fists and fell backwards, landing hard, bile lurching into my throat. I’d almost just killed a man. Almost beaten him to death with my bare hands, naked before God in my fury, Cain revisited. All that black anger I’d inherited from my father had finally unleashed, and I hadn’t held back, hadn’t even tried to fight it.

  I heard the soft crunch of Almena’s boots as she approached. “Is the boy—?” she started to ask, leaving out the crucial word. I nodded, eyes closed. “And the money?”

  “Run off,” I told her, my voice thick. All of this, for money.

  “I’ll take care of Casella,” she said, already turning the unconscious bandit over so she could tie him up. “See to the boy.”

  See to the boy. Of course. Charles. I had to take him home.

  Shakily, I rose. I managed maybe two steps before my legs buckled and I dropped back to my knees. A warm breath escaped my lips, half a sob. I squeezed my eyes shut. Not now. Not now. Charles was what was important here. I could wrestle with my ghoulish morality later.

  “Apostle.” Almena spoke my name quietly, with more compassion than I deserved just then. There was a question there, but I wasn’t ready to answer, so I pretended I didn’t hear her.

  On my feet and holding my shoulder, I limped towards the boy. The boy’s body, I should say. Charles himself—his personality, his character, everything that made him him—that was all gone.