Between the Rivers

by Natalie Jayne

CHAPTER 15

  Be Straight & Share The Cake

  Worried

  IT was nearly afternoon when Aspen returned to the sheriff’s office. Gideon reckoned it was about time, a remark Aspen chose to ignore. He addressed the deputy in charge instead.

  “Hello, Wilson. How has he been?”

  Wilson tossed a dart at a makeshift target. It thunked into place, feathers rubbing against those of the last throw.

  “Going off the walls,” he replied amiably, “but we get a lot worse.”

  Aspen gave a nod, grabbed a chair, and set it in front of Gideon’s cell. He turned it around backwards, crossed his arms over the backrest and waited.

  Gideon waited too.

  “Have a seat,” Aspen coached.

  On the basis that he hadn’t much to lose, Gideon lowered himself to the edge of the cot.

  “Good, now tell me about yesterday,” said Aspen, “and I invite you to consider: I will have no half tales.”

  Gideon’s temper had receded as the hours passed until mostly he felt plain stupid. There was no reason he should have been locked up in the first place, but he doubted that argument would carry much weight with Aspen. Was there really any reason not to explain himself– not that he had to– but was there any reason not to?

  How long would ya like to reside here?

  “I were a-lookin’ for Fort,” he explained. “He weren’t nowhere ‘round, so I got to huntin’. When I done stepped into the saloon, your man tries it on. Lee an’ Fort made ‘im back up, but by then ever’one were a-fightin’. Beats me why, we had it perty wrapped up.”

  “How, exactly, did he ‘try it on’?”

  What did it matter? If Aspen wanted to take issue, why didn’t he cut to the point and call it done?

  Aspen rose, catching up his chair as he went.

  “That it?” said Gideon.

  “You have something more to say?” Aspen asked over his shoulder.

  “You’d only row me up anyway.”

  “Did you do something wrong?”

  “No.”

  Aspen returned the chair to its place, “Well then?”

  On a lark, Gideon decided to try the truth. It was a strange road, but remarkably easy once he’d set out.

  “Why didn’t you say that in the first place?” Aspen asked, when Gideon had finished.

  “Who’d’ve b’lieved me?”

  Aspen pointedly remained silent.

  “Guess you did,” Gideon admitted ruefully.

  “Who split your cheek?” said Aspen.

  The question was like a sweet little guppy fish flying in from nowhere and suddenly becoming a piranha.

  Blast!

  “Might’ve been anybody,” Gideon sidestepped.

  “Yes, it might have,” Aspen drawled. “Personally, I think it was Chase Rydel.”

  Gideon felt himself stiffen and mentally kicked himself for the reaction. Aspen waited, stolid as ever, until Gideon had told that story too, but it was the false version he told, exactly as he had spun it to Reed, lest truth undo the favor the lie provided.

  “So you let a bully have his way both times.”

  “Reckon,” Gideon agreed, without much conviction.

  Aspen scrutinized him for a long minute, one finger tapping the back of the chair. He nearly asked something, didn’t, and instead called for Deputy Wilson to unlock the door.

  Gideon was flummoxed. Was that it? Hadn’t he been arrested? Now, here he was, walking in the wide open air. Naturally the rich man’s sons had been let go. And naturally he, Gideon, had been kept. But—

  Understanding dawned with the subtlety of a mallet. Aspen hadn’t swayed the deputy anymore than his father had convinced the sheriff the day before.

  “I weren’t never under ‘rest, were I?” Gideon accused, stepping sharply in front of Aspen and barring his way.

  “Did you want to be?”

  “I thought—”

  “No, you didn’t. You reacted. Next time think first and be straight with me.”

  In silence they continued along the boardwalk. Gideon had been outmaneuvered. That annoyed him. It did. It also, grudgingly, in some small way not worth lingering over, impressed him. But mostly it annoyed him. He trailed along, vexed at not having hint nor clue as to where they were headed. He scanned the street, looking over his shoulder for a shadow, a flicker. . . something.

  Easy, boyo, nothin’ there but mem’ries.

  Gideon did not quite convince himself. Tagging along like this made him feel exposed, a walking target for the whole world. It was a state he instinctively, and habitually, endeavored to avoid.

  Whyn’t ya do somethin’ ‘bout it?

  My thoughts ‘zactly.

  But before Gideon could do a thing, Aspen dropped a casual arm over his shoulders and led the way into a café. It smelled not of any one thing but an amalgamation of biscuits, meat, gravy, pungent coffee, a lady’s heavy perfume and a dozen other aromas shouldering one against the other. The customers nearly did the same.

  Assaulted by the suggestion of food, Gideon realized he was ravenous and tucked gladly into the plate brought to him. He recalled that other café with the eggs. When had that been? It was certainly the last time he had eaten in anything a body might want to call a restaurant.

  “More coffee, Mister Rivers?”

  Sally Calder stood beside them, an apron over her tidy, homemade dress and genuine friendliness lighting her face. She was a bit young for Aspen, but that didn’t prevent a man from noticing beauty. If that kid. . . Nevans? . . .played it right he would be a very lucky young man.

  “Mr. Rivers, I—” Sally began, as she filled his cup.

  “Oh, Miss?” a workingman across the room raised a tin cup for Sally to see.

  Was that a flicker of relief on Gov’s face? Aspen thought it might be.

  “Gideon, is there—” Sally began, when she returned to collect their dishes.

  “We don’t need nothin’,” Gideon interrupted, shoring up his duplicitous message with a smile.

  Aspen pretended not to notice. He placed a couple of coins on the table before Gideon could get his own out of his pocket and shuffled his ward outside.

  Two doors down, they climbed an external stairway to a small, second story office. Immediately beside the door, a table sat under a window. Across from the main door stood a second that led to the adjoining warehouse. The room housed a desk and a tall filing cabinet. Against one wall stood a floor to ceiling bookshelf that did not so much as live within the room, but permitted the rest of the room to exist around it. Books filled every shelf. Journals took station on the floor, awaiting admission. Not a page was twisted or torn. The only mar was a thin layer of dust marking the passage of time since their owner’s last visit.

  “We used to rent this office out,” Aspen explained, as he gathered several papers from the filing cabinet and settled at the desk. “but it has become mine for when I have the need, which today I have. Make yourself comfortable.”

  Gideon felt like he was waiting for the other shoe to drop and kicked himself for allowing himself to be wound up. It was patently, entirely ridiculous. And yet. . . Had Aspen known Sally would be at the restaurant or had he chosen to eat there because it was convenient to his office? Did he doubt Gideon’s story? Ha, Gideon would doubt Gideon’s story, but that was because he knew Gideon Fletcher, not because it hadn’t been a plausible story.

  He pulled a random book from a shelf and thumbed through the pages. The edges were golden. Why would anyone spend money putting gold on a book, even fake gold? What was the point when it would be tossed in a saddlebag, carted over kingdom come, read by smoky firelight and hopefully not dropped in a river crossing, trampled by a stampede or stolen for privy paper?

  “Gov.”

  “Hmm?”

  “You have examined at least a dozen books. Pick one and sit down.”

  Gideon obliged, thinking the office was at least as bad as the jail; he had never been good with
closed in spaces. Without his awareness, his leg twitched endlessly as he turned pages, oblivious to the print. How could anyone work this way? Why would they want to? It made no sense when the whole wide world waited to occupy a man in the wind and the sun from can see to can’t.

  “I have an appointment. Make yourself useful whilst I am away and copy this, please,” Aspen placed paper, ink and pen on the table near Gideon.

  “Fancy man like you, ain’t you got one-a them eman. . . emanyou. . . sec’taries?”

  “Amanuensis. I do today,” Aspen chuckled and gave Gideon’s arm a light smack. Nearly closed, the door opened again with Aspen half in and half out. “Oh, and Gov? Stay in this office. Is that clear?”

  Gideon did not look up from his book.

  “I hear,” he mumbled indistinctly.

  “Gideon.”

  “You gonna be late.”

  “This office.”

  “Might like to take me a stroll. Done been cooped up ‘nough lately.”

  Gideon heard the jingle of metal and looked up to see Aspen dangling a pair of handcuffs. His gloating expression made it clear he felt he had the upper hand. It was not unlike the look Ember had received when Aspen had dragged him to that meeting.

  It occurred to Gideon, yet again, all he had to do was give his word and walk away. Simple as that. But there were some lines a man couldn’t cross, some things that made a man who he was, instead of what he despised.

  “Promise,” he grumbled.

  Aspen descended the stairs, whistling merrily all the way down to the street.

  Blast him.

  Gideon puttered around for a while, then stared out the window. He could only see a narrow sliver of street from where he stood, but folks savvy enough not to frame themselves in a window had a longer future in which to enjoy the view. Horses and buggies passed by, people intent on their own lives, people who had lives and had a purpose.

  Gideon had but one purpose and he would hardly call it a reason to live. Yet it was his only reason, beyond. . . there was nothing.

  Two horses took their time walking by and their riders, a man in his twenties and a boy in his teens, were content to let them. Gideon wondered who they were and what they business they were about. Some people’s lives were like this he mused. Narrow slits. They would never travel, never see beyond the limits of their own birthplace. Gideon didn’t know where he had been born. Moreover, he didn’t know why it ought to matter.

  His hand slid to rest on his gun and, with mild irritation, he shifted to hooking his thumb over a pocket instead. You don’t fight a man like Tarlston, or the kind he paid, without picking up a few habits to insure your continued good health. Wearing a gun was one such habit, and though not a long standing one, it was well ingrained.

  Gideon tried to settle down, but it was no good. The walls kept pushing in and the dead air suffocated him. He abandoned the room in favor of the staircase landing. The only possible way anyone could spot him was from directly in front or up on a roof. Either way, the one doing the seeing would definitely be seen in turn.

  Reasonably dug in, Gideon leaned back and listened to the street noise: wagon wheels crunched on the dirt street, boots clunked on the boardwalk, a blacksmith swung a hammer, and a collage of work-a-day voices drifted from shopper to shopkeeper. The bell on some door gave a tinny chime and two women called to each other. A rope thwapped in rhythm to a child’s skipping verse.

  Gideon had not meant to drift off, had not thought it possible for all the jitter in his blood, but a loud voice at the foot of the stairs jolted him back from the edge of unconsciousness.

  “Hey, it’s that cattle thief!”

  “Keep it down,” Rydel called out loudly. “Can’t you see junior’s taking a nap?”

  Gideon recalled Aspen’s advice about walking away and allotted not to take it. He rose, not in a startled jump, oh no, but in his own good time. Then, with exaggerated care, he brushed off non-existent dirt from his britches as if that were far more important than Rydel or his rather large friend who tipped the odds considerably in Rydel’s favor.

  Don’t he never try it on his own?

  Ain’t likely. His kind never do.

  “Hello, Chase. Marcus.”

  It was Aspen, and the two would-be thugs stepped aside to let him ascend the staircase. Behind his back they glared at Gideon, their unvoiced threats plain.

  “Did you provoke them?” Aspen asked.

  “Nope,” said Gideon, letting himself be ushered inside.

  “No, they don’t require provoking, do they.”

  Primed for an argument, the comment threw Gideon and he held his peace. Aspen picked up one of the blank papers he had left on the table.

  “Why didn’t you copy this?”

  “Do it your ownself,” Gideon countered.

  “You don’t take much provoking either.”

  “That Rydel just riles me.”

  Gideon stood at the bookshelf, his back to Aspen, but there was more in that admission than his expression would have revealed anyway.

  “He means to, and someday you’ll have to square with him. Right now you have to square with me.”

  “It’d be better if’n you did it,” Gideon said, still addressing the bookshelf.

  “It might,” Aspen allowed, pulling out a chair, “however I asked you.”

  Gideon could see only one way out and he would be danged if he would take it.

  You got you some other plan?

  I got my pride, so I do.

  You’re gonna be a-eatin’ that pride in a minute.

  Shutup.

  To Gideon’s relief, Aspen took himself away to the desk and his own work. Gideon picked up the pen and scowled at the paper as if backing down a bone starved coyote at eating time. Five long minutes later, Aspen sat beside him.

  “Read it to me,” said Aspen.

  “Don’t ya know what ya done writ?”

  “You can’t, can you?” Aspen challenged gently.

  “You see’d me read books.”

  “I have seen you with books. I have never heard you read,” Aspen contradicted.

  He pulled the papers over and gave them a study. Gideon’s grip on the pen had been a veritable stranglehold that choked out scratchings bereft of any sense of proper formation. The resulting disaster was made worse by the fact that, as a lefty, not smearing the ink had been a losing battle. All said, the effort was commendable for someone who had not one single notion what he was about.

  “Plenty of very capable people are illiterate,” Aspen remarked, starting in on the copies himself.

  “I ain’t ill’er’ate,” Gideon bristled.

  “Illiterate. It means you can’t read or write. But you’re smart, Gov, you could learn.”

  In Gideon's world, writing wasn’t something that made much difference. Somehow, here with Aspen, it did and Gideon’s pride stung.

  Telled ya.

  Shutup.

  “Ain't for me,” he said, with a plausible attempt at indifference.

  Aspen noticed how Gideon watched his hand shape each letter, the words spreading across the page.

  “You don’t want to learn?” he asked.

  “Nah.”

  “Why is that?”

  “No point,” Gideon elaborated. “Most work it don’t matter none. An’ Henry sure ain’t a-waitin’ for no love letter. Were a woman oncet, mebbe out Utah way, as tried to learn me some. I done tooked to it like a porcupine to a soap bubble.”

  Aspen chuckled and Gideon found himself grinning. He hadn’t meant to be funny, just truthful. When Aspen finished the copies, he tossed over Gideon’s hat and swung open the door. Once again, Gideon was forced to follow along.

  “Where we goin’?” he demanded.

  “The hotel to get you a bath.”

  “I don’t need no bath.”

  “Have you looked at yourself?”

  Gideon did, gaining the attention of an old man sitting on a bench outside the mercanti
le. Apparently he felt his advanced age a fair excuse to blatantly stare at whomever he wished and gave the impression anyone who did not like it could be clipped alongside the ear. The old man’s crackly snigger followed them down the street.

  “I think he agrees with me,” Aspen teased.

  “Him? Nah, he’s laughin’ at ya for bein’ a nancy. This ain’t half dirty.”

  Aspen shook his head. Despite Gideon's objections, Pa had provided him with a stack of brand new clothes. It hardly made a difference. Sure they fit, but five minutes on Gideon and anything became dirt smeared, blood stained, torn or all three together.

  “It’s dirty enough,” said Aspen.

  “You’re the amadan,” Gideon allowed.

  At the hotel, Aspen found a clerk to deliver his papers. After some negotiating, he delivered Gideon to a bath and stood outside the door to wait. He told himself it wasn’t a matter of trust. There were just some things a sane man did not do and leaving Gideon to his own devices was one of them. Unless, of course, you took the other extreme and left him entirely alone and tip-toed away in the darkness before fate had a chance to get cheeky.

  Gideon came out, his wet hair an indecorously wild display. Something would have to be done about that soon. The two men headed up to their room to finish dressing.

  “You like the Nevans boy?” Aspen asked, without preamble.

  “Who?” said Gideon, tucking in his shirt.

  “Whom and unroll your sleeves. Billy Nevans, Sally Calder’s friend.”

  “Oh, him,” Gideon said, as if just recalling. “Hardly know ‘im. The sleeves’re too long.”

  To Gideon, the length of one’s sleeves was purely a matter of function. To Aspen, it was a matter of social decorum. Rolling one’s sleeves whilst working was one thing, but a gentleman did not go about with his arms bared to the world for no particular reason.

  “Keep your own clothes clean and you won’t have to borrow Emberlee’s,” Aspen replied, tossing Gideon a clean vest. “Seems Rydel doesn’t like Nevans much.”

  “No?” said Gideon, all innocence.

  He groaned a complaint as Aspen produced a length of half-inch, brown ribbon. The faintest of smiles played at Aspen’s lips.

  “I know,” he said, “a bit of a leap, but you can at least look like a gentleman.”

  Gideon tugged at the necktie and flat rejected the comb Aspen held out.

  “I done used my fingers.”

  “Good, now use my comb,” Aspen insisted. “You know, Gov, if at some future time Mr. Nevans should need someone to even the odds for him, you might consider it, since he helped you.”

  Gideon looked into Aspen’s twinkling eyes and knew he had been caught. The other shoe had fallen and this was all there was to it. No outburst, no ruckus.

  “Sure, I s’pose,” was all Gideon could think to say.

  “Good, let’s go.” Aspen propelled Gideon out of the room. “Church functions may not be your regular territory, but do as I do and you should be fine. Oh, and afterwards, at the potluck, try not to steal the desserts.”

  “They snitched!” said Gideon, understanding the reprimand for entirely the opposite. He took the stairs on his toes and bantered back. “Those good for nothin’s done snitched! Just see if’n I go an’ share with the likes-a them again. That there cake were good ‘nough to eat all by my ‘lone, so it were.”

  “Yes, well, at least for this evening, share the cake, consider the possibility of a napkin, and try using silverware.”

  EDDIE sat at her dressing table pulling a brush through her thick hair. In the mirror she could see the reflection of her husband watching her. He seemed to be in a dream and, by the looks of it, a pleasant one.

  “What?”

  “You become more beautiful every day, Eddie,” James told her wistfully.

  He stared a few seconds more, shook himself slightly and sighed contentedly. How he had come to deserve a woman like her he had no idea– he probably didn’t. Heaven knew he could have his moments and yet she put up with him. That brought James to something else he had been thinking about.

  “Ed, what’s your feeling on your brother taking in that young man?”

  “My brother has overwhelming credentials when it comes to handling boys.”

  This vote of confidence did not quell James’s concerns. Amos was a very sensible businessman subject to random attacks of softheartedness that hit without warning. James retrieved his good shoes and sat on the edge of the bed to put them on.

  “This particular boy might be more than he bargained for, Ed. I just wonder did your brother think this through.”

  Eddie took a freshly pressed navy-blue dress from the wardrobe. As she pulled it over her head, the fabric muffled her voice.

  “Is Gabriel a burden?”

  “Of course not. I’m glad he came to live with us. But he’s still little. We have time to shape him.”

  “Perhaps all Gideon needs is time.”

  “Doing time seems to be more to his measure,” James remarked, as he obligingly moved behind Eddie to fasten the numerous buttons on her dress.

  She turned around, took her husband by both arms, and looked up into his handsome face.

  “Think back to when you were Gov’s age. Suppose your friends had been shot, your home burned?”

  “That’s no excuse to run wild,” said James, though he could see her point.

  “If anyone knows about keeping boys in hand, it’s my big brother.”

  “His sons have an iota of discipline,” James argued.

  “Yes,” Eddie said, her dancing eyes telling James she thought he was being slow witted. “Do you recall Fred hiding in the neighbor’s garden and eating all of her beans? The snake he put under that girl’s coat? The grasshoppers? He and Gabe coming home covered—”

  James kissed his wife gently, stopping her recitation of devious deeds.

  “I take your meaning, Ed, I do. But those are normal boyhood antics, not behavior liable to result in a meeting with Judge Forsythe.”

  “James darling, give Gov time. Between them, the boys will pull him around– one way or the other.”

  “It’s what that boy might do in the meantime that worries me.”

  Eddie gave her husband a quick hug. “Let’s round up our own boys and get to the church before they think up some new antics, shall we?”

  She took James by the hand, appreciating his concern and knowing, the way a wife does, that she had eased his mind.