Make Me No Grave

by Hayley Stone

  “Apostle?” Dempsey prompted.

  “I heard you,” I answered, exercising my tender jaw. “Well, let’s look on the bright side. They’re not shooting each other yet. That’s something. Might be they just need to take out a little—”

  Three successive cracks interrupted the fighting, causing a pair of men to cease their fighting and cover their ears. Behind them, a man in good dress and a high-crowned Stetson stood holding a fine-looking Winchester in his hands, twin barrels pointed toward the clouds. He’d already reloaded and locked the breech by the time the Coffeyville and Baxter Springs boys peeled apart. With him were three men, deputies most like, each clutching their own piece like it might turn around and bite them. They looked jumpy, unlike the sheriff himself, who merely appeared irritated.

  “Someone want to tell me what’s going on here? —Ten words or less, Pete,” he added, interrupting the long-haired man (Pete, apparently), just as the latter was starting to explain.

  “Did you know there was a sheriff here?” Dempsey asked me, looking relieved. “Is that what you were waiting for?”

  “Not exactly, though I was informed one might be coming.”

  The sheriff listened to Pete’s abridged version of events while posse members kept interrupting with their side of the story. Gil stood beside his horse, readjusting his suspenders and fixing his coat over his shoulder. His lip was split and his face swollen. He wore a sullen expression to match his injuries.

  “Almost every town has a lawman of some sort,” I told Dempsey, trudging toward the front line where it seemed everything would be decided. “Question you have to ask yourself isn’t, where’s the man with the badge? But what’s he going to do with it once he gets here?”

  Chapter Twelve

  Sheriff Amos Jensen had a certain charm, if you wanted to call it that. Within a few minutes, he’d just about convinced the posse to turn in for the night at one of Coffeyville’s establishments, free of charge, or else get themselves on back to Baxter Springs, when Dante Casella got hold of a pistol and attempted to shoot Leonard in the back.

  He missed—if taking off the other man’s ear could be considered missing.

  Leonard howled and clutched the side of his head, initially making it hard for anyone, including me, to know how badly he was hurt. All I could see was blood flowing through his fingers, a red mudslide rolling over his knuckles and down his arm, soaking the sleeve of his buckskin jacket. Before you could yell duck and cover, the older man turned his gun on Casella and emptied the chamber at him.

  Casella, the heartless bastard, grabbed the closest man to him and pulled him into the line of fire. To my surprise, I recognized the unlucky soul as one Owen Fairly.

  I couldn’t say I was surprised by Fairly’s escape, what with no one watching him inside the church, but the last place I expected him to be was in the thick of things. He’d probably come to free Casella in a bid to earn back some of the favor he’d lost when he tried to high lope it off the trail after being shot. For his efforts, he got four rounds—that was all Leonard had left—planted in his chest. One also passed through his throat, coming out the other side and nearly hitting Casella. Which would have been ironic, if not fitting.

  Shock twisted Fairly’s face, his eyes bugging out. He was still mumbling don’t shoot as he collapsed back into Casella’s arms, a lather of blood bubbling over his lips.

  “Oh my God! He shot Owen!”

  This from a woman standing in the doorway of one of the saloons. Her smiling mouth was crooked with horror, hand positioned over her chest in a perfect display of fright. Either she hadn’t had a proper view of what happened, or else she was all too happy to ignore Casella’s role in Fairly’s demise. I wondered if she were malicious or just simple.

  “They mean to kill us all!” she shrieked theatrically, and as she turned and fled into the saloon, I saw her wink at Casella.

  Not simple, then.

  She might as well have cried fire in a crowded room. The men of Coffeyville reacted predictably, unintentionally supplying Casella with cover as some scrambled away and others opened up on the posse, ignoring the sheriff’s advisement for everyone to stay calm and hold their fire, for heaven’s sake—

  Casella slunk toward a nearby alley, dragging his late partner’s body to use as a shield. Leonard snatched a rifle from the saddle bag of a riderless horse and shot at the fleeing outlaw. He must not have had a very good grip on the gun because the recoil knocked it from his hands, leaving him exposed to take a round in the stomach from a stranger in the crowd. Leonard grunted, staggering back into the rump of the horse, causing it to shy and kick its back legs, knocking him out cold.

  I shoved Dempsey to the ground as another man fired in our direction. In the same action, I clicked the hammer back on my gun and pulled the trigger, felt it shudder in my hand at nearly the same moment the man went sprawling into the mud. I wasn’t sure whether he was from Baxter Springs or from Coffeyville, but it didn’t much matter just then. He was a threat. And he didn’t get back up.

  By now the air was filling with white powder, making it difficult to see. Men suddenly appeared beside me, then disappeared into the smoke, backlit by the occasional muzzle flash. Grabbing Dempsey by his shirt, I hoisted my partner back onto his feet and was pleased to see he had his gun in hand. I was less pleased when he decided to fire past my head without warning.

  Holding my ear with my free hand, I moved out of the way and, squinting, spotted the man Dempsey had fired at just as he dropped to his knees. A dark spot grew on the ground beneath the man’s legs as some liquid, urine or blood, mixed into the earth.

  Fool that he was, the man continued to hold the gun aloft, threatening retribution, and Dempsey shot him again, this time in the shoulder, showing admirable restraint for someone new to shootouts. I’d seen many a lawman panic in the heat of the moment, emptying bullets into a corpse, only to click helplessly at the next man who came at them. But not Dempsey. Kid had kept his head, renewing my faith in my choice of deputy. I was proud.

  Also a little deaf.

  As we took cover beside a general store, he said something to me I didn’t catch. “What?” I yelled over the ringing in my ears. We were still close enough to the action that the sound of the gunshots reverberated inside my chest, each one almost a physical thing, like kernels popping above an open flame.

  Dempsey repeated himself, motioning frantically toward the street. This time I heard the words “sheriff” and “injured.” Not exactly words you want to hear together.

  Canvassing the smoky street, I saw Sheriff Jensen flat on his back beneath the haze, unmoving. I couldn’t tell whether he was dead or not, but the thought of leaving him out there, exposed to further harm, was sand in my conscience. “How much ammo you have?” I asked Dempsey whilst checking my own supply.

  His eyes narrowed. “You’re not going back out there, are you?”

  “Got to. Man needs help. How much?”

  “I don’t know.” Dempsey touched his cartridge belt. “Enough. I guess.”

  “I need you to lay down some cover fire for me. Can you do that?”

  Dempsey nodded. He was getting that queasy look from the carriage again.

  “Can you do that, Dempsey?” I wanted him to say it.

  “Yeah…” He cleared his throat. His expression stabilized, and he met my eyes. “Yeah,” he said, more confidently, “I can do that.”

  I placed a hand on his shoulder, squeezing gently. “I trust you with this. You remember how to shoot, don’t you?”

  “With a gun?” he replied, wearing a splinter-sized smile.

  I smiled back, affectionately grabbing him by the scruff of the neck, watching his smile turn shy before I released him and returned my attention to the street. The gunfire was beginning to putter out, but still, all it took was one lucky shot. One ball or bullet, and someone would be chipping my name into a gravestone. “All right. Stay put. Count your shots. Probably goes without saying, but try not to sho
ot me either.”

  Just as I broke cover and started for Amos, I heard Dempsey reply, “I’ll try not to.”

  The sheriff groaned when I tried to move him, mumbling that I shouldn’t touch him, touch him and he’d shoot me. Yet it was obvious he wasn’t going to shift anywhere on his own steam.

  I ducked down close enough to his ear so he’d hear me. “I’m with the U.S. Marshal Service, sir. Name’s Apostle Richardson.” When I tried to lift him, he dug his fingers into my shoulder, pressing hard enough to force me into letting go. “I’d like to get you to safety now, Sheriff, but you can’t fight me on it.”

  Nearby, Dempsey fired a shot every so often, provoking replies of gunfire. Several times I swore I felt the breeze of a passing bullet.

  “Hurts like a son of a bitch,” the sheriff said.

  “Tends to.” With a grunt, I managed to lift him somewhat, carrying him by the torso while his legs and backside dragged along the ground. His feet plowed two shallow lines in the mud. “Where’d he get you?”

  “My back,” Amos replied.

  I tried not to think about the blood amassing on my boots and the bottoms of my pants as I pulled Amos toward the general supply. “Did you see the man who did it?”

  “If I’d have seen him,” Amos said, drawing a pained breath between every other word, “you can be damn sure he wouldn’t have gotten the drop on me.”

  “Fair enough. Just hold on there—Amos, isn’t it?”

  “To my friends.”

  Implication being, he wasn’t sure whether I fell under that category yet or not.

  “Say you’re a marshal,” he slurred. “Where’s your badge?” His eyelids drooped, and he looked dangerously close to nodding off.

  “Sheriff,” I called to him through gritted teeth readjusting Amos in my arms. Man didn’t look it in his shapely grey outfit, but the sheriff was heavy as an ox. “Amos.” I would’ve shook him if I wasn’t so worried about loosening the bullet in his back. “Amos! Damn it. Dempsey!”

  Dempsey shot out of cover and without needing to be told fitted himself beneath Amos’s other arm, helping me drag him the remaining few feet to the alley.

  “The back. He’s been shot in the back,” I explained quickly. “Help me turn him over.”

  “Apostle.” Dempsey stared past me.

  “What?”

  I turned, catching sight of Almena assisting one of the girls from the saloon away from the gunfight. Both of the women looked unhurt, to my relief, but then I saw Gil coming up behind them, brandishing his piece. He called out Guillory’s name, and she turned without thinking.

  “Shit. Stay with the sheriff.”

  “Boss—”

  I thrust an angry finger at him. “Stay with the sheriff.”

  I didn’t wait for further objections.

  The smoke was starting to clear, carried off by the wind, the smell of gunpowder washed out by the sharp scent of rain and grass. Storm’s coming back. I glanced up once while thumbing rounds into the cylinder of my pistol quick as I could, fingers slick with the sheriff’s blood.

  I was nearly to Almena when several men stepped in front of me, blocking my path. Each wore the slimy grin of a cat that’s caught a mouse. I recognized two of them as the pair from before who’d been discussing the possibility of my being a marshal. Why the hell not? That’s the kind of day I’m having.

  “Heard tell you’re a marshal,” said the first man. He had a fat mole on one cheek.

  My jaw still ached from where I’d been punched earlier, the point of pain traveling higher and higher into my skull, like someone pressing a needle through the bone. Not to mention I was already dog tired from having spent the past day traveling. Between that and all the gunfighting and near-gunfighting in between, my patience was at its end.

  “You ought to think long and hard about what you’re looking to achieve here,” I told Mole. “Because it’s liable to get you and your friends killed.”

  This earned a round of chuckles from the men, too drunk or stupid to realize I meant it.

  “Big tough talk from one little bitty lawman,” said a second fella, his tongue snaking out between his lips in a partial lisp. His eyes were pale and huge. Reminded me of a lizard I’d once seen sunning itself on a rock. Later that same day, I’d accidentally crushed the creature with the heel of my boot when it darted underfoot.

  “I didn’t kill your wife,” I heard Almena tell Gil, from a few yards away.

  “No. You had one of your lackeys do it.” His tone was like someone dropping a plate on hard wood.

  “No. My gang’s broken up. Been broken up for a few weeks now. We never visited Baxter Springs. We never killed anyone there—not your wife, not that child. God’s honest truth.”

  “She’s telling it right, Gil,” I said over the heads of my bullies.

  His head whipped toward me, tears streaming down his face. “What’s it to—marshal?”

  “Hey!” Lizard snapped at me. “We was talking to you—”

  He made the mistake of trying to reach out and grab me. I blew his hand off.

  The others recoiled instantly, telling me the measure of their character. Lizard skittered back, holding his bleeding appendage with his remaining good hand, blinking more like a fish now, like he was unable to believe I’d gone and shot him. He was lucky I wasn’t Wade. Prough the Rough, as he was known in certain company, always went for the kill shot. No sense doing otherwise, he explained to me once. You start sparing the sons of bitches and they start getting it into their numbskull brains they can take you. I didn’t agree with this policy, but Wade may have had a point. Either I made an example here, or I’d be made an example of.

  “Might be able to save some of those fingers, you get yourself to a doctor soon enough,” I said. “As for the rest of you…”

  “Shoot him!” Lizard squealed. “Just shoot him!”

  “Anyone”—I spoke loudly, so as not to be misheard or misunderstood—“who makes even the slightest indication of going for their piece, I will put down. And I cannot guarantee as clean a shot as this fella here got. All I can promise is a planter’s box and six feet of earth, any of you comes at me again. Now, kindly step out of the way.”

  Mole held his ground. “I count four of us against one of you. You think those odds are really in your favor there, Marshal?” I gave him a dark look, what said don’t test me. “Nah,” he continued with a bleating laugh. “Naaah! Don’t matter how good of a shot you think you are, I know you can’t put all of us down before one of us gets a shot off.”

  “Maybe not. But I’ll make sure you’re the first one I aim for.” I looked at one of Mole’s partners, scouting out the most nervous among them (after Lizard) by the overlapping pattern of boot prints in the mud. The man couldn’t stand still. I recognized a coward when I saw him. “And maybe you after that,” I added casually.

  “I don’t want no trouble with a marshal, sir,” the man stammered, stepping again.

  “Shut up, Riley,” said Mole. “You’re in this, now. Same as us.”

  In the end, the gunshot didn’t come from my gun or any of Mole’s men.

  Everyone, including myself, flinched at the eruption of sound. Two shots.

  My stomach plummeted. Almena.

  I shouldered my way through Lizard and Riley, done with Mole’s bullshitting, judging that no one would shoot me in the back. Not one of them did. They were all too busy straining to see who’d done the shooting, while simultaneously searching themselves for holes.

  Gil dropped to his knees, and then folded back like a child’s rag doll, his body coming to rest at an unnatural angle.

  Almena stood a few yards away, on the porch of one of the saloons, gun still in hand.

  It wasn’t hard to put together what had happened.

  I rushed to the widowed man’s side, shoveling past his jacket and shirt to find a pulse, pressing my fingers against his neck, here, then there, in case I was mistaken. Finally, muttering a curse underneath my b
reath, I got back to my feet, giving a hard head shake as answer to the question in Almena’s face.

  “He drew on me,” she said in a dead voice.

  I chose to believe her. Given what I knew of Gil’s grief and his purpose in coming here, it made sense that he’d try and kill her, cleansing himself of the guilt over his wife’s death. More sense than her shooting him down in cold blood anyway. Whatever her nom de guerre implied, Almena Guillory didn’t strike me as a casual butcher, not like some other outlaws I’d dealt with in the past.

  “He had a son,” I told her.

  As she lowered her gun, Almena answered, “Then maybe he should have thought about his boy before coming against me.” The woman who was sometimes outlaw and sometimes not stood straight and proud, but there was quiet devastation in her eyes. She wasn’t looking at me, but past me—to the men watching her, sizing her up.

  “And what do you think you’re doing?” she snapped at them, stepping down from the porch and into the muck. “Threatening what’s mine like you’ve any right to him.”

  If I weren’t so exhausted, I might’ve been able to show more offense. Hers?

  “You think you own the place?” Lizard said, sweating with pain.

  I thought Guillory might shoot him then, just to prove a point. Mole probably saved his life by slapping him upside the back of the head. He closed his eyes in frustration, or possibly embarrassment. “Don’t you know who that is, you stupid fuck?”

  “No,” Lizard said, blinking.

  “That’s her. Almena Guillory in the flesh.” Lizard did a double take, while Mole scrambled to remove his hat, crumpling up the brim in his pale fists. “Apologies for my friend, ma’am. He’s got a big mouth and not a whole lot of sense…”

  “But that man—he’s a marshal!” Lizard said the word ‘marshal’ like a lady uttering a swear in polite company.

  “Of course he’s a marshal,” Almena said, rolling her eyes. “My marshal. He’s on my take. Or did you think I just talked my way out of a hanging?”