Ice and Blood

by Oliver Altair

  “Where’s the sheriff? How did you bypass Valentine? Forget it, I don’t need to know.”

  “I knew you wouldn’t leave us here to rot. Come on, be a doll. Get us out already.”

  “Don’t clap your hands just yet, ladies.”

  Tiberius joined them inside, glued to his gun. “Howdy.”

  Two oil lamps illuminated the office, one on top of his desk, another at the bottom of the stairs. Their yellow glow gave the furniture a golden gleam but also deepened their shadows. Jesse had kept the fire in the small hearth burning. The warmth felt unusual and out of place.

  He waved his rifle toward the back of the room. “Don’t keep your friends waiting, Diamond. Is that your real name?”

  “As real as I want it to be.” The former Miss Georgina Sheppard took a mocking bow. “Diamond Graves. Charmed, I’m sure.”

  She pointed to deputy Willoughby. “That’s Wild Card Will.” Then to Pleasant. “And Turner Spade.”

  “Very colorful.” Tiberius walked her to the cell at gunpoint and jailed her with the other two.

  The cell was on the verge of a circle of light. When the prisoners moved back and forth from the farther wall to the barred gate, they seemed to dive in and out of a black pool as if existing and ceasing to exist.

  Will harrumphed. “You could’ve saved the introductions. Way to out us all, D.”

  She ignored him and threw herself onto the cot in the corner.

  Turner Spade took a long glance at her. “What in God’s name are you wearing?”

  “Clothes I borrowed from the boarding house. Mask I made myself off one of Miss Chipman’s blouses.”

  He snickered. “Delightful.”

  “Some of us can’t move around in a petticoat, Turner.”

  Will frowned. “Move around? What have you been up to? We agreed to stick to the plan.”

  Her voice turned tauter. “What plan? You two made it crystal clear it’s every man for himself. I’m glad you morons handed your asses to the sheriff.”

  Turner answered with a cunning smile. “Yet here you are, my dear.”

  Diamond sprang to her feet with a clenched fist. “Do you wanna lose some of those pretty teeth?”

  Tiberius pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. “That’s enough. You’re giving me a headache.”

  He left the rifle on his desk, rifled through a jumble of papers, looked through the drawers for a small bottle of bourbon, and poured himself a drink in a tin mug. It still had traces of dried coffee at the bottom.

  “Can I have a sip?” Diamond asked.

  “No.”

  Will sat on the edge of the cot. He stood up, walked across the cell, and sat again. He repeated the whole sequence until Turner held him in place.

  “Quit the dancing, would you? You’re making me dizzy.”

  “Something on your mind, deputy?” Tiberius inquired.

  “Well, now that you mention it…” he replied sheepishly. “I wondered what about Miss Sheppard tipped you off. I thought of her character as one of my most solid creations.”

  The sheriff looked him in the eye. “Is that all you care about? How well your puppets perform?”

  “I’m not his puppet,” Diamond and Turner cried at the same time.

  Tiberius tried to look stern but couldn’t hold back a chuckle. “You’re the oddest bunch of outlaws I’ve ever met. I’ll tell you this much: your friend did a better job with her acting than any of you chums.”

  Will and Turner stiffened, visibly offended.

  “But my gut told me there was something amiss with her and the reverend,” he continued. “Especially after that night at the saloon when he—”

  Will threw his arms. “I knew that drunkard would get us all hanged.”

  Diamond leaped to his side and slapped him hard across the face. “I left him inside a pine box with his guts hanging out. Show some respect.”

  A ghostly silence flew over the room. The roof seemed to lower, the walls tighten. The scintillating flames spiked but shared no heat. Every quivering shadow hid a spirit of ill-fortune. The aftertaste of liquor remained on Tiberius’ tongue, yet his mouth was parched. He placed his mug back on his desk to conceal the shiver taking over his body.

  “Lucky me. Circus came to town,” he said. “Two clowns, an acrobat, and a ringmaster. Is Miss Gray part of the troupe as well? Mayhap a lion tamer?”

  “What respectable gang doesn’t need a granny hung on dope?” Diamond sneered.

  “I’m not fond of sarcasm.”

  “You started.”

  He took a step closer to the cell. “So what am I to do with you?”

  “I saved your shabby life. And the doc’s. And the kid’s.”

  “Duly noted. Anything else?”

  She sat on the floor with her back against the wall, leering. “Just a reminder.”

  Will and Turner said nothing. They hadn’t as much as bat an eyelash after Diamond’s announcement of the Reverend’s grisly death.

  Tiberius yawned. The lack of sleep made his arms and legs rubbery. He mounted the stairs to his bedroom. He grabbed a knot of moth-eaten blankets from the bottom of a trunk, threw them on top of his mattress, and dragged the whole thing down the stairs. He placed the mattress on the floor, between the cell and his desk.

  “You’re camping here?” Diamond scorned.

  “You have a knack for breaking people out of jail.”

  “Not from the inside.”

  He handed her the pile of blankets through the bars of the gate. “I’d rather stick around in case you get creative.”

  Tiberius sat on his mattress, took off his boots, and wrapped himself in a wrinkled quilt that smelled of moss. He lay down and lowered his hat over his brow. “Now, be good children and let me go to sleep.”

  The prisoners’ whispers joined the sound of the crackling fire.

  “There are monsters in the streets.”

  “Have you lost your mind, Diamond?”

  “Saw one with my own two eyes.”

  “What do you mean by ‘monsters?’”

  “I mean exactly what I said.”

  Tiberius cleared his throat. “I can still hear you.”

  They quieted.

  Sleep finally came. A restless sleep, filled with cobwebbed dreams lost in a snowstorm, echoes of gunshots, and shrieks.

  He woke to a shy knock on his door, a repeated rat-a-tat with a short pause in between each clatter. Tiberius sat up and twisted his trunk, circled his neck. His muscles complained, and his bones crackled. He took a quick glance at the cell. Diamond slept on the cot under three blankets. Will and Turner huddled together on the floor, sharing just the one. He pitied them: three misguided souls trying to thrive in a world they never belonged in.

  He tiptoed to his door and peeked through the dirty glass pane that decorated its top. It was still dark out, but with that gray darkness that heralds the break of dawn. A woman in a hooded cape waited on his porch. She faced the street, giving him her back. Tiberius picked up his rifle. He opened the door.

  The woman turned. It was Fanny Mae. “I’m sorry to come so early, Sheriff. I needed to talk to someone.”

  He leaned the rifle against the doorframe and joined her outside. “Don’t worry about it. What’s the matter, Fanny?” He covered a yawn with the back of his hand.

  She smiled tiredly. “Were you sleeping?”

  “I was.”

  Two dark circles underlined her watery eyes. Her thick lips quivered as she spoke. “I don’t think I’ll ever sleep again. I keep seeing all that blood in my head… Am I going crazy?”

  “No, you’re just shocked. It’ll pass.”

  “Will it really?” She shivered. “I guess this is all silly to you. You’ve probably seen worse.”

  “I’ve got used to violence, that’s all. As the sheriff, I had to.”

  Truth was, he never had. From the first public hanging he witnessed as a little boy, holding on to his father’s hand with clattering knees, to the v
ision of the murdered preacher on the bloody mattress hours ago, a piece of his heart shattered every single time he had to confront the ugliest face of humanity. Until, one day, there would be none of his heart left to feel anything at all.

  Fanny sat on the porch’s railing. “No one in town really knew him. Everybody thought he was a brute and a frowzy drunk. He wasn’t, you know? He was so sweet when no one was around. Like a puppy looking for love.”

  “I didn’t know you grew so close in such a short amount of time.”

  “Short? I guess for some it would be. Madame Valentine always tells us to keep our hearts in a box. Sometimes it’s not that easy.”

  Tiberius placed his hand on her shoulder. “I can show you the warehouse where Miss Sheppard locked the body if you want to pay your respects, but we won’t be able to bury him until the spring.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “Miss Sheppard? I know he had no family, but I thought at least one person in town would care.”

  What an odd statement. Who knew a traveling preacher would move Fanny Mae so deeply? Tiberius sat next to her. “Can I ask you question, Fanny? You meet Owen O’Leary, the trapper, once in a while, don’t you?”

  She looked at him wide-eyed and silent. Her face blanched. “Meet?”

  “I don’t mean to pry. I’d appreciate it if you let me know next time he stopped by the saloon. I’d like to have a word.”

  Her breath quickened. “Is this a joke, Sheriff? Because it’s very cruel.”

  “Why would it be a joke?”

  She backed away from him. “Owen’s dead.”

  “Dead? Dead how? When?”

  “Are you ill, Sheriff? You saw him butchered in his bed same as I did.”

  Her words buzzed around Tiberius’ ears like a cloud of rabid gnats. “The man you found was Reverend Conn, Fanny.”

  She gasped, but her eyes gleamed with relief. “The drunk minister? What was he doing in Owen’s room?”

  Tiberius clenched his jaw. “That was the trapper’s room?”

  “Yes. Owen rents the same one every winter. The Reverend slept next door.”

  “That was the trapper’s room,” Tiberius repeated to himself. “That was the trapper’s room… But he wasn’t there.”

  Clarity struck him like a bolt of lightning. “I need to find him. Do you know where he might be, Fanny? Think.”

  She took a moment, fiddling with the hem of her sleeve. "Well, I know he sets camp somewhere between the blue fir forest and the hills. But that’s in the spring.”

  He nodded. “Go back to the Silver Moon. Send Jesse my way and see if you can find the Chief.”

  “Is Owen all right, Sheriff?”

  The first glimpses of sunlight fought to clear the shadows of that cold winter night.

  “Let’s hope he still has some of that Irish luck left.”

  18

  The iridescent dawning sky floated over the treetops. An orange gash scarred the blue horizon beyond the hills. Watching daybreak often gave Tiberius peace of mind, but not on that pale, wintry morning. Maybe never again. The light changed as he ventured deeper into the blue fir forest. The rolling mist thickened. The frontier between the known and the unknown seemed to blur then disappear.

  A scattered chirping, soft, almost doubtful, came from the higher branches. The hoot of a hidden owl sounded like a dire warning: walk away. Tiberius could hardly hear the man marching in front of him. The Chief moved through the forest with the swiftness of a fox. His furry boots stepped on the twigs and frozen puddles with muffled snaps. The fringes on his leather coat swished with every footstep like a waving lake on a quiet afternoon. The heart of the woods always gave Tiberius a daunting feeling of non-belonging, but the Chief followed the serpentine paths between the trees with no sign of unrest, as if they were no different than the streets and dark alleyways of Souls Well.

  The Chief stopped and raised his hand. He pointed to a short hillock of snow in front of a small cavern. He tightened his grip around his bow and arrow. Tiberius drew his gun. They advanced. Patches of black fur showed in the frosted mound. Also a frozen paw and a snout. The Chief crouched and placed his palm on the brow of the dead bear, closed his eyes, and whispered a prayer in a language the sheriff failed to understand.

  Tiberius crouched beside him. “What was he doing out so soon?”

  The Chief caressed the side of the bear’s head. “Something disturbed his sleep.”

  They kept going until they spotted a thin line of smoke. The smoke led them to a distant campsite.

  “Wait here,” Tiberius said. “I’ll holler if I need you. If you see the trapper first, feel free to greet him with an arrow. Just don’t maim him too badly.”

  The shape of a tattered tent became clearer as he moved forward. Its tarp flapped in the wind like a loose sail. The scent of the burning wood of the campfire drifted in the air. He closed in, holding his gun in his right hand, pushing aside the stray branches with his left.

  “O’Leary!” he called.

  No response.

  “Owen O’Leary!” he insisted. “Come on out. We have to talk.”

  He took one more step toward the camp. Then two. On his third, something clicked below his left sole. A jaw trap clasped around his ankle. The thick leather of his boot cushioned the impact of its rusty teeth, but they still cut through, tearing the skin and scraping the bone. He clenched his teeth to suppress a scream, biting his tongue so hard his mouth filled with blood. He locked his knees not to fall. The throbbing pain crawled up his leg. A strong shiver rippled through his waist, his torso, his arms. His gun fell from his hand and landed on the snow.

  He heard the cocking of a rifle. “Don’t move a muscle, lad.” Owen’s voice sounded close, but he hid from view.

  Tiberius writhed. The trap bit deeper. A wave of harrowing pain dazed his senses.

  “I swear I’ll shoot. Don’t move,” Owen repeated.

  “I heard you the first time, dammit.”

  Silence. Tiberius scouted the trees in front of him. “Where the heck are you?”

  “Sheriff Tibbetts?” a hesitant voice called after a long pause.

  “In the flesh.”

  Owen climbed down a thick fir around ten feet away. He approached the sheriff without lowering his rifle.

  Tiberius winced and pointed down. “What’s this madness ’bout?”

  “It’s a trap. I’m a trapper.”

  “Are you being clever with me? Get me out.”

  Owen stared at him as one would a caged beast: with both curiosity and primal fear. “No.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I can’t trust you.”

  “I’m the goddamned sheriff.”

  “Not good enough. I’m sorry.” He pointed the rifle to Tiberius’ chest. His finger trembled with every tap on the trigger.

  Tiberius held his head high “So this is it. You’re gonna shoot me like one of your rabbits.”

  “I’ve no choice.”

  “Is that right? I guess carrying one more body on your conscience doesn’t make much of a difference. You put a bullet between my eyes and avoid the gallows for a while longer. Fair enough. But mark my words: you’ll end up in the hanging tree no matter what. There’s blood in your hands.”

  “I made my peace with the noose years ago,” Owen answered somberly. “How did you find out?”

  “A carpenter, a preacher, and a trapper.” Tiberius snickered. “There has to be a joke there somewhere. I found traces of your stinky tobacco next to Albers’ gutted corpse. And a dead minister in your bed.”

  “I loved Henry like a brother.”

  Tiberius scratched his stubble. “You did, did you? What happened? Because things went way south for poor Hank.”

  “Shut up, Tiberius. Just shut up,” Owen muttered.

  A fresh breeze brought the smell of the firs to Tiberius’ nostrils. It cleared his mind and made him forget about the pain. He locked his gaze on Owen’s, recognizing, even sharing, the man’s rooted fear. And
his sadness. “I was born in Souls Well. Some people I’ve known from the crib, some from later in life. I’ve seen many a traveler that stayed for one more day, week, month. One more year that turned into two that turned into a lifetime. Souls Well has always been a welcoming place for people looking to start anew. Like Henry Albers. Or yourself.”

  The rifle shook in Owen’s twitchy hands. “We ended up liking it here.”

  “’Round these parts we carry our pasts like a burden, don’t we? Until we outrun it. Or it catches up to us. I don’t know what you and Henry were up to before you settled here. I don’t care. But he was butchered in my town.” Tiberius tapped the star pinned on his chest. “That makes it my problem. Why did you kill the preacher, Owen?”

  “Who’s that preacher you keep talking about?”

  “Reverend Conn. Was he ready to stir things up? I bet he carried enough dirt to bury you and Albers both. Better make sure he forever kept his peace. Did Henry get cold feet? Is that why you got him out of the way first?”

  Pearls of sweat gleamed on Owen’s brow, even in the raging cold. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. Not even close.”

  “Come on, Owen. Two men are dead. And you’ve made yourself scarce since the murders. What do you want me to think?”

  “Think what you may. I’m sorry that preacher’s dead, whoever he was. I’d never seen that man in my life. About Henry, I only wanted—” His gruff voice broke. “Bastard should’ve watched his back, like I told him to.”

  Tiberius lowered his arms, becoming a point-blank target. “Go ahead. Do what you have to do.”

  Owen placed his finger on the trigger. His pulse was no longer jittery. Tiberius looked past the barrel of the gun. He watched the gray clouds gathering over the hills. They soon wrapped the weak winter sun. Snowflakes sneaked between the crowns of the firs.

  The Irishman lowered his weapon. “I won’t shoot you. I won’t help you out of the trap either. I have to look out for myself. Always have, always will. I need to set camp somewhere else, somewhere far. If you send the Chief to follow me, I’ll kill him. Goodbye, Tiberius. If you believe I’m a murderer, so be it.”

  “I don’t.”

  Owen stood still like a Viking totem.