Make Me No Grave Read online

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  I. ASHER

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  II. The Devil You Know

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  III. Among The Willows

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  IV. A Hard Place

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  V. EPILOGUE

  Epilogue

  About the author

  Thank You!

  MAKE ME NO GRAVE

  ©2018 HAYLEY STONE

  This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Any reproduction or unauthorized use of the material or artwork contained herein is prohibited without the express written permission of the authors.

  Published by Aethon Books LLC.

  Print and eBook formatting, and cover design by Steve Beaulieu.

  All characters in this book (with exception to Booth) are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. All characters, character names, and the distinctive likenesses thereof are property Aethon Books.

  All rights reserved.

  Dedication

  For Becky, who always inspires me to be better

  Acknowledgments

  I wish to express my sincerest gratitude to Rhett Bruno and Steve Beaulieu of Aethon, both of whom were willing to take a chance on this book, and whose support and insight were invaluable throughout the revision process. To my parents who have always supported my dreams, and to my friends and first readers who offered either feedback or encouragement—Rebecca, Adriane, Jace, and Missy—thank you. I would also like to thank Joshua McKinney for the writing prompt that began this whole endeavor. As always, to my partner, Jasper: you keep me sane in a profession that breeds madness. Thank you for laughing at my jokes. I love you.

  ASHER

  Kansas, 1873

  Chapter One

  Almena Guillory corkscrewed in the middle of the room, turning round and around and around, drawing out some stubborn thought. I asked her to sit down, please, weren’t no sense in her wearing herself out like this before we’d even reached the courthouse. She told me to go to hell.

  “Already been, ma’am. Spent a summer once in Texas.”

  I hoped the joke would cheer her. To tell the truth, I was troubled by the indignity of the scene. Guillory was the Grizzly—or was it gristly?—Queen of the West. That was what people took to calling her, anyway, but she didn’t look like any bear I ever saw. She wore the sun in her skin, arms just starting to freckle. Her brown hair was falling out of her high-crowned hat in stocky strands, and her lips were cracked hardpan. Every now and again, I noticed blood weeping from the crevices. Sort of wished I could do something for the lady. Criminal or no, I felt sorry for her.

  “He’ll come for me, Marshal,” she said. It was the same tired refrain she’d been at for the past few hours. Since being holed up in this here little hotel room, she hadn’t said much. Cursed some. And continued insisting he was coming. Some lover, by my guess.

  “I’m not sure who you mean,” I replied. “Ain’t nobody coming to free you, Miss Guillory.”

  “When are we leaving?”

  Thought about lying to her, but there was something in her glare—a flat awareness, you might say—made me reconsider. “First light tomorrow.”

  I wasn’t blind to the way her gaze ricocheted off my leather.

  “That’s a fair idea,” I said pleasantly, “but I surely wouldn’t recommend it.”

  Both of my guns were holstered, the polished butts half-concealed by the flap of my coat. Seemed a mite unfriendly to have them out, and I didn’t see a need. However high she esteemed herself, we both knew I’d pull faster than anything she tried.

  The Grizzly Queen sneered at me, lips pulling back in a feral smile. Pretty sure hers were the whitest teeth I’d ever seen on a wanted man. But then, Almena Guillory wasn’t no man, and try as I might, I couldn’t help noticing that, too.

  She was still wearing the saloon dress I’d caught her in. Except now, she’d torn open the frilly collar, clawed off the buttons at her neckline, and stripped away her black gloves, exposing the flesh of her forearms and a long, jagged scar, possibly from a cattle fence. Supposing she was hot, I offered to open a window, but she only took it as permission to do it herself. She walked over, threw back the shutters, and stuck her head out, baptizing herself in the spinning coolness of the evening. I heard her gasp or maybe sigh. Her hands clutched the windowsill, and in the new stillness, she trembled. Shaking like a leaf.

  And then came the words again—hushed, prayerful words. “He’ll come for me.”

  This time when she said them, I tried to imagine the man she meant to hear them. Some shadowy loner blown in from the Territories, most like, or maybe an ex-Confederate displaced from the war—tall, broad-shouldered, an able-bodied sort. Probably had a fine horse. But, and I’ll grant you this may’ve been a reflection on my poor imagination, I couldn’t invent a face to go with all my idle wondering. She wouldn’t give him up, and for some reason, not one person had yet to name the Grizzly Queen of the West’s consort. Man was a spook.

  I leaned forward. “Mind if I ask you something?”

  “What?”

  “Why red?” It was the color of her lips and her dress. “I know you had a whole closetful of costumes you could’ve chosen from—I had a peek backstage. Yonder ladies were very… solicitous. What I mean is, and don’t get me wrong here, Miss Guillory, it’s not a bad color on you, but it ain’t exactly what you’d call subtle now.”

  Almena had been slouching against the windowsill, but now she straightened. She shook her head with a short, cruel laugh. “Don’t you know your religion? Isn’t your name disciple or something?”

  “Apostle,” I corrected. Even that wasn’t my real name, not the name I was born with, but when you go barreling through life, names have an odd way of attaching to you like stickers from a bramble bush. I wasn’t about to split hairs with her on the matter. “And depends on whose religion.”

  “Red is the color of Catholic martyrdom. When Mary, Queen of Scots went to her death, she wore red to protest the execution.”

  “You’re a Catholic then?”

  “Do I look like a Catholic to you?”

  “You look like a woman entitled to her beliefs, same as anyone else.”

  “I just like red,” she said. “That’s all.”

  Maybe that was the God’s honest truth, but I couldn’t help thinking it was more symbolic than that. That wearing red was somehow proof of her faith to this man she was waiting for.

  “Fancy the color blue myself,” I said to break the silence. “Mind if I ask you something else?”

  She lapped at the fresh blood on her lips. “You’re awfully chatty for a mars
hal.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I’ve been told that. Just this thing’s been niggling around my head since I started searching for you…”

  “Hunting me.”

  “—but if you do mind, I can stuff my curiosity. It’s nothing what won’t keep.”

  She rolled her eyes, but I guessed she was grateful for the distraction because she replied, “I can’t stop you from asking.”

  I displayed the palms of my hands, as though I were holding both options up for her. “Just to clarify: is it grizzly, like the bear—or gristly, like a tough piece of meat?”

  I’d heard a lot of wild stories since moving out West, of men turning into beasts under moonlight and the dead lurching back to life, hungry for the living. Folks out here were tough, but they were also paranoid as all get-out. Sometimes for good reason. I’d experienced my fair share of strange happenings on the plains, including the time I’d heard the infamous call of the Indian death bird right before a shootout. This other time, I swear I saw the ghost of one of the Bloody Espinosas—Felipe, I think—walk up to a bar in Canon City, Colorado and order himself a drink.

  But nothing, not even these small instances of weirdness, approached the level of myth surrounding the Grizzly Queen of the West. They called her a witch. Said she couldn’t be killed. Said the last men who’d tried had ended up dead themselves, wearing the same wounds they had given her. The rational part of me wanted to explain away these tall tales as being nothing more than local superstition, but maybe there was something to them. For the first time, I didn’t have to rely on secondhand accounts. I had the woman herself right here to answer my questions.

  Something softened in Almena’s face. Her hands stilled, nails hovering over the grain of the windowsill, their tips blunted from digging shallow graves out of the wood.

  “Grizzly. Like the bear. Why’s it matter?”

  “Don’t.” I leaned back and stretched out, crossing my ankles in a show of casualness. “Unless you’re planning on turning into one.”

  Almena looked partly amused. “You’re worried I’m going to turn into a bear?”

  The way she said it, I knew that story at least was untrue. Probably the rest were, too.

  Feeling foolish, I quickly changed the subject. “Are you sure I can’t convince you to sit down, Miss Guillory? Rest a little? You’re starting to look a bit piqued.”

  “No,” she said.

  I sighed. “Only trying to make you more comfortable.”

  I followed the path her gaze took around the hotel room, eying the tired carpet, worn to the floorboards at places, and the wallpaper bowing away from the walls.

  “In a manner of speaking,” I amended with a small smile. Heck. Even the furniture looked to have seen better days. The bed was missing a post and had notches of wood taken out of the remaining three. Saying nothing of my chair’s bad leg.

  For a split second, forgetting herself, Almena smiled back.

  I decided to keep trying. “Can I get you something to eat? Something to drink?”

  “Whiskey.”

  “Not whiskey. Something else. Something not liquor.”

  She gestured vaguely, and when she thought I wasn’t looking, began sawing her teeth across her nails. Back and forth, back and forth, like a prisoner trying to file her way through an iron bar. I thought it best not to comment on.

  I got up. “You know, why don’t I just have Dorothy bring up whatever she’s got leftover from dinner.”

  “Yes,” Guillory said, but she wasn’t looking at me. “You do that.”

  Instead of heading to the door, I went to the window first, checking for trouble. A few folks were out, taking advantage of the long evening. Some portly rider had stopped near the saloon, watering himself and his horse. A little farther on, a man with a shock of orange hair and his lady friend strolled down the boardwalk, passing through slits of rusty light between the store overhangs, talking low and glancing discreetly at one another. Two businessmen wearing ditto suits stood outside Robert’s General Supplies across the street, chewing the fat. I recalled seeing all of them when I rode in, except the rider, but he appeared halfway to Sunday with drink, all red in the face and sweating, so I judged him no great threat. It was clear he wasn’t here for Guillory. If he were, he was going about a jailbreak all wrong.

  I turned from the window—and straight into Almena who had moved in, stealthy as a cat. In one slick movement, she thrust her hand inside my coat, groping for my Colt.

  At the same time, I drew my other piece, rolled the hammer back, and shoved it between her ribs. Her hand remained inside the flap of my coat, the hard line of her body edged against mine, her shoulder pressing into my collarbone. I was also well aware of the location of her leg wedged between mine, her knee dangerously close to my most precious bits. Worse still, I couldn’t be sure she didn’t have the gun cocked, her finger tight on the trigger, ready to put a hole in me.

  I frowned, more at myself than her. “Probably shouldn’t have gotten so close.”

  “Probably not,” she said. Her breath grazed my lips. “Back up.”

  I took a step back but kept my gun kissing her side.

  In a quiet, yet sturdy voice, I said, “You don’t really think he’s coming, do you?”

  Her eyes shot to the window and back to me. I half expected to feel her gaze, given how many times I’d heard those eyes described as piercing over the past few months. But as I stood there, watching her watching me, they were just gray eyes. Could’ve belonged to anyone.

  I tried to hold her gaze, but she kept pushing it to different areas of the room. Looking for a way out, or maybe another weapon. Judging her odds.

  “I’m betting that’s why you’re so anxious,” I continued. My mouth tasted sandy, a familiar backwash of fear on my tongue. Anyone who’s had a gun on them and says they didn’t experience the same is either a liar or a fool. “You’re worried on account of him not being here already. On account of him not being here when you needed him in the first place.”

  She shook my gun, rattling the barrel against my thigh. “What do you know about it?”

  “I know what it’s like to be let down by someone you love. Someone you trusted.” I wished this was only theater. Some pretty offering of sympathy to settle her. But I suspected she’d see right through me if I tried anything of the sort. “Believe me, Miss Guillory, when I say, ‘I know,’ I’m being neither kind nor cunning.”

  To my surprise, she smiled. Pressed in closer. Wasn’t grizzly bears came to mind then. I was thinking what any man wading through tall grass thinks. Snake. “You imagine just because we have something in common, that means I’m not going to shoot you?”

  “I was hoping it might give you pause.”

  She snorted. “Don’t try appealing to my better nature, Marshal. I don’t have one.”

  I looked down. The sight of her slender hand disappearing into my coat remained an unsettling one. “Might be you’re right about that.”

  “Move towards the door.”

  “Can’t do that.”

  “Then I believe this is what one refers to as an impasse.” She wasn’t looking at the window anymore.

  “Let go of my gun, Almena.” It was more request than demand. “Please.”

  By now, some marshals would’ve shot her dead. I knew half a dozen men—good solid lawmen—who would’ve put her down the moment her fingers brushed the fabric of their coats. But that wasn’t my way.

  Sweat collected on her forehead, and she worried her bottom lip between her teeth. “I’d like to, Marshal, seeing as how you asked so nicely, but we both know if I let go of your gun, I’m a dead woman.”

  “I won’t shoot you. You’ve got my word on that.”

  “Even if I thought you were telling the truth, and I’ll grant, you seem like an honorable man…”

  “Thank you.”

  “That still leaves me at the mercy of the court as soon as we get to Abilene.” Her eyes were flat and tired. “They’re going
to hang me, Marshal.”

  “You’ll get a trial. A decent shake.”

  “A decent shake,” she murmured. “How comforting.”

  “You’ve committed a crime, Miss Guillory,” I reminded her.

  “I’ve committed multiple crimes. That’s why they’re going to hang me.”

  I sighed. “If you don’t release my gun, ma’am, I am gonna have to shoot you.”

  She stiffened. “You do that, and you can be sure I’ll take you with me.”

  “I didn’t say it’d be a pleasant experience.” My arm threatened to sag, fatigued from holding so damn still. “But this can’t go on for much longer, and I can’t just let you go. It’s my job to sit on you until we get to Abilene. Now, I could’ve done that anywhere—an outhouse, back of the grocer’s. I could’ve tied you to the post out there with the horses.”

  She glared at me from underneath the cliff of her bangs. “Why didn’t you, then?”

  “Because, despite your colorful moniker, I don’t think you’re an animal, Miss Guillory. I don’t think you should be treated like one neither.”

  Her lips parted, but she didn’t speak. Small grooves appeared between her eyes, a sign of indecision, doubt.

  “Just slide your hand back now, nice and slow…”

  For a moment, I thought she might come to reason. Might trust me… but, no, there was someone out there she trusted more. The specter of rescue clung to her like a shadow.