XI

Distance helped. Each step away from Widow Booke's small, lonely house settled his mood. There was something reassuring about the scrape and scratch of loose desert earth beneath his boots, something calming in the sting of the cold, sharp night air in his throat. His wish to be somewhere else – to be away – had driven him into a near-run. Only now, with this distance from the source of this chaotic mess of emotion in his heart, did his stride slow. They had neither left him nor obliged to make themselves separate and organized, still running into and over and under each other. It was just that they weren't as keen now. The hatred he'd carried for himself, for Rupert and Elijah, had gentled into a sort of self-loathing that he shared with them. The vengeance he'd wanted in the burning depths of that hate was getting quiet, becoming something else. It wasn't a desire for justice, not quite, but it was close.

A mile or so before he got back to the Jail. He blew out a slow, tired breath and rolled his stiff shoulders. It had only been a day. All of this – all of it – had happened in a day. It beggared belief that so much could happen, could change, in such a short time. Of course, the notion of change served to remind him of how he had learned about the ease with someone could just twist a mind. Oh, how that had terrified him. No mistake, he still was afraid. The distance from where he'd learned it, from that cramped and lonely place, coupled with how damnably tired he was; that terror had become fear. He supposed he was just too tired to feel too strongly at the moment.

He walked, and for a time did his best to stop thinking and just be. To let the quiet emptiness of the desert night seep in. It was an endeavor that he was mostly unsuccesful at, on account of two very loud thoughts that kept going around and around in his head. The first was this: Why wasn't Rupert Wagner afraid of Elijah? Could be that Caff was a coward who scared easy. Could also be that anyone with the sense a horse was born with would be scared of a vampire. So either Rupert was an arrogant fool – which was possible, he wasn't ruling that out – or there was something else.

Just what that something else was, though, was part of the second thought. That being: who in this town could and would reach into Elijah's head and make him murder Ruby Pendleton? Here, he only really had the one suspect, and it wasn't Widow Booke. By her own admission, she had the means to make it happen, but what she lacked was a reason and opportunity to do it. Besides, and if the word of the dead was admissable, she hadn't been there. Elijah didn't remember shit all, and his was the head messed with in the first place. Everett Swanson had run – and Caff would have some questions for him soon enough – and left behind the person who was half the reason Ruby was dead in the first place: Rupert.

Now he found himself dealing with a newly born third notion that began whirling through his tired mind. It was simpler than the others, if only just: he was not at all sure that Rupert Wagner was capable of changing a mind like Elijah's had been. Yes, the Widow had said it was easy if someone knew how. There'd been nothing about him that Caff had seen to suggest he was someone who knew. Then again, there hadn't been anything about him that showed him as a killer, either, so maybe it was just Caff's judgement that wasn't any good.

That was probably it. He had needed the victim's own testimony to get him on the right track of figuring out her murder, which was surely a new low. The outskirts of town hove into view, becoming a half-dozen wooden houses with a similar and sturdy structure. Some had light coming from their windows, others did not. He supposed it was getting pretty late. Again. After passing among them he found himself on the small track that would lead to the main road. Not too far to the Jail, now. It was getting colder, pressing up against his coat and doing its best to burrow through. For now, the coat was enough.

As he approached the Jail, he at first thought that it was as he had left it. A squat, single-storied building of old, thick timbers hauled from back east. There was still the front door, iron bands stretching across its front, flanked on either side by glass windows older than him. The front porch, hemmed by a wooden fence and led up to by a short set of stairs. All as he had left it.

What he had not left was the shattered bottle of whiskey on the steps. The shards of glass glinted in the silver-soft starlight from above. He could barely make out the label clinging wetly to the glass. Some brand from back east, but he knew O'Neil's carried it by the box. The wooden planks of the stairs and the dirt beneath them were wet and dark. He squatted and breathed in the smell of alcohol. In doing this, he spotted the soaked cloth half-buried in the dirt. Two-and-two came together. Someone had tried to set fire to his Jail.

Son of a bitch.

He stomped up to the front door, grinding a shard of glass beneath his heel as he did. Lamplight shone behind the ancient glass as he reached the door and pulled it open. Within, all was as he had left it. There was Jennie, sat at her desk, feet propped up on it as per usual. The rising indignation and anger faded and became a moment's confusion. It got worse when he got a better look at his Deputy. The tops of her boots were wet, like something had spilled on them. She had a hand resting on her knee. The knuckles were bruised, one torn just a little. She held a damp rag in her other hand that she had pressed to her lip. He saw the glint of fresh blood just beyond it. “Hey, boss.” she greeted, moving her lips as little as possible. “He got me pretty good 'fore I got 'im to drop th' bottle.”

“He?” he repeated dumbly. Jennie waved her bruised-knuckle hand towards the cells. Cells, he noted, that had a new occupant. Elijah was still there, still and silent and staring, bone-pale eyes fixed on Caff. He waited for the rush of fear to come, now that he was back in the vampire's presence. It didn't. Confused, it took him a moment to look the occupant of the cell opposite Elijah's. Rupert Wagner sat hunched on the cot, swaying and glass-eyed. The man was clearly drunk as all hell. He had dried blood on his upper lip and a dent in his nose. A pair of fresh black eyes bloomed on either side of it.

“Oh,” Caff said, “him.”

- - -

As he digested the scene, Caff found himself with yet another question in need of an answer. That question being, “What in all of hell was he thinking?”

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Jennie gave an eloquent shrug. She pulled the rag away, frowned at the small spot of blood that stained it, and put it back. He grunted in reply. Sure, drink made people stupid. Stupid people did stupid things. He just wasn't sure there was a state of such inebriation where arson becomes a good idea for an evening's fun. Attempted arson, in this instance, but that more due to the flesh being weaker than the spirit willing.

“Just...tell me.” he said, sighing. So she did.

An hour or two after he'd left, the unnatural – or very natural, depending on one's point of view – fear that came from being close to Elijah had started getting under Jennie's skin. By her word, she had done her best to overcome, and he did not doubt her at all, but she found herself unable before too long had passed. So, round about sundown, she had reached the end of her rope and left. Not too far, she assured him, just to the porch out front. She had figured that putting a wall between them and some fresh air would help stop her hands shaking. So she'd sat herself on the stairs and watched the passers-by until that happened.

Not long after that, a fuss had kicked up at O'Neil's. A not uncommon thing, and usually not one that required any kind of official presence. She had still wanted to go up and have a look, just in case, but she had figured that between a vampire murder suspect and a drunken argument, the vampire took precedence. He agreed. The fuss, which was mostly shouting, shoving, and such, was resolved when the instigator was roundly ejected from the premises. From where she sat, details had been impossible to notice. Their staggering drunkenness had not.

His thoughts went back to the way Ruby's corpse had staggered after the living, clawing at them with the broken nails of her one remaining hand. He kept it to himself.

Watching the drunk battle the forces of gravity had been amusing enough, fortifyingly human enough, that she had found herself ready to return. In all the hours she'd watched him, Elijah hadn't moved nor spoken once. The stone-stillness of his had been no small part of why she had been driven outside. With the fear lessened by just enough, she had found herself in a state of tense boredom. There were no books in the Jail – not entertaining ones, anyway – and she had not been about to take a nap or strike up a conversation. So a tense, boring sit in silence had been her chosen course.

It was that silence, broken only by her breathing and the muffled drum of her fingertips on her leg, that had let her pick out the sounds of muffled swearing coming from beyond the front door. She'd risen to go have a look, inordinately grateful to have something to do, when Elijah had broken the silence in truth by speaking. “Oh, lord,” the vampire had muttered, “him.”

Caff found it more than passing strange to have a moment of such solidarity with a vampire, especially one at the very least a person of extreme interest in a gruesome murder, but there he was.

If Elijah had spoken at any second before this, Jennie figured, it would have been enough to scare her out of her boots. Instead, she had dismissed him and gone to have a look. She found a man fighting a losing battle to keep a handkerchief in the open mouth of a half-filled bottle of whiskey. It hadn't taken long for two-and-two to come together for her, and she had intervened. First, conversationally, by trying to figure out who he was and what he thought he was doing. That hadn't worked, on account of the man being fixated on his efforts, so she had tried again, and louder.

The response she had gotten was too slurred to understand. So, she had tried to take the bottle. That was when he'd hit her. Popped her right in the mouth. The tension she had been sitting on all afternoon snapped like a wire pulled too tight and she hauled off and laid him out in one punch. Then she'd hauled him into cell number two, found a rag and bucket, and started tending to her lip. Not too terribly long after, Caff had returned.

With the story told, Caff found himself staring at Rupert again. As a consequence, he caught a glimpse of the very slight upturn to Elijah's mouth. Again, a moment of solidarity with the vampire. A lot of what he felt in that moment could be summarized in one question. The same question, as luck would have it. “What in all hell was he thinking?!” Jennie made to answer and he waved her off. “I know, I know. Just...” he trailed off and clicked his tongue. “It don't make sense. I just don't get it.”

“What's not to get?” Jennie asked carefully, speaking around the rag. “Drunk on liquor and heroism, figures he'll do what law won't. Big hero moment. Keys to the town.” She waved her bruised-knuckle hand. “You know.”

Belatedly, he realized he hadn't asked about her health at all, which he really ought to have started with. “You okay?” he asked. “Sure that lip o' yours don't need Crabtree to look at?”

She shook her head. “It's fine. Ain't my first split lip.” Then she nodded, as if declaring the matter settled. “How'd it go up at Booke's?” she asked.

He tried for a moment to find the right words to describe just what he'd experience. To say, as best he could, how it had gone. He utterly, horribly failed. “Well enough,” he said, after that moment. He looked over at his two prisoners. Rupert was too drunk to even think of eavesdropping, let alone try it. Elijah – by Jennie's testimony – had not only heard the man cussing from some forty foot through a solid wall, but also known who it was. Trying to get outside his hearing would probably be more effort than it was worth. So he just told her. “Figured out who the culprit is. Culprits, I should say.”

“Oh? You did?” Jennie's brow went up in clear surprise. “Well, shit, who was it?”

He jerked his chin at the cells. “Them.”

She twisted in her seat to look where he'd gestured. He had thought she looked surprised before, and she had, but now the shock was clear in every line of her. She turned back to him. “Them?” He nodded, humming his confirmation. The shock and surprise gave way to a sort of triumphant vindication. “Well, don't that just beat all?” she said softly.

“Don't it just,” he agreed. “There's more.” She grunted to show she was listening. He ran her through what he'd learned and, more importantly, how, finishing with, “I just...I'm not convinced that Rupert has the mind to come up with all this, and mess with shadows and folks' minds besides.”

“But...” she drew the word out, “you said you saw him doin' it. Said Elijah and the shadow listened to him.”

He nodded. “I did.” He crossed his arms and leaned his hip against her desk. “And they did, it's just – I don't know. I think there's more to this.”

Jennie gazed at her boots for a thoughtful moment. He was content to let her. “The Swanson boy?” she asked. He gave her a doubting look. “I know, I know. Had to ask. We ought to talk to him, anyways. He was there. Even if he was run off before – before it got started.”

He agreed, and said as much. Then kept going with, “Not now, though.”

“No?” She challenged. “Why not?”

It galled him to admit it, but he had to. It was weighing him down more with each passing second, fogging up his brain. Soon, he'd start making mistakes. He'd be shocked if he hadn't already. Quietly, he answered, “It's late. But, more than that...won't be long now 'fore I been awake for two days. I need to rest, Jennie.”

“You goin' home?” she asked.

He shook his head, “And leave you here with them?”

“I can deal.”

He believed her. He truly did. “I know,” he told her. Her brow went up, and she looked fit to start arguing. “I do. If I'm right, and there's someone else out and free who's in charge of all this, maybe they send more. To clean up their mess, or...something. If that happens, I want to be here for it. So..I will be.”

She looked at him for a long moment, then shrugged. “It's your back.”

He groaned, starting over to his desk. “Don't remind me.” It was true that he'd be a sore, stiff mess come morning. The counter to that was that he'd be rested. For that, he'd seriously consider being shot in trade. He dropped into his chair and pulled his boots off, sighing as his aching feet were freed. He put his feet up and tilted his head back. He closed his eyes.