Reaper's Fee (3 page)

The following day, Nick had plenty of work to do. Even though nobody had died, he was still short a few coffins after the outbreak of fever during the previous winter. His father had always taught him to prepare for the future and that meant spending the good times preparing for the worst. Because he was a coffin maker and undertaker, most folks’ best times just happened to be his worst.

Nick had been raised watching grave markers spread across one hillside or another. His father had taught him how to build coffins and he’d picked up the rest of the undertaker’s trade from a few others over the years. Most of his days were now spent at or near Ocean’s cemetery, tending the grounds, caring for the folks who were there to serve their time beneath it.

Nick’s workshop was a small shack filled with fresh pieces of lumber and the tools of his trade. It smelled of cedar, oak, varnish and wood chips, which always brought a smile to his face. That smile wasn’t there at the moment, however. The
stacks of empty coffins outside the shack were only growing taller, and each wooden box was the culmination of a few days’ work that had yet to bear fruit.

The cemetery grounds were immaculate and every marker was cleaned off. In fact, several of the markers looked better now than when Nick had first carved them. He spent much of his quiet time making the letters more ornate or putting a brighter smile upon a cherub’s face. Unfortunately, the dead couldn’t express their appreciation by putting money in Nick’s pockets.

Even though it was a beautiful morning, Nick didn’t spend much of it in the tranquility of his own personal boot hill. There was other work to be done, and most of that was in his parlor.

Nick decided to walk into town. Even though Rasa or Kazys could have used the exercise, there was no reason to bother saddling up either of his horses. It wasn’t a long walk, but Nick took his time. There was nobody waiting for him when he got there.

His parlor was dusty and had some cobwebs growing in the upper corners like moss spreading over the surface of a log. After sweeping them away, Nick rolled up his sleeves and got to work cleaning the rest of the place. He wiped off the display cases, straightened the chairs and arranged the Bibles in neat piles. When he was done, Nick stood at the front door so he could admire his handiwork.

“You should have sent word you were doing all this cleaning,” Catherine said from just outside the door. “I would have helped.”

Nick jumped and reflexively reached for his gun. Fortunately, he wasn’t wearing his holster, or he might have cleared leather before realizing who was there. “Jesus, Catherine,” he said. “Don’t sneak up on me like that.”

Grinning at the fact that she was the only one who could catch him off guard so easily, Catherine gave him a peck on the cheek and walked around him. There was a basket dangling from one of her arms and a bottle in each hand. “Sorry about that,” she said, walking to the display cases where Bibles and invitation samples were kept. “I would have knocked, but I thought that might startle you more.”

“What’s this?”

“Lunch. What does it look like?”

“How did you know I’d be here?”

“You usually stop by here on Wednesdays.” Glancing at him with a mischievous glint in her eyes, she asked, “Don’t you know your own habits, Mister Graves?”

Nick had to stop and think for a moment before he realized that she was right. “I guess not. You haven’t brought me lunch for a long time.”

“Well, I can’t be waiting around for you every day, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t mind doing so every now and then. I can’t stay long, though.” The farmers will be wanting lunch soon.

Digging through the mix of sandwiches and fruit in the basket, Nick selected one of each and said, “I’ll take whatever I can get.”

“You seem to be in a better mood. Did someone die?”

Considering how well she kept a straight face, Nick might have been the only man alive to know that she was kidding. “No. Nobody died, but I’m considering shooting someone just so I can get back in business.”

She waved that off and picked out a sandwich for herself. “Nonsense. The Tin Pan’s doing great. Even though the new bar brings in a few dregs, it’s turned out to be a good investment. We can afford to wait around for the next funeral.” Snapping her fingers excitedly, she added, “Missus Nordstrom looks fairly pale. We might be in for some prosperous times yet.”

Nick shook his head and took a bite of an apple. “That’s terrible.”

“I know,” Catherine replied with a crinkle of her nose. “I’m a devil.”

They ate for a few more minutes without saying much of anything. It was good to savor the quiet times. Being in an undertaker’s parlor didn’t put a dent in either of them. They simply ate their lunch and then cleaned up when they were done.

After packing the remnants into the basket, Catherine said, “By the way, that man came by the restaurant for breakfast.”

Nick bristled and didn’t try to cover it. “What did you tell him?”

“I told him he might be able to catch sight of you at the gun shop.”

That was the second time in two days Catherine had surprised him. Nick squinted as if he was trying to see through a fog before saying, “I thought you weren’t going to have any part in that business.”

“If I want us to work together, that’s what we should do. Me hiding things from you and trying to undo them behind your back won’t do anyone any good. All I ask is that you return the favor.”

“Okay. Why the gun shop?”

“Because it’s not close to my restaurant or this parlor. You could avoid it if you chose. Also, he talked about you like he only knew you from your wild days, so it seemed like the sort of place he would expect to find you. It was either that or the saloon, and I didn’t want to set up anything with that much potential for a backfire.”

Nick was speechless. All he could do was shake his head and laugh quietly under his breath.

“What’s so funny?” Catherine asked.

“Are you sure you never met Barrett?”

“I’m sure. Why?”

“Because that’s the same amount of thinking he put into every little thing he did.”

“And I suppose you never planned ahead a step or two?”

Nick chuckled once again, but at his own expense. “I was more the kind to steam ahead and try to dodge some of the hell I kicked up along the way.”

“Yes, well, try not to kick any up today. If you want to see what’s on this fellow’s mind, I know I can’t stop you. If you’d like to keep things quiet for a change, avoid the gun shop and then chase him out of town wearing that badge of yours.” Cautiously, she added, “You do still have the badge, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Good.” Catherine took the basket and pointed to the bottles that were still on the counter. “That’s sarsaparilla. You’re not getting any of that vile liquor you forced me to buy until after business hours.”

“Not vile,” Nick corrected. “Vodka.”

“Same difference.”

With that, Catherine patted Nick’s cheek and walked out of the parlor.

It was funny how such a simple thing as lunch could make such a big difference. In fact, Nick hadn’t even realized how glum he’d been until the clouds had lifted. Now, when he looked around, he saw a prosperous business in a friendly town. That business had now been cleaned, which made it seem even better.

A bit of Nick’s budding optimism faded when he thought about the other news that Catherine
had brought. As attractive as the idea of chasing this stranger out of town seemed, Nick simply couldn’t do it. There were too many possibilities attached. His old friend Barrett had taught him that much.

Then again, it was sometimes healthier to avoid Barrett’s advice like the plague.

Willhemene Pass, Colorado
January 1865

“Give me all your money,” Barrett said as he stomped into the cabin like a dog nosing its way through the back door. He wasn’t normally a big man, but the layers of furs, coats, shirts and long johns he wore added a considerable amount of bulk to his frame.

Nick was asleep in a corner, huddled there in a position that might have been uncomfortable if he still had any feeling in his legs. As it was, the cold chewed at him all the way down to the bone. He was so cold, in fact, that reaching for his pistol was the first time the young man had ever heard his joints creak.

“Go to hell, asshole!” Nick snapped as he finally managed to take his gun from its holster.

Barrett didn’t even flinch when he found himself staring down the barrel of Nick’s pistol. His eyes were wide open and he trembled with something
other than cold or fear. “Don’t be such a cocksucker, Nick. I’m serious.”

“I am, too,” Nick replied as he thumbed the hammer back. “Serious as hell. And you’ll be dead as hell before you take the money I got.”

“I helped steal most of that, too, you know.”

“And you ain’t stealing this.”

Nick’s face reflected anger as well as pain from awakening his previously deadened nerves. The shack wasn’t much bigger than an outhouse, and had been put together so poorly that it let in more snow than it kept out. Nick’s boots scraped against the floor as he fought to sit up. When he pressed his back against the wall for support, it caused the boards behind him to creak like an old man begging for mercy.

“The only one to steal from us is you, remember?” Barrett said with a grin.

“That was different. That was to get in one of the biggest poker games in the area.”

“That’s what you say about all of ’em, and when the hell are you gonna take my advice? Faro’s where the real money’s at.”

Nick was tired of arguing. A stiff wind ripped over the side of the mountain and tore through the shack like a set of wolf’s fangs ripping through an exposed neck. “What do you need money for?” Nick asked as he tucked his gun under the outermost of the blankets wrapped around him. “We don’t even got enough to pay for a hotel.”

“How much do we have?”

After staring at Barrett for a few more seconds, Nick realized the other young man wasn’t about to go anywhere. Nick let out a sigh and started going through the arduous motions of peeling off the blankets surrounding him like a cocoon. Once the blankets were gone, Nick was still wrapped up in a tangle of garments, ranging from an old sailor’s coat to a few layers previously worn by federal infantry.

“I wanted to go into town,” Nick grumbled. “I wanted to get someplace to stay. Even a back room in a goddamn saloon would be better than this.”

“This,” Barrett said, rubbing his hands together, “is perfect. Nobody knows it’s here, so it’ll make a perfect spot to hole up.”

Nick stopped what he was doing and snapped his eyes back up to his friend. He’d known Barrett Cobb since they were both kids. They’d formed their first gang together. They’d run off to start robbing general stores together. They’d robbed armories and a train together. They’d also watched various members of their gang drop like flies when the shooting started.

At the moment, Barrett and Nick were the only members of their gang still in Colorado. The rest of his friends could have been dead or in Oklahoma, for all he knew. “You got something planned, Barrett?” Nick asked.

Barrett shrugged and didn’t even try to cover the grin that was creeping onto his face. “Maybe, but it’ll take some cash to get going.”

“How much?”

“At least a hundred. Maybe two.”

Nick’s hands curled into fists inside his pockets. “If I had that much money, why the fuck would I be curled up in a ball in all this goddamn cold?”

“I don’t know. Maybe you’ve been holding out.”

“You calling me a thief?”

“No. I said maybe you were holding out. You know…for an emergency.”

Slowly, Nick’s scowl faded and he took one hand out of his pocket. Apart from a few scars and several calluses, it was in perfect working order. The whiskers on his face may have been long, but they weren’t nearly thick enough to form a beard or come close to hiding the resignation on his face. He opened his fist to reveal a few wadded bills and some large coins. “There’s twenty-four dollars and fifty cents.”

Barrett scowled, but it was more good-natured than the expression that had darkened Nick’s features. “I’ve got thirty. Seems like we were both holding out.”

“I ain’t handing it over until I hear what you got planned.”

Ever since he was a kid, Barrett had never been able to contain his own excitement. Even now that he was in his early twenties, he seemed more like the boy who was jumping out of his skin to reveal his plot to sneak a peek into a whorehouse with a
broken window without getting caught. “There’s a bank less than two miles from here…”

“Oh no,” Nick said. “Hell no!”

“What? Why? You didn’t even hear what I’ve got to say!”

“I heard ‘bank,’ and that’s enough. We’re stuck out here because of that posse that tore after us after that bullshit in Leadville. We ain’t heard from anyone else in the gang since then, and we ain’t set to meet up with no one for another couple weeks.”

Barrett listened to all of this without losing the grin on his face. He simply nodded, waited for Nick to run out of steam and then said, “It’ll only take two of us to rob this bank.”

Rubbing his ears with the palms of his hands, Nick winced at the pain that caused and then leaned forward to stare even harder at his friend. “What?”

“You heard me. I figured out a way for the two of us to rob this bank.”

“You must be shit out of your mind.”

The wind kicked up again and roared so hard that it rattled the entire shack around both of the young men huddled inside. Barrett started to speak, but was cut short as the cold seized up his lungs like a fist clamping around his chest. As the wind kept howling, neither of the two could move. When it finally let up, both young men slumped forward and vigorously rubbed their hands together.

“I’d like to see you swear around your pappy like that,” Barrett said as he blew into his cupped hands.

“My pa ain’t nothing but a goddamn gravedigger and he won’t never be anything more than that. I already got more people who know my name than…them that…know his.”

“All right, you’d better stop trying to talk. I think your tongue’s frozen. Just sit there and hear me out.” Even though Nick opened his mouth to speak, Barrett kept saying his piece before Nick could get rolling. “This bank I saw is a little place on the edge of Willhemene Pass. With the cold and all, there ain’t been more than two or three folks working inside at any given time.”

Suddenly, Nick found the strength required to lift himself and all those coats up off the floor. Once on his feet, he hunched over like a cobra eyeing an unsuspecting mouse. “You been into town enough times to gather all of that?”

“Yes,” Barrett said. “I thought you would have figured that out since I’ve been gone so much.”

“You said you was out getting wood and scouting for the law.”

“I brought back wood and I’ve done plenty of scouting. Haven’t you been listening?”

“You know what I been doing? I’ve been freezing my balls off out here in this goddamn shack while you’ve been warming yourself in a fire somewhere in town, which is where I wanted to be!”

There were only a few years separating Barrett and Nick, but the calmness in Barrett’s eyes made that gap seem a whole lot wider. “You would’ve spent our money,” Barrett said. As soon as those words were out, Barrett realized they’d been poorly chosen. He quickly added, “Besides, your face is the one the law’s getting to know. I can still get around fairly well without being noticed.”

Nick’s eye twitched as he struggled to keep himself from lunging at Barrett’s throat. As he thought about that first reward notice he’d seen with his likeness drawn on it, Nick felt his anger subside. “All right, then. But I still want to get into town to make up for it.”

“I can show you the bank,” Barrett said. “We should be able to live in fancy hotels for a while after knocking that one over.” He paused and backed up a bit before adding, “I still need your money.”

Nick actually laughed this time. “I ain’t holding out on any more than what I already told you about. That means we’re still a long ways from that hundred or two you said you needed. What the hell do you need that much for anyway?”

“The two of us can rob that bank, but only if we get one of the local law dogs on our side. I figure we’d need a pretty good bribe to get that done.”

“You want me to hand over that much money to some fucking lawman? You must be crazy. How do you know one of these lawmen is even crooked?”

Barrett stomped his feet and rubbed his hands together as another gust of wind ripped through the shack. “There ain’t many lawmen out there who can’t be bought off. We may find one cheaper, but I just want to be prepared in case we need to kick in a little extra. Believe me, we’ll make up our losses.”

Nick cracked his knuckles and worked out some of the knots that had been frozen into his neck. “You got any prospects as far as these lawmen are concerned?”

“I found the one that looks to be the weakest link in the chain, and the one that’s the strongest.”

“Take me to both of them.”

“Why?” Barrett asked.

“Because I’m going to save us a hundred dollars or so. Now, tell me the rest of this plan you thought up.”

The deputy was the youngest one in town. He walked with his head hanging low and his arms tight against his body as if he was afraid of getting punched in the ribs at any moment. The hat and coat he wore were a bit too big for him. Every time a stiff breeze came along, it nearly plucked the hat from his head or knocked him over.

Main Street consisted of two short rows of storefronts facing each other and very few people walking between them. Only a few carriages traveled the street throughout the day, leaving the sparse
population of Willhemene Pass to huddle inside their homes or in one of the town’s two saloons to keep warm.

A wind kicked up and howled between the buildings on either side of the street, filling the deputy’s ears with a cold roar. That roar was more than loud enough to cover the sounds of footsteps rushing up behind him. When his hat was knocked off his head, the deputy assumed it was from the wind. If he’d bothered turning around, he would have seen Barrett standing there with his arm still outstretched.

“Damn,” the deputy whispered as he rushed forward to chase his hat. He bent to pick it up as the wind died down. Suddenly, he could hear the second set of footsteps rushing toward him from the side.

Nick placed a hand flat upon the lawman’s back to keep him from standing up. “Evening, Marshal,” he said with a grin. The deputy was holding a rifle in his hand, but Nick kicked it down and stepped on the barrel to hold it against the ground.

To his credit, the deputy kept his bony fingers wrapped around the rifle even after the gun was trapped under Nick’s boot. Once Nick put a bit more of his weight down though, the crushing pain shooting through the deputy’s half-frozen fingers was too much to bear.

Nick shoved the deputy toward Barrett with one hand and scooped up the rifle with the other. “It’s
all right,” he said as he glanced around to make sure they weren’t being watched. “You’re not the first one to fall for that trick. Now, how about you come along with us so we can have a little talk?”

The deputy flinched and looked over at Barrett when he realized what had happened. Although Barrett didn’t have his own gun drawn, he had his hand upon his holster to make it clear that he could pull his weapon at any time.

“I’d suggest you do what he tells you,” Barrett said through the bandanna wrapped around the lower portion of his face. “Or this could get real ugly.”

Nick walked with an easy stride and dropped his arm around the deputy’s shoulders as if they were just three friends headed out to get a drink. He kept the rifle in his grasp and pointed in the deputy’s direction. “This won’t take long, and you might just be glad you bumped into us.”

They led the deputy away from the center of town and around a corner. It wasn’t a very long walk before they found themselves in front of a darkened store, with a mountain range behind them. The sun had set some time ago, and the moonlight reflected off the snow.

Squinting into the pale shadows, Nick couldn’t see another living thing for miles in that direction. The street was more than quiet enough to suit his purposes, so Nick grabbed the deputy by the throat with his left hand and used his right to jam the rifle’s barrel into the lawman’s gut.

The deputy looked even younger up close than he did from afar. His skin was pale and his cheeks had the sunken appearance of someone who had been deathly ill. With so much fear showing on his face, his eyes looked wider than the sockets that held them. “Who…who are you?”

“I’m the son of a bitch that’s robbing your bank tomorrow,” Nick snarled. “And if you know what’s good for you, Marshal, you’ll steer clear of it so I can do my business.”

“I’m not a marshal. I’m just a—”

“I can see the deputy badge on your coat, you loco son of a bitch. I ain’t blind. I’m just giving you credit for being smarter than another shit-for-brains deputy. No matter what badge you got on, you should be able to influence your fellow law dogs.”

“The sheriff…he’s the one who…” The deputy’s voice caught in the back of his pinched throat as the rifle barrel was driven even further into his stomach.

Nick leaned forward to glare directly into the deputy’s eyes, making certain most of his weight was behind the rifle. “Make up a reason for the law to be somewhere else around noon tomorrow. Find something to keep them busy. Think of something, or everyone inside that bank will be killed. You understand me?”

The deputy nodded weakly at first, but his head found a momentum of its own and was soon twitching up and down.

“Good,” Nick said. “Now, do I even have to tell you to keep quiet about who gave you this idea when you see your law dog friends?”