Free Reaper's Fee by Marcus Galloway Page A

sir.”
    Stilson put his hat back on and walked to his horse. After climbing into the saddle, he tossed a wave over his shoulder and rode back to town.
    After making sure the lawman was gone, Nick closed the door and turned around to find Catherine standing in the same spot where he’d left her.
    “Sounds like that went pretty well,” she said from the bedroom’s doorway.
    “I think it did.”
    “It also sounds like you’ve got some work to do. Or were you planning on heading out before following that through?”
    Nick shook his head. “I ain’t about to shirk my duties, but I’ll be leaving town after that.”
    “You’re headed for the Dakotas?”
    Nick nodded. “Yep. Barrett’s grave is in the Badlands.”
    “What do you intend on doing once you get there?”
    “I guess that depends on what I find. I’m hopingto just take down any marker I might’ve left and see to it that nobody’s able to find that grave even if they know where to look. If I find something different…then I’ll just have to play whatever cards I’m dealt.”
    “How long will you be gone?”
    Nick felt his stomach clench as the answer jumped into his head. “I can’t say for certain, but it’ll be a while. It’s a long way to the Dakotas and I may have to make some odd turns to avoid cutting through too much Indian territory.”
    To Nick’s surprise, Catherine smiled. She began tugging at the ribbons and strings that kept her dress cinched in tightly against the ample curves of her body. “Then maybe you should see to some of your other duties before you go. A husband can’t just leave his wife for that long without giving her something to remember him by.”
    “No,” Nick said as he walked to her. “He sure can’t.”
    Catherine turned within his arms and pulled him into the bedroom.
     
    Switchback Gil was still in the street when Nick finally got around to cleaning up. Someone had draped a blanket over the body, and the bit of street traffic, walking or riding, curved around it as if Gil were a rock in the middle of the road. Nick felt a little bad, simply because his duties as an undertaker were to make certain the departed weren’t put through such indignities.
    Then again, considering the kind of man Gil had been and what Nick had been doing in the meantime, the slip in professionalism was easily overlooked. Nick came along with his wagon, boxed Gil up into one of the coffins he’d made, and hauled it to his cemetery.
    After spending a lifetime digging man-sized holes in the ground, Nick put Gil under a few feet of soil in no time at all. Since he knew it would be difficult to leave if he saw Catherine again, he decided against taking his wagon back and simply left it next to his workshop at the edge of the cemetery.
    Nick saddled up Kazys, the younger of his two horses, and unhitched Rasa from the wagon. After scratching the older girl behind the ears, he led the horse in the direction of his house and gave her a smack on the rump. She would be able to find her way home.
    As he watched, Nick couldn’t help but be a little jealous.

NINE
    Nick hated being on a train.
    It wasn’t a fear that some folks had of being hitched to a steam engine rolling over two iron bars. It wasn’t a fear of Indians derailing the whole locomotive and sending him to a fiery death. It wasn’t any sort of fear at all. It was more like a vicious annoyance at the entire process.
    Sitting upon a bench that rattled beneath him for hours on end, Nick clenched his eyes shut as tightly as he clenched his fists. He knew there was no other way to get from California to the Dakotas with enough time to have a prayer of finding Barrett’s grave ahead of the treasure hunters. If he’d ridden Kazys any farther than the train station, he would be in for the journey that had tested the resolve of so many wagon trains back in the great westward rush.
    As much as Nick loved his new homeland, he sometimes cursed it for being so damn big. With that