Free Destined to Die by George G. Gilman

how he run into you while you was quarrellin’ with JL Larkin. How it ended with you shootin’ poor old JL who never harmed a fly. Would have shot him, too, he said. Except you wanted him to give a message to the menfolk. Tell them that if any of them stood in your way from leavin’ this piece of territory, they’d get the same as JL.’
    ‘Appreciate you telling me all that, lady.’
    ‘Guess it’s the truth? ’
    ‘No.’
    ‘JL ain’t dead?’ There was hope in her tone.
    ‘He’s dead.’
    ‘Oh.’
    ‘It was an accident.’
    ‘Accident?’
    ‘Clinton Davis was aiming to kill me, but his bullet hit the logger instead.’
    ‘You say! Who’s left alive to back your word?’ she was immediately afraid at having hurled the challenge. But Gold did not even look up at her. And she moderated her tone to ask: ‘Did you have to ... to ... hurt Martha and the Engel girl when you escaped?’
    ‘The girl less than she deserved, the woman not at all.’
    ‘We can give thanks to God for that.’
    ‘Okay.’
    She began to cast anxious glances up toward the arch of rock.
    ‘I wish you would leave that and go away, young feller.’
    Two more shovelsful of dirt were moved from the hole to the heap.
    ‘My Festus and maybe some others could be back any time.’
    ‘Reason I’m working so fast, lady.’
    ‘There’ll be shootin’ if that happens. And it ain’t you I’m worried about. Not after you killed poor Mary-Ann and Virgil just hours since them and me and Festus was laughin’ and jokin’ in the house here.’
    Gold was just three and a half feet down and had come up against solid rock. He climbed out of the grave and saw that Gertrude Wolfe was looking at him quizzically.
    ‘There are two people who can tell I didn’t, lady,’ he supplied. ‘But they’ve already told it another way.’
    Gertrude Wolfe watched as he went to the body, carefully wrapped it in the blanket, hefted it up over his shoulder and brought it back to the graveside. Then he stepped down into the hole and lowered the corpse gently to the earth, face-up inside the makeshift shroud. While she witnessed this, then studied him as he shovelled the dirt back into the grave, there was a pensive expression on her thin, work-wearied face.
    Asked: ‘When you’re through with that, you’re goin’ to high-tail it away from this stretch of river, young feller?’
    ‘I never high-tail it anywhere, lady.’
    ‘I think you should.’
    ‘So did Mr. Larkin.’
    ‘I can believe it wasn’t you killed him. That feller you’re puttin’ in the ground, God rest his soul, I knew he was no good. Didn’t know how to talk civil to a lady.’
    The body was hidden by dirt now. Gold did not sweat so freely at this easier chore of filling in the grave.
    ‘He had something on his mind.’
    ‘Killin’ you.’ She paused to invite a comment, but none was forthcoming. ‘The whys and wherefores of that ain’t got nothin’ to do with me and I don’t wanna know them.’
    It was a lie. Gertrude Wolfe was deeply intrigued by this black-clad, slow-to-talk and totally unruffled young man, calmly burying a stranger on this peaceful riverside which was liable at any moment to explode with renewed violence. Intrigued by him and . . . something else. A mixture of things. Horrified and yet attracted. Admiring his firmness of resolve and at the same time repelled by his callous lack of emotion. She wanted him to be done and be gone; yet felt a strong desire to know why he was as he was. When she could maybe help him to be different. Such a fine looking young man with that blond hair and green eyes. His body so lithe and strong.
    The life-wearied and time-lined woman made a sound deep in her throat. Of self-anger. Then felt her sallow complexion become flushed when Barnaby Gold finished his chore and turned toward her, as if she feared he had glimpsed in her expression some clue to her disgusting train of thought.
    ‘Festus and me go to bed early,’ she blurted