XXIII

It was strange. He felt good. After having been so miserable for so long, it was taking some getting used to. There was a world of difference in feeling fine and actually being it. He landed square in the latter. The pain that had encompassed his entire body had faded into a distant aching. It was the paste that had done it. That strange smelling stuff the Widow Booke had carried in a glass jar was responsible for this. She had scooped it out with wrinkled, gnarled fingers and pressed it into the worst of his injuries. The scent had sharpened upon contact with his skin before fading out. A stinging sharpness had spread from those points of contact in waves across his body.

He and Barney had watched, struck dumb, at the healing this paste accomplished. Purple bruises brightened to a far uglier, but more recovered, yellow-green. Numerous scrapes and small cuts closed over and left no sign of their presence behind. The hole in his hand had closed itself from the inside out. First the flesh beneath, then the skin. Same thing with his leg. It was strange to watch. It was beyond strange to feel. A sort of itchy-heat mixed with numbed cold. Made no kind of sense. Worked though, and well. He could sit up now, under his own power even, and had done. For a moment, he'd just reveled in it, before the Widow had repeated her warning. “A day,” she'd said, fixing him with her blind, piercing eyes. “Maybe less. You're in for it after.”

“Thank you,” he'd answered. “This'll be done long before.”

She had grunted. Whether it was in disbelief or acknowledgment of his intent, he didn't know. Had no way to tell, really. She'd turned her gaze on Barney, who had stood to like he was under inspection. Chin up, shoulders back. It would have been funny, if not for the fact of the Widow. Caff understood his reaction. “He'll need you then,” she had said. “be ready for it.”

“I–” Barney had to clear his throat to answer. “I shall be, ma'am.”

The Widow Booke had grumbled, this time clearly in doubt, which Caff found unfair. He didn't say anything about it. When he had gone to, she had flicked those eyes over to him and he'd found himself reluctant to say anything. Then she had left, gone back up to her lonely house out on the edge of town.

Only after he was certain she was gone did Barney allow himself to relax. A full-bodied sigh accompanied him slumping next to Caff on the table. “I find myself at, hm...rather a loss for words. Has she always been so...?” he trailed off and waved a hand aimlessly.

Caff snorted. “Just about.” he answered. Barney's quiet, dismayed 'oh' went unremarked on as Caff looked from his until-recently bad leg to the floor. He would have to put her healing to the test sooner or later. Though he would rather it be later, time was not on his side. With a gentle, ginger slide he put his feet on the ground. He took most of his weight on his hands, still braced on the tabletop, and slowly let himself stand fully upon his feet. There had been some twinge of something from deep within his leg. A promise of what awaited him at the end of all this, but it held. He held.

A little smile spread across his face. He turned a circle and came to a halt facing Barney, who wore a look of – at the very least – worry, curiousity, and expectance. “Well?” he'd asked. “How does it feel?”

Caff took a step, then another. There was a hitch to his stride, turning an even pace to an uneven limp. He wouldn't be going fast, but he'd be going, and that was what mattered. He looked over himself and the tattered, bloodstained, ash-covered, sweat-through remnants of his pajamas. “I'm gonna need some clothes,” he said. He had a deputy to find.

- - -

The clothes that Barney had found for him did not quite fit. Long where they should be short, short where they should be long, an irritating chafe in his armpit. It was close enough, and therefore good enough, to be getting on with. So he did. Stepped out into the gray-dawn, the lightening hour between night and true sunrise. There was a pallor of smoke hanging heavily in the air. He could taste it on his tongue, faint but present. He could see no more of it rising and assumed that Leland's bucket brigadiers had been successful in keeping the fire contained. Something would have to be done to show his appreciation for that.

It wouldn't be long now before a strong gust would skip in out of the desert and blow the smoke away. Until then it would loom and make the town's mood seem sullen and withdrawn. What few people he saw in his search for Jennie were thickly coated in soot, ash, and exhaustion. Most who saw him did not seem to register it. Their reddened, aching eyes slid across him as they trudged to a well-earned rest. Those who did see him seemed to disbelieve it, for which he could not blame them. He had been near to death's door when last seen, or at least looked it. They had seen that. The mix of blood, sweat, and ash covering him. His injuries, glistening wetly in the firelight. They may have seen by now the charred remains of the corpse-thing that had started all this. That he'd fired his house to destroy.

A man on death's door. One who couldn't move at all on his own, yet here he was doing that exact thing. Not a picture of health, not at all, but whole. No wonder they wouldn't believe it. He barely did, and he could feel the reckoning that Widow Booke had promised. Not more than a feeling, a slight inclination. The barest hint of cold air that heralded a storm.

He wondered what they thought of him like this. What stories were being built in their heads. He couldn't stop to chat, exactly, and did not have the words to explain things anyway. So he kept his quiet. Besides, he kind of liked the idea of there being stories about him. Good ones, that is. How he could be near-to dying in one moment and back on his feet in the next. How he could walk through an inferno and come out alive. The legend of Addison Caffey. He snorted. That'd be something. He imagined the tale of Calavera's indestructible Sheriff for a moment.

Then he pushed it all away. Lots to do, and less time to do it by the second. He thought on where Jennie and – hopefully – Claudia could have gone off to. The Jail was right out, on account of that being where Elijah was. Jennie wouldn't go back there unless she had to, and she hadn't. Milton's was shut, so that was out. They could have gone to a house, hers or Claudia's, but that was a pretty far walk. No, he'd bet on them being somewhere near to Barney's. Library was shut, too.

He turned down the street that led to the schoolhouse and found himself to be correct, for there they were. Seated shoulder-to next to each other, leaning a little, on the front steps. There was a quietness to them, a companionable sort of silence that tended to follow the saying of what needed to be. Claudia looked tired. It was there in the sink of her eyes and the sag of her head. Worn-out, too. She was holding herself like one good strike would just break through, then all of hell would rain down. There was also a kind of satisfaction.

Jennie managed to look better and worse. She was not nearly as tense and angered as she had been, but there was a defeat to her that he did not like to see. He had played a part in that, and no small one. There was resolve in her now. It was in her shoulders and her tired, reddened eyes. Also a quiet gratitude in her lean against Claudia's shoulder.

It was Claudia who saw him first, limping their way. He lifted a hand as her eyes widened. She nudged Jennie, who'd been studying her boots, with a sharp elbow. Both sets of eyes upon him now, each with surprise writ large across them. It was Jennie who broke the silence. Hesitant, almost disbelieving, she asked, “You – how?”

He had to smile a little. There was just a touch of amusement in seeing them both dumbfounded like this. “Widow Booke came by after you left,” he answered. “She set me right.”

“Oh,” This seemed to help Jennie somewhat and Claudia not at all. Jennie cleared her throat, nodded, and, “It's...you back on your feet?”

“For now,” he said. “won't last forever, this.”

She grunted and a glimmer of relief crossed her face before being shuttered. “How long?”

“A day,” he echoed the Widow's warning, “more or less.” Claudia broke her own silence by barreling into him and seizing him into a hug. He returned it, feeling a shuddered breath escaping her. “I'm all right,” he reassured her in a quiet murmur. “I'm all right.”

“I am not,” she answered, muffled by his borrowed shirt. Another shuddered breath escaped her. “I am very much not, I–” She cut herself off and, if it were possible, held him tighter. With each breath, he could feel the tension leaving her. She didn't hold herself in that way now, no longer quite so brittle. After pushing him to arm's length she looked him up and down. “You will never do that again,” she ordered.

“I will not,” he agreed. He was in no real hurry to experience any of that again. Unfortunately, he was in a hurry overall. “I'm sorry,” he said, “we got to go.”

“Do you?” she asked, searching him. “Haven't you done enough?”

He had, sort of. For some people with his job, it'd be more than enough. They'd be happy to kick up their feet and send Rupert Wagner to trial. Hell, there'd be some who'd just hang him there and then. He would not be like that. More than that, he could not be. He wanted to know why. To look Artemus Talmadge in the eye and learn his reason, his motive, for all of this. “It ain't done,” he answered. “not yet.” He turned to Jennie, who had sort of stood aside for this, and asked, “How fast can you get our horses saddled and ready?”

Jennie clicked her tongue, brows thoughtful. “Fifteen minutes?” she guessed. “Twenty if you want me to fetch us some higher-caliber stuff.”

With the corpse-thing's bulk in his mind's eye, he answered, “Oh, I do. Load slugs this time, though.”

This earned him a roll of her eyes. “Bringin' both, and plenty,” she said. She stopped on her way past, hand twitching at her side. There was a quiet moment before, hesitant, she said, “Glad you're okay,” and was gone before he could reply.

It was himself and Claudia then, in front of the empty schoolhouse. “Haven't you done enough?” she asked again. There was a something soft, almost pleading in it. “You have the killer, I thought – I thought it'd be done after this.”

Oh, if only. If only. “Job's not done.” he answered. “There's more to it, we think.”

Claudia nodded. “You said that.” she forced a laugh and faked a smile before saying, “I'm being silly, I suppose.” the smile left quickly. “That was – you were – there was so much blood. I can't stop seeing it.”

“I know,” he said. “I'm sorry.” It was inadequate. It was all he had. “I'm real sorry.” This was why he had fought so hard to live, when dying would have been easier. It would have only been easier for him. What he saw, openly in her and barely hidden in Jennie, he could only call fear of loss' pain. For them to experience it because of him was unconscionable. He would not have it.

“I know,” she echoed softly. “I just–” she stopped to clear her throat. “I wish...none of this was happening.” He grunted. He didn't really know what to say. Didn't have the words to make her okay. Maybe there weren't any. “Addison?” She had a strange look in her eye, hard and fierce. “You come back, hear? I don't care how. You come back.”

“I–” he began to promise that he would, but was interrupted.

“No,” she shook her head, hair shaking to-and-fro. “You promise me. I...I'm not burying anyone else. Not one more. So you promise.” That look. He couldn't name it. It was familiar, in a way, but the name of it wasn't.

It fell easily from his lips. “I will,” he promised. “me and Jennie both. We'll come back alive.”

“Good.” She said, declaring the matter settled with a nod. Then, “you can shoot Talmadge, though. Him, I won't mind seeing buried.” He snorted a laugh and she smiled just a little. Then they went and sat on the front steps of the school, shoulder-to, leaning into each other a little. There was a quietness to them, a companionable sort of silence that came after saying what was needed. It was only broken when Jennie returned.