Levi and the Ferryman - Ch. 3

Sometimes the Devil sat just beyond Doctor Pruitt on the marshal’s desk, watching him with his brows knitted in mild concern but…but it was just a dream—just a dream—and there weren’t no Devil, really.  Just an empty space and the panic that came from having seen something he ought not have.  It was harder to breathe when he slept, pulling in being a mighty chore against some kind of force that felt like it was inside his throat, pressing on all sides of his windpipe.  Swallowing was the worst of tortures, and his body ached with even just the thought of it.  Pruitt had told him to be careful with every swallow—to try to keep from breathing in any water so he could avoid infection but it was damned hard.  No wonder the Devil waited for him again.  It was so difficult to stay.  He was so tired.

It seemed to get much harder before it got easier and each day was a struggle unto itself, his thoughts centered almost entirely on pain and fear and shame.  Doctor Pruitt was so unwaveringly kind that it was difficult not to burst into tears at random—which he, of course, sometimes did—when he thought of just how little he deserved such kindness.  How the Devil waited to drag him to eternal damnation after all this was said and done.

Ain’t there other folks in the world who’re waitin’ t’ die?  Ain’t there old folks givin’ up the ghost somewhere he ought to be watchin’ more than me?

The best reason not to cry was simply because with his throat the way it was, it was far more a chore than it was worth.  The normal ball that formed when he wept was hindered and whatever made it happen produced the worst sort of agony Levi had ever experienced…aside from swallowing, of course.  Nothing was worse than swallowing.  Well…except maybe trying to speak.

Pruitt had produced a set of spectacles from his shirt pocket and pulled the one arm out with his tongue before putting them on; and lord, such a lewd act from such a handsome Alpha should be illegal!  With them securely perched upon his nose, he had fished out a text to consult it as he examined Levi’s healing throat, his touches light and gentle while the marshal put his boots up on his desk and filtered through papers.

It was lucky, he thought as he was thoroughly examined, that he should only have to be subject to these two gentlemen on the daily.  It wasn’t as though he was unaware that he was somewhat of a pariah.  Despite that the marshal and the doctor had tried to keep it from him that the whole of Bridgeton knew about he and Jamie, it wasn’t that difficult to figure.  If they hadn’t, there would have been a slew of well-wishers as there normally was in a time like this.  His only visitor besides these two constant companions was Father McOnder who sat with him for a good number of hours reading from an old weathered Bible and had fortunately chosen some rather comforting texts before he eventually moved on to tell Levi some entertaining anecdotes from his own youth that were far more interesting.  Saul had briefly dropped by, naturally, and promised him that he should not fret at all about any fees or monetary obligations, as he would be discreetly caring for those out of the bedhouse’s charity fund.  He’d given Levi a little kiss on the brow and whispered a darling little prayer before he left and when he was gone, Pruitt had remarked very sweetly that Father McOnder was surely the luckiest of God’s soldiers to have a mate like Saul Winters.

He couldn’t help but be rather salty about the fact that no one would ever say such words about him.

He didn’t see much of the bounty hunter that the marshal had found from Milgrave—a little town from the south, if he recalled correctly—as he was usually off investigating or whatever bounty hunters did before they rode off into the wilderness and maybe came back later with their catch if they were the lucky sort.  From what he had caught of him, he was a serious Alpha with little in the way of humor and a scent that was more spiced than most, like musk and incense with a dash of anise…like a lazy spring river and stepping inside a sun-warmed cabin with creaky wooden steps and a soft feather pillow…

Levi chastised himself for finding fantasy in an Alpha’s scent.  It was hardly the time.  A tiger, nevertheless, did not oft change his stripes and thus he was still prone to his transgressions.  Harmless as it seemed, he became nervous with it, hoping that he might not see the bounty hunter again, as it was difficult to end a fantasy once one began.

The doctor bade him to try to sit up this day and aided him best he could so as not to strain the muscles in his neck too greatly in the effort.  He found a fine amount of success through the tear-inducing pain and the ache in the rest of his body and with this progress, both the doctor and the marshal were tentatively hopeful of an eventual recovery.

It was easy for them to imagine it…they didn’t have to try to draw each and every breath.  They had not subsisted for days with naught but water and they did not have to look forward to making the attempt not to breathe in the next sustenance provided—milk and sodden crumbs of bread shaken into it.

“You’re doing so well, Levi,” Pruitt told him, the praise feeling quite good indeed despite his condition.  “If you’re feeling strong enough, might you write something for us?”

Not great at writin’.  Never was…

He tried to nod but stopped when he felt the tug at the edges of his wound.

Pruitt sniffed out a humorless chuckle.  “Blink twice for yes, once for no.”

He blinked twice.

With great care, the marshal’s desk was scooted over to where Levi sat upon the bed, squeezed into the cell with him so close that there was almost no room for his knees.  They gave him a pencil and sat as close as they could upon their own seats as he pulled in noisy breaths and did his best to bend at the waist so that he might be able to see what he was to scribble.

“Alright,” the marshal began.  “Just start from where things started to go wrong.  Where were you when you realized?  Go through everything that happened.”

He frowned.  I ain’t no poet, you get what you get!

in shed.  pup cried a wile.  went to the house.  caught at the door.  fought.  did not win.

Marshal Embry leaned in, tilting his head to read Levi’s poor penmanship.  “We were right, though.  It was Jamie.”

Levi slumped, more tears threatening.

yes.

“Any idea why?”

He wheezed in a difficult breath as his tears fell and his throat seemed to close up with a sharp pain that had him wincing and trembling.

“I know this is hard for you, boy.  But we have to know.  Were you part o’ this plan?”

He couldn’t help but try to cry out, air slicing out of him like a hot knife as his tears dribbled off his chin.  No!  No!  No!

Pruitt pulled the desk away, skidding it noisily out of the cell before he quickly sat next to Levi and stabilized his head by holding his jaw steady.  “Okay,” he cooed.  “Alright.  You’re alright.  We know.  We know you weren’t part of it.  Let’s get some food in you and take care to have you clean and changed and then we can worry about this again tomorrow if the marshal’s got anything else he needs to know.”

Relief seeped through him despite that the day’s challenges were only beginning.  Simple yet agonizing things like eating, drinking, and bathing were far easier than contemplating what exactly had happened to make everything how it was now.  How confusing it all had become the moment he’d seen Jamie—his Jamie!—round the corner of the kitchen toward the back door.

I remember wondering what he was doing in the house.  Where he’d been coming from.  What he was holding…

Then…

Why…?  Why?  Why?!

He had reached out and grasped at the doctor’s shirt again, rubbing the fabric between his fingers to calm himself.  He had to be calm or he might do what the doctor called “ass-pee-rate” which sounded a bit rude though he was relatively certain it meant that he was gonna breathe in whatever he was supposed to swallow.  Avoiding it had been its own challenge, much of his saliva ending up dribbling out of his mouth rather than down his throat for the sake of risk.

Rainbow ripples in clear spring water, the sound of a crow deep in the sunlit pines, the tickle of high grass over a palm—

“Evenin’ gents,” came the voice of the bounty hunter, low and graveled with travel and hard living.

Levi couldn’t help his heartbeat from increasing and he hoped his scent was mild enough not to be detected for its notes of interest.  How could it be helped, after all?  Such a handsome creature ought not be allowed around sinners like Levi as not to tempt them with their masculine ruggedness.  It was unseemly to have such a wandering eye when there were more pressing matters and when a betrayal of such a hideous nature had been perpetrated to end a previous affair.  Resistance was of no use.  Jamie had hurt him, and as far as Levi was concerned, that ended it all right there for good.

Damn no good son of a bitch near killed me.  I hope, whenever Mr. Knight catches up with him, he finds out I’m still alive and it eats him up inside what he did!

He blinked back his tears.

It would be kinda nice though to…know why he did it…and how he brought himself to do it.  To me?  To me!  His Levi!  His boy!

Knight tilted his head to look over at Levi through the dim fading light of the late afternoon.  “I see we’ve gotten ‘round to writin’.  Anything of use?”

The marshal shrugged.  “Just a confirmation.  You find out much beyond what I could?”

“Not hardly.  He came in like a ghost, it seems.  Now that we have our boy awake and of some use, however, I do have a few things he might confirm for me.  Questions y’all may not have thought about when askin’.”

“Pruitt’s got ‘im blinkin’ twice for yes and once for no if you wanna make it easy.”

Knight strode slowly into the place, the guns on his hips seeming like they made him sway back and forth in a sensual manner that was most distracting.  His scent.  God.  His scent was everywhere and overpowering those of the other Alphas.  If that was all Levi ever breathed again, perhaps it would be worth the pain of it.  His voice was so deep and graveled with his next words, goosebumps rose on Levi’s flesh.  “I’ll make it easy.”

He vaguely recognized that he was trembling and he wished he was wearing more than just a borrowed work shirt and housecoat the marshal had lent him for the time being.  It would have helped, also, if he might have been able to bathe a bit more than just a sponge with soap and a bucket.

“You spent a good number o’ months with Jamie Everwin, is that correct?”

Blink.  Blink.

“Would you say you became intimate with him rather early on after he came to the ranch?  Within a few months?”

Blink.  Blink.

“Now think real hard about this next one because I think it’s important.  Your uh…affair…was it instigated by you?”

Levi paused, looking down at a spot near the back door of the office as he filtered through the way it all started.  It was hard to know.  When he found me leanin’ against the fence one night lookin’ up at all the stars twinklin’ up in the sky and told me we ought to go have a few sips o’ whiskey while we walk the pasture and round up the last o’ the hens what might’ve been late to the coop.  We jus’ got drunk and talked.  Did that a few in between nights before he brushed the side o’ my hand while we was walkin’ once when I was sure drunk enough not to notice and then he kept sayin’ that didn’t I have the sweetest smile and didn’t I blush just like a girl sometimes when I’s got such praise…?  But he ain’t the first one to lean in for a kiss, no sir, that was me.  When he found me at the fence again and he leaned up with his arm against mine and he put his head on my shoulder and said he was so damned happy that he got to spend his summer with a boy like me…

A deep, white hot anger lanced through him and he felt his glare form with the prickle of rage over his flesh as he turned his gaze back to Knight.

Blink.

“I thought as much.  You boys usually slept in the bunkhouse and took most o’ your meals there, but you’ve been with the ranch for a couple years now and the missus sometimes brought you up to the house for supper, is that right?”

Blink.  Blink.

“Was Jamie ever invited to the house for supper before your affair?”

He paused to think.  Then.  Blink.

“They trusted him more when they saw how friendly y’all were.  How well y’all got along and such.  Is that right?”

I guess.  He slowly lifted a shoulder.

“But he came inside for supper.”

Blink Blink.

Knight nodded.  “I hate to say it but I think this boy’s out with one o’ them gangs.  Maybe he was on the outs with one or maybe tryin’ to get ‘is foot in with ‘em and prove himself.  All he mighta had to go on was a rumor that there was a decent stash at the ranch and all he would have had to do was find a way in and then find a way out with the money.”

The marshal’s tone was tinged with incredulous humor.  “And fuckin’ our boy was necessary for this?”

Blood flooded his cheeks and he immediately brought his hands up to cover his face so that he didn’t have to witness any reactions to the statement.

Knight was ready with a reply.  “Quickest way.  He found out somehow that he could get real friendly-like and look like a hell of a decent gent at the same time.  It weren’t no secret here in town that Mr and Mrs. Truman thought high enough o’ Levi that ‘e could’ve been their own son.  If they was friends, well of course he was gon’ have supper with ‘em.  Would’ve been rude otherwise.”

Levi wilted, his hands still over his eyes.  So…I got them killed?  Me and my dumb pecker?  But…still, I can’t imagine Jamie in no gang…?  Maybe he was bein’ blackmailed.  Maybe they was holdin’ his family hostage.  Maybe there was some good reason and he done it out of desperation.

“Hmm,” Embry grunted.  “It’s somethin’.  Well, we got Harchem out here but he’s been trottin’ out further south as of late since Isaac and I took out a few of his main set not too long ago.  The heat’s been on ‘im.  Harper’s been sniffin’ out a ne’er-do-well of some kind of academic background, some uh…”  He paused and Pruitt provided him with the name.

“Vermeersch.”

“Whatever.  Well, he fancies himself a philosopher of sorts and he’d certainly be the type to take on a Beta who’s gone and proven himself, in my opinion.”

The curiosity was too much for him and he lowered his hands to see Knight’s expression, finding him considering the information carefully while chewing his bottom lip.

Embry continued.  “Elsewise, he’s on his lonesome holed up and hopin’ to get on by to…I don’t know…Tahiti, or somethin’.”

A soft silence fell over all of them for a minute or two before Pruitt went and opened the window to clear out the Alpha scents and the warm fresh air began to make Levi drowsy.  He was just about to reach out and make his request to lie down again when Knight managed to wake him up completely.

“So when is he gonna be good enough to go?”

Embry frowned.  “What do you mean?”

“Our boy.  If none o’ y’all are comin’ with me, I need to be able to identify a man who’s wanted dead or alive.  Especially if his intention is to go back dead if at all.”

Levi stared up, his hand at his chest.  Me?!

Pruitt nodded, the only one of them to be unsurprised.  “He’s got to be able to eat safke and beans.  We’ll work on it.”

“Well hurry up.  I ain’t trackin’ no miscreant all the damned way to Tahiti.”