OverTime 03: Slipping (First 70 Chapters)

Chapter 46: Dead Man (Garrison)

CHAPTER 46 - Dead Man (Garrison)

You don't have to believe I'm from the future.

Garrison already knew what he did and did not have to do. However, he liked hearing that his wife no longer expected him to countenance her fantasy. Whatever trials they'd overcome in the past carried little weight. What mattered was building an honorable life from here on out.

That began with keeping her alive. "Well then how do you suggest we keep you safe?"

"What if I start dressing like a boy again?" suggested Elizabeth, and Cooper cackled out a laugh.

Garrison knew better than to think she was joshing. "No."

"Let's not be so hasty," his partner insisted. "You and I both know, the best chance this Callahan has of getting to sweet Lillabit is from a distance."

"Don't know any such thing." Just because Cooper had been in the same town as Slade Callahan didn't make him an expert. "Kilt t'other four with a revolver. Could be the man's poor with a long-gun."

"Well I doubt he'll ride into camp and challenge her to a duel at twenty paces. If he ain't no sharpshooter, we got less to worry about." Cooper had a point. "But supposin' he can get her in his sights from far enough off that we don't spot him first, then he might be far enough to not recognize a girl in boy's clothing."

Garrison disliked risking his wife's survival on whether or not this Callahan fellow thought to carry a spyglass.

"It couldn't hurt," added Elizabeth, but of course she would think that. "So why not?" If he weren't fully convinced of her grief--as clear in her fallen hair, wan expression and red eyes as in the damp spots on his shirt--Garrison might suspect her of manipulating the situation to get what she had wanted all along.

He weren't deaf. If she'd muttered "stupid skirts" once--usually as she stumbled while walking with that long stride of hers, or had to readjust her skirts from under her side-saddle, or even flopped down onto her bedroll before she'd meant to--he'd heard it three dozen times.

But she was grieving, and he regretted mentioning t'other four. So he took her question at face value and said, "You ain't a boy."

"You mean, you don't want me to wear pants."

"That too."

Here came that furrow between her brows. "So our morality points are more important to you than keeping me safe from a killer?"

Cooper asked, "What's that?" Apparently she had not yet shared with him her foolish theory that proper behavior weren't no more than a game.

"Ain't no such thing as morality points." But as much as Garrison hated to admit it, she too had a valid argument. He appreciated his wife's womanly charms, the way her clothes tucked in at the waist, the way her skirts swung and blew. He didn't much fancy being sweet on someone who looked like a young cow-poke.

But they had few options, if his own defenses somehow let Callahan creep close enough to attack.

So he sighed and said, "Cooper can explain it to the boys."

He did not expect the fervor with which Elizabeth threw her arms around him, kissed his cheek, and exclaimed, "I love you!" His words did not justify such vehemence... though the sharp way Cooper's head came up was likely more about hearing those words from her for the first time.

The surprised way his partner looked at the two of 'em made Garrison feel oddly guilty. But why should he have confided in anyone else that the girl thought she loved him?

"Because I let you wear trousers," he challenged now. But he also spread his hand across the back of her shirtwaist to hold her against him a moment, savoring the increasingly familiar dip of her spine and flare of her shoulder-blades beneath the white fabric. His acquaintance with her body struck him as... unexpected.

"Not even." Elizabeth drew back, leaving her wrists balanced on his shoulders. "You don't get to dictate what I do and don't wear, Mr. Garrison. But I love you for caring more about me than you do about my reputation."

"Our reputation," he corrected her, dour. They were married, after all. "Children's, too."

Cooper recovered enough from Elizabeth's declaration to say, "I should hope that by the time yer family is flourishin', nobody will remember sweet Lillabit's fashion choices on this drive. Or that them what remember will be discreet enough not to mention 'em. We are all modern folks, after all." He actually winked at Garrison's wife, upon saying that. "Won't nobody hold the sins of the mother against the child."

"Maybe I should cut my hair like boy would, too," mused Elizabeth.

"No," protested Garrison and Cooper, both. Then Garrison added, "Tuck it under yer hat."

"But if Callahan watches long enough, he may see me sharing a tent with you, or in my nightgown, first thing in the morning...."

Garrison said, "If he gets close enough to watch fer that long, I ain't done my job."

She nodded, seeming more confident in his abilities than he felt. Then she pressed her lips together and looked down, her eyes starting to shine with more unshed tears.

She'd just remembered again. He reckoned that would happen for some time.

When she turned to Cooper and asked, "Are you really sure...?" Cooper nodded.

Yes. Her friends really had been murdered.

Garrison reckoned his tender-hearted wife would struggle to move past such a blow. He weren't sure what he could do to help her, in that. Just sitting here, holding her while they learned the terrible tale weren't much... but it was all he'd had to give.

That, and killing that bastard Callahan, first chance he got.

Cooper said, "Here, now. I have an idea. How's about we dress Lee in a skirt, use him to flush the killer into the open?"

Lee had made few friends, on this drive.

Elizabeth covered her nose and mouth with both hands to hide a choking kind of a laugh. "Benj!"

"Ain't got enough men left to waste," Garrison chided him. "Not even Lee."

Instead of laughing again, Elizabeth leaned back into him, effectively hiding her face and what he judged were more tears.

Garrison pulled his hardness back around himself. But this time, it felt different. Instead of using it to shut her out, he was pulling his hardness around them both, together. That left her safe to be as soft as she needed to be.

Slade Callahan was a dead man.