Grey Grim

Philip Avdey

He swung.

The axe made a dull thunk as it split the log in two, sending both halves spinning away. Cain grunted, whistled out a heavy breath, then hefted the axe back up onto his shoulder. Hell, he was tired. 

He inhaled deeply and looked around. It was alright, though, being tired, when the surroundings looked as pretty as this, and the air felt so chill and fresh in his nostrils. The sky was clear and bright blue, not a trace of cloud, though the sun was still cold with the shadow of winter, and the slopes and mountainsides that spread out before Cain’s cabin were dusted with snow and ice. He wore a thin shirt, torn a little, and sleeveless. He’d gotten used to the cold after all these years, and didn’t much mind it these days.

Cain scratched at his chin, his grey mane of a beard tickling him where it stuck to the sweat on his skin, spat, shot one more good look at the surrounding beauty, and got back to it. 

Heft the axe up, breath in, thunk, breathe out, place a new log, and repeat. Over and over again, Cain went at it. Up and down, up and down, heft and slam. 

Thunk. 

Thunk.

Thunk.

The crack of a gunshot. 

Cain could hear it as if it had gone off in his ear, just as he slammed the axe down again. He blinked, back in those times all those years ago. He had a revolver in his hand, a hat on his head, and a bandana around his face. He had people at gunpoint, and he was laughing. He was sitting around a fire and singing, he was speaking with Old Barry and Jesse and Harry Golding, getting right drunk with them. He was watching the lawmen burst out of the woods with flashes and smoke, and he was running, running. 

Can’t run. 

“Cain?”

He blinked. Blinked again. Then looked down at his hand. It wasn’t the grip of a pistol clenched there, but an axe’s rough wooden handle. He wasn’t sleeping out of a tent, and he wasn’t robbing nor killing people for money. Not anymore at least. The further he got away from those memories, the more years he put behind him and them, the closer they seemed to get. The more they bared their teeth at him. 

“Cain?” He turned over to look back toward the cabin, where Rosy stood at the doorway, little Thomas cradled and bundled up in her arms. She raised an eyebrow at him impatiently. “Come on, then, there’s more to do than chop firewood. The morning’s almost through and you haven’t even cleared out those weeds we got killin’ our wheat.”

He nodded once, and set the axe down along the stump where he was cutting. “Right y’are, Rosy.”

“Are you feeling fine?” she asked, then yelped as Gemma and Olly sped right between her legs and raced out toward the collection of boulders they liked to climb on, laughing as they went. 

Cain smiled softly as he watched them go, then let his eyes drift back to meet Rosy’s. “I’m alright. Just… thinking about old times.”

“Don’t. That’s not a road worth weathering.”

He just nodded once more in agreement. He never was one to speak all that much, always did reckon there was more to gain in watching than talking. And so he caught Rosy’s eyes squinting over his shoulder at something. Cain frowned and followed her gaze. Then his blood went cold.

Two figures came upon horses, stark against the skyline and the bright sun, drawing closer at a steady canter. They weren’t too far, but Cain had enough time to shout for his children to go back in the house. He considered running for a moment, but it wasn’t like he could outrun a horse, surely not with Rosy and the children. How he wished he’d kept that damn revolver Victor gave him now.

Rosy stayed at the doorway with Thomas, and Cain stood behind the stump where he was splitting logs just moments ago, gaze hard on the figures, fingers resting on the handle of the axe. They stood there, wind whistling, occasional birds soaring across the bright sky, black dots against the snowy mountain sides. The riders only came closer. 

“Do you reckon—” began Rosy, and then stopped herself. She pressed her mouth into a hard line and furrowed her brow.  There was a twinkle of worry in her eyes so subtle Cain knew, after all their years together, he was just about the only person that could notice it. And he would be hard pressed to think of the last time he’d seen so much of it. Hell, he’d be hard pressed to remember the last time he was this worried his own self.

The newcomers took their time, but unfortunately did not turn away from their apparent destination. They travelled on that familiar road that wound up into the hills and fields, through the rolling grass and through the fence gate that marked Cain’s property. They came to a stop only when they were just a few meters from Cain’s doorstep and he could make out their faces.

One was a bit younger, cocksure and slippery as butter as he slid off his saddle, a grin pulling at the edges of his mouth like he knew a joke no one else did. The second rider was older and slower and more deliberate, with a fine mustache and a collection of wrinkles to match Cain’s. Both of them wore elegant suits with ties and black bowler hats and all, though they were pretty well spattered with mud. The older one had a revolver at his belt and so did the younger one, but the latter pulled out a bolt action rifle from the saddle as well, and let it rest along his neck. Probably thought he was quite the man with that thing. Cain would have to be satisfied with his humble axe, though he hoped he didn’t need to use it. At least he was certain these men were not former associates of his, as he had feared. No, instead, it looked like they were something worse. 

“By Jesus,” laughed the younger one, coming to a stop in front of Cain, his partner sidling up beside him. “It’s Grey Grim himself.”

Cain’s stomach sank. He had to force himself not to look at Rosy, force his eyes not to get too shifty, force his hand not to wrap around the axe. It was looking mighty friendly right about then. 

“You know me?” Cain asked. 

“Mr. Cain Chambers, right? That’s what you’re calling yourself?” replied the older one. Cain did not say anything, but the two of them seemed to get the answer from his look, and shot one another a glance in turn. 

“And you?” Cain managed through his teeth. “Not any old friends of mine. Didn’t have enough of them to forget any. Not sheriffs neither, I’d guess. Too well dressed.”

The young one had that same smile playing at the corners of his mouth, but didn’t say anything. One arm held the rifle over his shoulder, but the other one now hitched up his deep black coat and rested on his belt, revealing a badge. 

“Well,” continued the older man, his voice traced with a faint Irish accent, “I am Agent Obediah Murphy.”

“Agent James Hornigold. At your service,” grinned the other one. He was chewing some tobacco, and his tongue poked at the insides of his mouth. “F.B.I.” He gave a good hawk and spat out a brown glob to accentuate his statement, a decent amount getting on his boot unbeknownst to him. As if on cue, the one called Murphy plucked out a cigarette from a coat pocket and stuck it between his chapped lips.

“The hell’s an F.B.I?” grunted Cain. 

“A new agency,” dismissed Murphy with a wave.

“Of the United States government,” finished Hornigold firmly. 

“The government?” Cain grunted.

“Yep.” Murphy let out a breath of smoke. “Sent us all the way from D.C. for you, Grim, all the way here to Montana.”

“Montana,” echoed Hornigold with a chuckle. “Should have gone to Canada, old man. Wouldn’t have gotten you there.”

“We all make oversights,” Cain said, and frowned harder. “Like accidentally spitting tobacco on your boot, maybe.” Hornigold knit his eyebrows together, looked down, then cursed to himself and tried to wipe the stain off his shoes with his other foot, mostly just smearing it. 

Murphy rolled his eyes and then met Cain’s. “We’re bringing civilization, Grim. And you’re part of a past that can’t coexist with it. 

“We’re here to arrest you,” sneered Hornigold, still hopping on one foot.

Cain’s nostrils flared, and his hand drifted ever closer to the axe. “Well, you see, I don’t much like that prospect.”

Hornigold finished cleaning his boot and caught his balance. “I bet you don’t like the prospect of us getting in a shootout, neither. Unless that axe has a bullet in it somewhere, you’re outgunned.”

“Now, now, Agent Hornigold. We’re not here to pick a fight,” Murphy insisted with a calming hand gesture.

“Looks a mighty lot like it,” growled Cain in reply.

“Well, we are not. You see, you’re the only member of your old gang we could find, and coincidentally, you’re the one with the fewest proved crimes.” Murphy smiled over at Rosy and Thomas and the other children, who had snuck out and were peering through their mother’s legs. “A man killed down South Dakota ways, train robbery round those parts too. Stagecoach stolen in Colorado. These were all such a long time ago, so easy to forget. Your fellow gang members however…” Murphy smiled a little wider now, and suddenly Cain got the impression that he was the cruelest of the two. “The Golding Brothers are still out and about as far as we know, except we don’t know exactly where. We’ve plenty of dirt on Mr. Ulysses Hargrove and Victor Calloway too, and both proved harder to locate than you.” 

Cain allowed no emotion to show but it was very, very hard to do so. His mind was racing and so was his heart. He knew where all of those boys were, especially Ulysses and Victor. He’d been to their places before they all split up. They were murderers and thieves and bad men, but so was he back in those days. They were better now, no doubt, and he had no wish to tell these agents where they were. 

“So,” prodded Murphy, as he finished smoking through his cigarette and flicked it away, “we can arrest you, as my colleague said. But, since you’re the gang member we found, and we could trade you for four others, we’d like to make a deal. You tell us where your old pals are and we leave you to your… farming. You stay out of jail, and we get the others in your gang. Any ideas? Anything at all?”

“No,” Cain lied.

Murphy tsked. “Well, that’s not so swell, you see, because either you know something and we leave you be or you don’t know anything and you’ll be coming with us down to the gallows in Helena. I don’t want to do that, but I will. Unless you remember something. Hm?”

Cain said nothing.

“Come now. Your old murderous friends are worth more to you than your wife and children?” 

Cain still said nothing, working his mouth, eyes on Hornigold. The younger agent wasn’t grinning anymore, and his gloved hand was tight around his rifle. 

Murphy stood less threateningly than his partner, but Cain was more scared of him. “Come on, Grim. I know you know.”

Cain narrowed his eyes and looked back at the cabin, smoke curling up from the chimney and his children wrapped around their mother’s legs with their faces all screwed up with worry. Rosy with her eyes hard and set, that twinkle of worry in them. It would be so easy to talk. To preserve all he’d worked for.

So his fingers let the axe handle slip out, and he looked back to the two agents.

“Good, Grim. Good. Tell us.” And Murphy smiled even wider.

Suddenly, there Cain was again, all those years ago, thieving and killing and laughing as he did it. He was not that man anymore. 

But there was that familiar feeling in his chest all the same. It was the same feeling he got when a harvest had turned out poor. The same feeling he got when Rosy scolded him for something, or when his children whined, or when the roof leaked, or the cold got bad. It was longing. 

And now that the opportunity came, it was relief.

“Can’t run,” said Cain.

“Can’t run,” agreed Grim. That old friend.

So it was Grey Grim’s mouth that twisted into a wild grin. Grey Grim’s hand that curled over the axe and lifted it up. It was Grey Grim who saw Agent Murphy’s eyes go wide, so wonderfully afraid.

It was Grey Grim who swung.