The Man Who Loved Cole Flores (Dig Two Graves 1)

Ned stiffened when he walked into their tent first and spotted a figure in the dark, but it was only Lotta, who put her index finger across her mouth as soon as Cole entered too.

Of course. The errand he’d been tasked with.

Ned’s stomach twisted with unease, but he tried not to hear what was being said beyond their little home of wood and canvas and focused on their uninvited guest.

“He’ll have some in three days.”

She huffed in frustration and pulled out a little notebook and a pencil. She scribbled for a moment then showed him the page.

‘Tom needs to think it through. He was close with Scotch, they’d known each other since boyhood. He’ll come around.’

Ned sighed and nodded, glad that at least someone didn’t want to prod him with a pitchfork. He didn’t know whether she was right or just desperate to get her hands on the medicine, but he couldn’t leave the gang until he was done with them, and needed all the friends he could get.

Cole donned his coat and hat, then packed a few necessities into his saddlebag. He glared at the folds of fabric hanging over the entryway and rested his hand on his gun, as if he expected someone to burst in without warning. Seeing him like this had hair rising at the back of Ned’s neck, and but left together, facing the crowd gathered uncomfortably close to their quarters.

Ned didn’t want to aggravate the situation until they were free to, and he followed Cole into the night, speeding up to avoid losing him, even though he could barely see a thing. The cool air tasted of dust and grief, its expanse so endless Ned worried it would swallow them whole if they veered off the way toward Three Stones. But when a tall cactus emerged in front of him out of nowhere, opening its thorny arms, his patience ran out.

“Slow down! It won’t help the situation if we fall off a cliff by accident.”

Cole pulled on Thunder’s reins, making his mount rear in the faint starlight. Tall and dark on horseback, he looked like one of the riders of the Apocalypse about to unleash his wrath on a world that scorned him. “He threw me out. I’ve done his bidding all my life, whether I liked it or not, and he threw me away like a dirty rag!” Cole said once he faced Ned in the dark.

“It ain’t right, but you shouldn’t have talked about us!” It came out with an unexpected amount of anger. Ned had grown to enjoy his cushy position in the gang, and now he’d be the fly everyone wanted to swat. And as people paid him more attention, his real job would be more difficult.

“And you should have been mindful of Scotch! Haven’t you noticed he couldn’t even ride straight? What happened there really?” Cole demanded, urging Thunder to approach Ned.

No matter how uncomfortable and how full of lies this conversation would be, Ned still prefered it to the one they’d never finished. “Scotch was being Scotch. So I was told. He offended the whores, assaulted the madam, and the sheriff agreed he needed to die. Is it true about the mark on your face?”

Cole stilled, and Ned instantly felt a prickle of guilt over using that question to distract him.

“What is it to you? It don’t matter why I have it,” Cole said, his voice increasing in volume with every word. “I won't have a band of fornicators call me a freak of nature or tell me where to dip my wick!”

Ned was glad the darkness would hide his flush at least. “Exactly. Tom once told me to follow my instinct instead of the rule of law. They had no right to judge us, but it’s for the better that we left. Zeb wants my head on a pike. Let’s just go to Three Stones, lay low, and come back tomorrow. Unless… you would rather not go there?” Ned asked as gently as he could, trying not to offend Cole again, but his efforts backfired and Cole made Thunder face the town’s direction again.

“The blood in my veins is as red as any other feller’s. I’m not afraid of anything, least of all people’s stares. Told you it don’t matter no more. Let’s go,” he said, cutting the conversation short.

They settled into a semi-comfortable silence only occasionally poked with the tension of unsaid words. The evening chill made Ned tie his bandana more tightly around his neck, and a part of him yearned to rent a room and sleep in a cozy bed for once.

With Cole. Even if the mood between them had soured like milk on a warm summer day.

Cole towered over him on Thunder’s back, sitting straight, with his head high as if he didn’t have anything to apologize for. The vile things Scotch had said about the connection they shared kept passing though Ned’s mind, but Cole would have been too proud to let them wear him down.