by Erin Bowman
“Let her chase this, Lillian,” Father once said. “She is not you, and there are worse things a young woman can do with her time.”
Such as going against one’s mother’s orders, sneaking from home, traveling without a chaperone, and volunteering to assist in the escort of the Territory’s most notorious band of outlaws, all for the sake of a story.
I fumble for the soap, fish it from the cloudy water.
A story that will help you and Mother, I remind myself.
I will not be swayed by fear. It is fear that fosters silence, that breeds ignorance, that causes half-truths to be printed over fact. It is fear that has kept me dutiful so far. No more.
If my career will not come waltzing to me, I will hunt it down myself. I will claim it for my own.
I scrub at my garments until my fingers are raw.
Chapter Nine
* * *
Reece
The first sign of our salvation comes as a whistle in the night.
It sounds a bit like the cactus wrens that feast on insects on the plains, but that bird only sings with the sun. This is our crew, whistling. This is the call Boss teaches all his men when they agree to ride with him. For emergencies and mishaps. In case you get separated from the group. To announce yer near without the enemy being none the wiser.
It’s a dark night. The slivered moon’s doing little to light the land, but Diaz peers down the street. Hobbs sits a little straighter. And Boss don’t twitch a muscle. He’s still staring at the lone man the deputy left watching us. Some guard. I ain’t got a notion how he’s meant to keep an eye on us when he’s sound asleep in his rocker. The local men brought the chair outta one of the houses ’round dinnertime and set it up a few paces from the Jail Tree. They been taking turns watching us since. Most have kept their eyes keen, their focus unshifting, as if they think us slippery enough to wriggle from our cuffs and saunter for the horizon. If we could, we’d’ve done it by now.
But this sleeping guard . . . His chin’s slumped to his chest, his hat tipped low over his eyes. A wool blanket’s wrapped ’round his frame so tight, he don’t even got a hand on his pistol. He’s gonna pay for it dearly.
I hear movement somewhere nearby. Boots crunching ’gainst dirt, paces quick and sure. I can see it in my mind: Our men creeping up the side streets, setting diversions and distractions, stationing themselves with purpose. They’re circling the city like wranglers rounding up a herd—Crawford and DeSoto and Barrera and Jones. Four men can do an awful lot of damage when leveraging the element of surprise.
Their attack begins quietly, with nothing but a flicker, down near the general store. Faint. Glowing. ’Bout half a block away. Several buildings obstruct my view, but it only takes a few minutes for those flickers to become a blaze, flames dancing above the other rooflines and licking for the sky. At the first scream of “Fire!” our guard leaps to his feet and reaches for his gun.
“Godspeed, partner,” Boss says to him.
I realize what’s ’bout to happen the same instant Hobbs and Diaz do. We go diving for shelter, flattening ourselves ’gainst the mesquite best we can as a shotgun discharges.
Splinters fly from the rocker. The guard goes tumbling back and hits the dirt, dead.
“Good to see you, Boss,” Crawford says, appearing from the dark. He tucks his shotgun beneath his arm and darts for the guard. With a shove, the dead man’s rolled over and Crawford fishes the keys from his belt.
He frees Boss, then Hobbs.
By now, lanterns are winking to life all through town. Shouts of concern fill the night.
“Faster!” Diaz urges.
But it’s hard to work the key with such little light.
Across the way, the door to the deputy sheriff’s house bursts open. He stumbles into the street wearing only his night things, but his arm’s raised, and I don’t got to see the pistol to know it’s there.
A bullet screams our way, thankfully going wide.
Crawford turns away from Diaz’s cuffs and fires back on the deputy. As they engage, shots ring and wood splinters. A chunk of the Jail Tree explodes near my ear. I curse and cower, yanking at my chains.
“Dammit, Murphy!” Diaz shouts. “Hold still.”
He’s got the keys, I realize. Crawford must’ve finished with Diaz’s cuffs and passed ’em off before turning to face off with the deputy. If only he’d managed to get his hands on our effects too. There ain’t much none of us can do to help him without our pieces.
Heat sears my neck. A bullet, just missing me. Thank God the boys set that fire farther up the street. It’s keeping folk occupied, and the poor visibility down here by the Jail Tree is the only thing that’s kept the deputy from shooting me dead. Granted, that same shoddy lighting’s also keeping Crawford from hitting him, and keeping Diaz from fitting the key into my cuff locks. Don’t help that our hands are damn near frozen, neither. December nights can get wickedly cold, and I reckon it’s dipped near freezing in the past few hours.
The key finally slides home and clicks with a turn. I swivel my wrists in relief just as the gunfight dies. Looking ’cross the way, I find the damage. The deputy sheriff’s lying in the middle of the street, crawling for his pistol, which he must have dropped when Crawford finally hit true.
“Horses’re ready?” Boss shouts to Crawford.
“Along with all yer effects.” He hands his pistol to Boss and with a pump of his shotgun yells, “Stay close.”
We race up the street and toward the smoke. Already flames are flapping hungrily from the small wood-framed general store and reaching toward neighboring buildings. If’n folks don’t act quick, the fire’s gonna take the strip in a frenzy.
I yank my bandanna up over my nose and mouth. I feel naked without my pistol, and my muscles are stiff with cold, cramped from being chained to that blasted tree. I draw the knife from my boot, knowing right well it ain’t gonna help me fend off bullets. Still, I need something in my grasp.
We race through a thick cloud of smoke, passing the fire with no real issue. For a moment I think we truly might just jog straight outta town, but then Crawford rounds a corner and pulls up short, swearing. “Jones was supposed to be here with the horses!”
There ain’t nothing in the alley but a taut, empty clothesline.
“Musta been forced to move,” Boss says. “Where’s the fallback point?”
“The river. We gotta get to the river. Something musta gone wrong.”
Boss looks ’bout ready to murder Crawford for his sloppiness, but there ain’t time for it. He leads the way back onto the main drag and we sprint past Etter’s, only to find ourselves the target of a couple of long rifles. Bullets chase us from the roof, and no matter how hard we run, they keep smacking the dirt behind us. One catches Crawford in the knee. He goes down hard. Boss yanks him back up, but Crawford’s in bad shape, dragging us to a pace that’s sure to get us all killed. We ain’t gonna make it to the river. We ain’t even gonna make it outta town.
Boss turns, shouldering his way into a boarding house. A man appears on the staircase landing, lantern held out to see what the fuss’s over. He’s young—maybe a few years younger than me. I watch his eyes go big with fear as he reaches for his waist, only to remember he’s in his night things and don’t got a pistol belt with him. He grabbed a lantern ’stead of his piece.
Boss’s arm snaps up and he fires. The poor fella drops like a lead weight. He starts screaming and hollering in pain, and I feel that sharp sting of regret, that agonizing guilt. He weren’t even armed. What was he gonna do, throw the lantern at us? It weren’t a fair fight, and I just stood and let it happen.
Boss don’t shoot him again. There ain’t time to waste, and the poor kid’ll be dead soon enough. Because I’m as awful as the rumors say, I don’t do the merciful thing and finish the guy. I just run after Boss.
The hallway is long and narrow, lined with doors. Boss plows into the last room so hard, the window shutters on the opposite wall rattle
and flap. A gust of cool December air hits my cheeks. The bedsheets are strewn about, but the room’s empty. Boss jerks his head at the window, giving me a silent order. I’m to check, see if there’s someone waiting outside.
I tuck my knife away, creep nearer, and venture a peek. The window opens onto an alley filled with goods, but it appears quiet. A lucky break. I throw a boot ’gainst the window ledge and heave myself out. Just before I hit the street, I catch movement across the way. Light glints off a long barrel.
“Shooter!” I yell to the others, but it ain’t much of a warning. The marksman opens fire from where he’s crouched behind several barrels. The wood ’round me goes popping and splintering. I flatten onto the dirt street.
“Murphy!” Boss shouts, waving wildly while Crawford sends shotgun rounds ’cross the way. “Murphy, get the hell outta there!”
He joins Crawford in his assault on the gunman, and I run like hell. Well, more like scuttle on all fours, staying low as I can and moving away from the gunfight till my back hits a wall. Feeling blind in the moonlight, I realize it ain’t a wall, but a low ledge, maybe for keeping all the goods organized and in place. I haul myself up and over.
I land on my stomach—hard enough that the air blows outta my lungs. I heave and cough, glancing back the way I came. Boss and the others ain’t following. They’re trapped in the boarding house, maybe cornered. I need to go back for them and . . . do what? I don’t got my belt. I ain’t got a pistol to fire. I’m a dead man. Just like them.
“One went that way!” a man shouts. “Toward the stage stop.”
I push to my feet and run. There’s indeed a stage stop just ahead, with a coach parked out front and four horses already harnessed. Which don’t make a lick of sense. No one goes leaving horses harnessed through the night.
But there’s a tinge of color to the sky. It ain’t the middle of the night like I thought it were, but rather much closer to dawn. This could be the very coach the deputy meant to escort us to Prescott in. Maybe the lawman even had the notion to depart early.
Gunfire rings back the way I came. I ain’t gonna live through the morning, let alone the next ten minutes if’n I wait for my crew. And if I try to circle back and meet ’em, I’m just gonna end up shot or back in custody, with a noose in my future.
But the coach . . .
I look at it again, not quite believing my luck. Its curtains are drawn tight. The driver’s box empty. And the reins are just dangling there, waiting to be took.
I scramble into the seat. The steeds spring to life at the snap of the reins, and the coach lurches forward. I keep cracking the lines, urging the horses on, ignoring the hollering and shouting and gunfire that seems to be right on my heels. A couple of shots get fired my way. My experience driving a plow for the Lloyds is all that keeps me in control of the cumbersome coach, and I miraculously make it to the next cross street without a bullet in my back. Yanking on the reins hard, I turn north. Something thuds behind me—parcels and baggage falling off the rear boot, maybe. An empty stretch of pale dirt waits ahead, the last of Wickenburg’s buildings fly by me in a blur, and then the coach is bouncing over the rugged terrain of the desert beyond.
If’n the Rose Riders manage to get outta town, they’ll push hard a few miles, then rest.
And I ain’t with ’em.
I ain’t got a single way to even know where they’re at.
And right then it hits me, like a bullet to the chest: I don’t want to find ’em, and I don’t have to.
I’m free.
Free.
The word’s like a spike, a hammer, an echoing blast.
I do the math. These coaches can cover a solid five miles an hour, more even, in good conditions, which is ’bout the same as we ride any distance in the saddle. But if I run the horses ragged, Prescott could be in my grasp by late in the day. It’ll be the last place Boss goes. He’s sure to avoid setting foot where he’s due for trial. While they’re seeing to injuries and formulating a plan, I can outride ’em. Ditch the coach a few miles from the capital. Walk in not as Reece Murphy, Rose Kid and murderer and scum of the earth, but as any damn name I choose.
I can start again.
Jesus Christ, I’m free.
Getting arrested . . . damn near hanging . . . It’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me.
I slap the reins hard, guiding the team north and keeping within eyeshot of the Hassayampa. I’ll slow in a few hours, maybe even give the team a rest ’round noon. But for now I’m putting as much distance between me and Wickenburg as possible. I’m still the only soul who can identify the cowboy Boss is after, and I ain’t daft enough to think he won’t come for me if he spots me ’long the horizon. And somehow I know he’s gonna make it outta Wickenburg alive. That devil could crawl from the deepest pits of Hell itself.
The dry desert earth goes racing by. I keep my sights on the rutted trail of coaches that’ve traveled before me and pray I don’t bust a wheel.
Chapter Ten
* * *
Reece
Hours later, the sun’s peaked in the sky, but the temperature don’t seem to be getting much warmer. I been gaining elevation most of the day, and still I’m sweating in the driver’s box. The horses’ve slowed, too, their breathing growing labored.
I consider unhitching the team and riding one of the horses into Prescott, but I ain’t a good bareback rider—’specially not for any long duration—and mountains loom to the north. I’ve crossed ’em a few times on those occasions Boss wanted to focus on the Atlantic Pacific for a change. It were a long, trying ride, even in the saddle. I’ll stick with the coach.
Ahead, the pines are bright and lightly snow-dusted. The colorful sight is almost blinding after spending the last six months riding between Yuma and Tucson ’long the Southern Pacific. I’d been starting to think the whole world were nothing but shades of dirt.
I gaze back at the way I came and freeze. There’s a speck of red in the distance, tailing me. But no, that can’t be right. Not with the bullet Crawford took to the knee.
I shake my head, press my hand to my temple. When I look again, I can’t make out nothing. No red, and rightfully so. If Crawford were following, he’d have that red where it belongs: lining his jacket so that he blends into the dirt and shrub.
I scan for a plume of dust, anything suggesting motion. Nothing.
Maybe the heat’s getting to me. I’ve seen my pa before on the scorching desert plains. In the worst of the summer heat I’d sometimes look over my shoulder and catch him riding after me, a rifle aimed at my back. One time, when we were making for Bisbee in mid-July, we came out of a dry, parched valley, and at a crest in the land I saw all four of the Lloyds hanging from a mesquite tree. They rippled in the heat. When I blinked, they vanished.
Then again, it’s December, nowhere near hot enough for that kinda mind trick.
I reckon I need water, then. Food. I ain’t had neither since the sorry excuse of a meal (a scrap of stale bread and a sip of water) that were brought to me at the Jail Tree ’round dinnertime.
The Hassayampa’s started to flow a bit here, prolly on account of snowmelt. It’s as good a place as any to give the horses a rest.
I draw rein and stumble from the driver’s box. When I get to the riverbank, I all but crumble to my knees and gulp down a few handfuls of water. It’s cool and glorious.
My stomach growls in protest. I need more than just water.
I’m a good shot with a pistol—Boss made sure of that over the years—but there ain’t nothing to shoot at. Even if there were, I don’t got a weapon on me besides the knife. I return to the coach and search it, just in case it were loaded up with any food for the journey. What I find ain’t impressive. The roof is empty, and the rear boot holds only one chest, filled with a blanket, some maps, and what looks like extra gear for the horses were one of their harnesses or reins to bust while on the move. If’n there were any other provisions aboard, they’re now on Wickenburg
’s streets. I flew outta there like a gunshot, and I heard things go bouncing free. Foolish, really, to think I could shake the Riders so easy and have provisions waiting for me on a silver platter.
I pull Boss’s kerchief from my pocket. It’s got my blood on it from last night, and it still smells like his jacket, which makes a shudder creep down my spine. I take my hat off and rake my hands through my hair, use the kerchief to wipe sweat from my brow. Then I tuck it away and grab the coach’s door handle. It’s a fool’s wish to think a chest of food might rest on the seats the posse intended us Rose Riders to fill, but I gotta be thorough.
I yank open the door.
It swings toward me.
And I swear.
The coach ain’t empty. There’s a body on the tiny strip of floor between the two benches.
It’s the girl from the train. Charlotte, the deputy had called her.
At first I think she’s dead. There’s blood in her matted hair and a bit more dried between her brow and ear. Her body’s at a weird angle, too, head near me by the door, arm pinned under her own weight, and one leg still up on the bench seat. But then I see the shallow rise and fall of her chest.
She’s unconscious.
The goddamn, no-good, nearly-got-me-killed devil is just unconscious.
A pretty Colt pistol rests beside her face.
I grab it. Press the barrel to her skull. My finger rests ’gainst the hammer, but I don’t cock it, don’t reach for the trigger.
I ain’t a virtuous man. I’ve watched plenty of women die at Boss’s boys’ hands. But I ain’t never done the deed myself, and Boss ain’t ever forced me to. For whatever reason, he were content with me watching the horror and saving my bullets for men.
