Retribution Rails

by Erin Bowman

  I look at the girl, then the pistol in my hand, then the girl again.

  Cursing, I withdraw the weapon and stuff it in the back of my waistband. I can’t do it. Not when I’m finally free of the Riders and able to choose my own path.

  She musta been on the run, maybe scrambled into the carriage for a place to hide. She’s dressed, but barefoot, which makes me recall the empty bedroom at the boarding house, how the shutters banged as we barged in. She coulda been staying in that very room, mighta ran for cover soon as she heard Boss’s shot in the foyer. All them things I heard go bumping when fleeing prolly weren’t trunks falling to the road. It were her taking a tumble, hitting her head. That she’s been out this long is troublesome. Could be she’s close to death. Or dying. I look at the Hassayampa and consider dragging her from the coach and leaving her ’long the riverbed. But she don’t even got shoes on. I reckon leaving a woman to starve ain’t any better than shooting one in the skull. Maybe it’s worse. It wouldn’t be a quick death, the starving.

  “Goddammit,” I say, smacking the bench in front of me.

  The girl don’t so much as stir.

  “Goddammit,” I say again. I stand there staring at her a minute, then finally draw my knife. It’s a bowie, near identical to one Boss carries, with a smooth wood handle and simple guard. He gave me this blade when I’d been riding with him a little over a year, as a sixteenth birthday present. He’d berate me for not using it to slit the girl’s throat, but I’m calling the shots now.

  I shove the tip of the blade through one of the coach’s leather curtains and start shredding it into strips. When I got myself a dozen to work with, I pat Charlotte down for other weapons and search the carriage, finding nothing but a half-filled journal sitting on one of the benches. I bind her ankles together, same with her wrists. My blue bandanna ends up serving as a gag.

  I don’t know what the hell I’m gonna do with her. Maybe she’ll stay out till Prescott. Maybe I can dump her near a doc’s or something and her fate won’t rot my conscience. My conscience. Ha! It’s a miracle I even got one anymore.

  When she’s good and secure, I hop down from the coach step. After making sure the door is also tethered tight, the leather threaded through its window and the adjoining one, then knotted tight ’gainst the wooden framework, I head for the Hassayampa.

  I wander the banks till I find a hearty prickly pear cactus. The pear-shaped fruit is long since gone, but with an extra strip of leather curtain wrapped ’round my hands, I cut off a few of the flat disks and take to stripping ’em of their skin and sharp spines. The plant were prolly ripe for eating a month or two back, so it ain’t the most delicious or filling of meals, but it quiets my stomach some. Crouched low ’long the bank, I gather and skin a few more disks, then wrap ’em in another strip of leather for later.

  Charlotte’s still lost to the world when I return to the coach.

  You should kill her, son, Boss whispers in the back of my head. Before she gets you caught and hung. Or before word leaks of where yer at and I come to get you.

  I climb into the driver’s seat and coax the team north. I wonder how far I gotta ride before I can get the bossman outta my head.

  I hear another voice whispering, but this time it’s my own. You won’t never be free of him, Reece. He’s already a part of you. Yer already too much like him to turn yer life ’round.

  Chapter Eleven

  * * *

  Charlotte

  I rock like a babe in a cradle, my head heavy, my thoughts foggy and slow.

  Forcing my eyes open, I find the sloped stagecoach roof overhead, and I remember . . .

  I’d been awake, dressing for the trip to Prescott while people on the street shouted about fire. The devils were free of that tree. Just as I suspected, the plan was going south. As I grabbed my stockings, there’d been a gunshot in the foyer. Jake screaming.

  I lunged for Father’s pistol and my journal on the nightstand, stockings and boots forgotten. Then I was scrambling out the window. One step on the freezing boards of the porch outside, and a splinter lodged in my heel. Four paces, and my toes were already numb with cold.

  I stumbled onto the main street and collided with a man Father’s age. “They’re in the boarding house!” I told him. Smoke clogged my nostrils, and gunshots echoed in the night.

  He simply turned me around and sent me back the way I’d come. “The street ain’t safe. Go this way. I’ll take care of ’em.” He cranked the lever on his rifle and squatted behind a barrel opposite my room. I ran on. Past the window I’d just climbed from, beyond the boarding house, over a low brick wall, until I found myself face to face with a plum-colored coach.

  Dirt exploded near my feet, a bullet barely missing me. I dove forward, throwing the door open and scrambling inside. With a yank, the door was shut. With a tear, the leather curtains drawn tight. Putting the barrel of Father’s pistol to the curtain, I moved it aside to get a look at the alley. A figure prowled the roof, no longer concerned with me on account of gunfire back at the boarding house.

  I scooted across the bench seat to the opposite side of the coach, peered out that window. The stage stop waited, quiet, no threats to be seen. But before I could make a run for it, someone scrambled into the driver’s box, rocking the coach. As I lunged for the door, the team lurched to life. I barely managed to get an arm out to brace against the frame and steady myself.

  “Hey!” I shouted, banging on the roof. “Wait a minute!”

  The coach turned sharply, and I flew toward the near side. My head struck the wooden frame of the window, and that’s when the world went blurry.

  I’d blinked, groaned, my arm being pinned beneath me. Everything felt heavy and wrong, but the sway of the coach on its leather thorough braces had been so welcoming. It whispered me to sleep.

  And now it has coaxed me back awake.

  My mouth is parched, and fabric sticks to my tongue. A bandanna. I’m gagged. My hands are bound in my lap, strips of leather tied so tightly, my skin has turned red. I reach up, bringing my hands over my head, but I can’t unfasten the gag. It’s secured tightly, and my bound hands are useless, trembling against my will.

  “Hey!” I shout. “Untie me! Let me out of here!” But the words are muffled with the gag, barely comprehensible, and the coach goes lumbering on, bucking and rocking over ruts in the trail. I lunge toward the window. The curtain has been shredded, the coolness of late-afternoon air blowing through. Outside, the terrain is rugged and steep—​saguaro cacti and dry, low shrubs.

  “Hey!” I try again.

  No answer. No stall in the horses’ pace.

  It dawns on me that whoever tied me may have sent the horses running, content to let them drag me into the mountains and to my death.

  I scream louder. Pound on the coach innards with my elbow. Kick at the door. I continue yelling and hammering as loud as I can manage. It’s draining me fast, but a passing party might hear me, and I can’t miss such an opportunity.

  Without warning, the horses suddenly stop. Weight lifts from the driver’s box, causing the carriage to sway. Someone has been driving this coach all along. With me inside it. Someone bound me and gagged me and left me in here unconscious. Bleeding. Freezing. Someone did this to me. Someone with nothing to lose. A wanted man. A Rose Rider.

  I should have fired Father’s pistol as soon as the stagecoach lurched to life in Wickenburg. I should have aimed it at the driver’s box and fired until every last chamber emptied. I scramble for it now, searching the bench seats and floor, but the pistol is gone.

  A shadow passes by the window. I lean onto my back, and as soon as the door begins to open, I use both bound feet to kick it as hard as I can muster. It goes flying outward, catching my captor in the jaw. He stumbles back, cursing.

  “Son of a . . . !”

  “Help!” I shout at the heavens, only it comes out Halp because of the gag. Halp, as I crawl for the door, then freeze as I find myself staring down the barrel of Father’
s pistol. The devil has his Colt.

  “Shut up!” he screams. I look beyond the barrel, into the eyes of the Rose Kid. His tan skin is red with rage, or maybe just windburnt with cold—​narrow eyes, raw cheeks, mouth in a snarl. “I coulda shot you already, but I didn’t! You want me to change my mind?”

  His empty eyes blaze with a fierceness I know shouldn’t be tested. He’s a fuse already lit, a fire already burning. He will pull that trigger if he needs to. He will shoot me dead.

  The Rose Kid climbs onto the coach step, blocking out the light, filling the whole doorway. He’s twice my size. I scurry away, my back striking the far wall.

  “Don’t you dare touch me,” I say through the gag.

  But he reaches out anyway, hooks a finger behind the gag, and pulls it from my mouth.

  As soon as the bandanna falls onto my chest, I spit at him. Or rather, I try to. My mouth is too dry to work up any saliva, but he still flinches in anticipation.

  “Get away.” I mean to sound sure of myself, but my voice wavers. I’ve suddenly become as small as a mouse, prey cornered. I shake against my will.

  The Rose Kid pulls a clean bandanna from his back pocket and moves to wipe my face. Like he’s the good guy. Like he isn’t the soulless monster who killed an entire family. Who hung two women. Who murdered a seven-year-old boy.

  When his hand comes within range, I do all I can think of to keep him away—​I snap at his fingers like a dog.

  “Fine!” the Rose Kid snaps, snatching his hand back. “Ride with blood all over yerself. It don’t matter to me.” He steps from the coach without securing the gag. It hangs beneath my chin.

  “Let me go!”

  “I can’t,” he says.

  “We’re in the middle of the desert. I’m unarmed. I can’t turn the Law on you. Just leave me and ride off.”

  “No.”

  I look at Father’s Colt, stuffed into the waistband of the Rose Kid’s pants. Like he owns it. Like it was always his. I think of my suitcase left behind in the Wickenburg boarding house. My pearl earrings and lined gloves and winter jacket. All things Father touched, all pieces of him, gone. And now his Colt, also lost to me. In the hands of this varmint.

  “I want my pistol back,” I say, staring at the piece.

  The Rose Kid grunts out a laugh. “So you can shoot me with it? Nohow.”

  “Empty the chambers if you have to, but it’s not yours.”

  “It’s with me and staying there.”

  “Bastard.”

  “I been called far worse, miss,” he says. “That ain’t gonna make me give it back.” And with that, he slams the door in my face.

  Chapter Twelve

  * * *

  Reece

  I don’t tell her it’s true. That I’m a bastard born to a whore.

  She weren’t a whore when I were born, but she weren’t married to Pa neither, and those very early years—​the ones I were too young to remember—​weren’t half bad, according to Ma. It was when Pa turned to loving whiskey more than family that things got messy. Ma left with me in tow. She did all she could to keep a roof over our heads, and in the end, that meant being a painted dove.

  I got a few fuzzy memories from the parlor house—​learning to read and write in her drafty room, haircuts at the dry sink, sleeping curled up against her on a thin mattress. They’re dreary moments to recall now, but I don’t remember thinking ’em shameful or unfortunate back then.

  Pa came for us one day, claiming a parlor were no place to raise a child. He proposed a marriage, and Ma rejected him. He hadn’t had the decency to marry her when he got her pregnant, and I reckon she simply saw the monster he was long before I ever did. She prolly figured a life of her own choosing were better than a life indebted to a man who were only gonna drink his weight in whiskey and throw fists into anything nearby. Problem was, the parlor owner weren’t too keen on keeping children under his roof, and I’d outstayed my welcome. He tore me outta Ma’s hands and sent me home with my father.

  I were forbidden to see her, growing up. But I was allowed to write.

  On the night I ran for La Paz, I went to the parlor first. I requested a room with my mother, slapped the coin down just so she could put a grown face to the signature I scrawled on so many letters. I told her I intended to come back once I had some money to my name. I’d give her as much as she needed, do whatever it took so she didn’t have to live like this no more.

  I ain’t never forgotten her response. She was wearing some threadbare gown, shawl over her shoulders, hair half up while the rest tumbled down in an effort to hide a black eye. She looked me square in the face and said, “Nice to see you, Reece, baby. But you listen here: I don’t need saving. I can take care of myself fine. Now go wherever yer getting, and fast, ’cus yer keeping me from earning good coin.”

  And look where I gotten to. Look at who I’ve become.

  I pray she ain’t never recognized my face on them wanted posters. She prolly always expected to be disappointed by me. I’m my father’s son. I weren’t never gonna make her proud. Hell, I’m the reason she still ain’t safe. Boss’s been holding her over my head since the first and only time I tried to run, threatening her life in exchange for my cooperation. It’s why I ain’t never run again till now, when I knew I could for sure get away.

  “You’ll hang for this,” Charlotte says while I secure the door with the leather strip.

  “I were already gonna hang. Now you want outta this coach? Sit there silent, or so help me . . .”

  I leave it at that. I need her to believe that I’m capable of pointing her pistol at her chest and squeezing the trigger. Her fear will keep her quiet, and only that will keep me alive.

  I climb into the driver’s seat. With a flick of the reins, the horses lumber on, continuing the ascent into the mountains. The air’s getting chilly, whisking the sweat from my skin and biting at my fingers. But at least Charlotte ain’t screeching no more. In fact, she’s so hushed, it’s almost like she ain’t even in there. Which makes me wonder if she’s crying.

  I squint at the trail ahead and tell myself I don’t care.

  Late in the afternoon the horses start lagging something serious.

  I let ’em have a drink of water from my hat when we stopped ’long the Hassayampa, but it ain’t just thirst slowing ’em now. We’ve gone some forty miles. That’s ’round three times what they’re used to. Stagecoach teams’re changed often in order to keep the pace steady. I know it well ’cus some of the boys still talk ’bout the days they worked those lines, how they had to strike between switch stations.

  Still, I keep the team going, their heads drooping low, and when the sky begins to darken, Prescott’s within my grasp. I reckon it ain’t but another ten miles or so, but I’m gonna have to camp in the mountains.

  The Indian Wars raged through these parts till just recently, making the land a risk. Warrior tribes combing the mountains and the chance of military troops waiting ’round every bend. But just this summer, when Boss had us targeting the Southern Pacific, the mighty Geronimo surrendered. It were front-page news, big enough to make Diaz stifle his pride and ask me to read the story aloud. But even without the threat of Apache or military men, I ain’t fond of quitting here. Coaches don’t stop on the trail. They ride through the night and switch out horses at stage stops and get right back to driving. If’n anyone’s to come this way, I ain’t gonna look nothing but suspicious.

  Still, waiting out the night sounds better than riding into Prescott now. It won’t matter the threats I give or how tightly I secure the gag—​so long as Charlotte is conscious when we ride in, I know she ain’t gonna stay quiet. She’ll scream her head off, wake even the heaviest sleeper. Plus, if my eyes ain’t deceiving me, something’s happening on the north side of town. Lanterns wink and bounce. Metal clangs and chimes.

  Whatever the occasion, there’s folk alert and mingling. They’ll notice a coach entering Prescott—​especially one that ain’t running on a stage
schedule and don’t stop at the depot, neither.

  I’ll take my chances in daylight. There’ll be more people coming and going, doing business. Might even be best to ride in alone. Leave Charlotte here. She could make the walk in all right, even barefoot. Course, then she might run right to the Law. I don’t want to repeat Wickenburg all over again.

  What the devil are you doing, son? Boss says. She’s gonna get you caught no matter how or when you enter town. Kill her and make a real run for it, or come home before I’m forced to come after you.

  I shiver and pull my jacket tight. I don’t got gloves or nothing for my hands. There’s my hat, at least, broad-brimmed and made of dark felt, with a high crown and Montana pinch. It’s a beauty, but it ain’t gonna do much in the fight ’gainst this cold desert night. The bandanna I usually wear high beneath my chin is still hanging beneath Charlotte’s. I’m now wearing the extra from Boss—​the one I tried to use to clean Charlotte up a bit. Her lip had split and I’d only wanted to scrub the dried blood from her mouth and chin.

  She were so scared of me. I know that’s a good thing, that it’s what’s keeping her compliant, but I hate it. The way she stared at me with such despisal and how her bound hands went clutching at the hem of her dress.

  It made the Lloyd farm flash before my eyes. Bonnie, a year older than me, doing the same on the porch as Crawford chased after her, laughing. I’d screamed for her to run, tried to push ’gainst Diaz, who were dragging me off the stoop, but I were just a scrawny kid then. No muscle or mass. I heard her the whole time Boss took his knife to my forearm. I still hear her, sometimes, in my sleep.

  High-strung and jittery, I throw open the trunk on the coach’s boot and pull out the blanket. ’Cus I’m curious and can’t stand her silence no more, I peek at Charlotte through the slits in the carriage’s shredded curtains. She’s sitting on the bench, knotting strips of cloth together. It takes me a minute to realize they’re torn from the hem of her undergarments.