by Erin Bowman
“I know what we discussed,” Kate says, dry.
“Then why the hell is that bit of scum standing in what’s supposed to be our haven?”
“’Cus he killed two Rose Riders,” she snaps. “I were in a pinch, and he killed ’em both. Prolly woulda got the third, too, but I took a bad shot and the bastard got away.”
There’s a pause as Jesse works over this new information. I don’t got nothing but a view of the door’s rugged wood grain, and yet I can picture him on the other side. Besides a beard he’s got that he didn’t have when I met him three years earlier, he ain’t changed much. Only reason I can think he didn’t recognize me straightaway is that three years changes a kid more than it changes a man. I’ve filled out since that day at the Lloyds’, gained a few inches, have the makings of a stubbled beard myself, since I ain’t shaved since before that botched train job.
“He’s still the Rose Kid,” Jesse says after a pause. “You can’t trust him, not no matter who he put a bullet in.”
“He’s got the mark on his forearm, Jesse. A half-finished rose. Same as my father and yer brother.”
“’Cept it ain’t the same! Will had a finished rose, and he’s dead, Kate. Dead! Same with yer father. That rose carving don’t mean nothing if’n it’s only half finished and the bastard wearing it is still riding with the gang.”
“He ain’t, though. That’s what I’m saying. I think the Kid’s been in a bad place these past few years, and he finally got a chance to run. That he ain’t harmed me or Charlotte, ’specially when he’s had plenty of time to do so, only proves it further.”
“Charlotte were . . .”
“In the coach he stole from Wickenburg,” Kate finishes. “She came to me looking for the name of my gunslinger.”
“Did you tell her?”
“Course not.”
Charlotte frowns beside me, confused. I can’t believe she actually bought that lie ’bout Nate.
“You shoulda left ’em behind,” Jesse says.
“And let ’em watch which way I rode out? Leave ’em to go ’bout their days with that knowledge, when we know damn well them Rose Riders don’t let nothing rest? They’d fish it outta the kids. They’d catch ’em and get that info, and then where would we be?”
“Then you shoulda—”
“No, Jesse. I shouldn’t’ve. And you know it. It’s easy to say that, but you wouldn’t’ve been able to do it neither.”
“To protect us, I could’ve.”
“They’re kids, dammit! They’re even younger than we were when we got in our mess, and at least we counted on each other. But they got no one.”
Vaughn flinches beside me, like the reality of the situation is hitting her at long last. I’d argue we ain’t kids and haven’t been for quite some while, but Jesse’s implication that Kate woulda been better off killing us strikes fear.
It’s funny. I thought Kate were the one without a nurturing bone, and now here she is, proving she’ll make a fine ma, protecting the needy and all that. It’s Jesse Colton I gotta worry about. I’d’ve pegged him a trusting, jovial fella based on his demeanor that day on the Lloyds’ farm.
“And who did that family have to count on?” he continues. “I were there barely a week before the massacre. I say we shoot the Kid and be done with it, then bring the girl to town tomorrow. Hell, she can collect the Kid’s bounty if she fancies it, but I want ’em both gone. They ain’t nothing but complications, and we’ve always been fine on our own.”
“Aw, horseshit, Jesse! I can recall a time you’d be dead had I not brought a ‘complication’ into our circle. Now do you trust me or don’t you?”
There’s a long pause.
“I trust you.”
“Then promise me you’ll be civil. We can figure a way outta this. Together.”
“How?” he asks. “Have ’em live here forever? ’Cus that’s the only solution that guarantees us safety, and I ain’t fond of it.”
“Everyone’s got something they want above all else. I reckon the Kid’s and ours align.”
“Yer saying he wants free of the gang? He wants ’em disbanded?”
“Disbanded ain’t the half of it. Wrongs don’t disappear when people split. The only way he’s gonna be truly free of his past is if they’re all dead.”
“Same goes for us.”
“That’s what I’m saying. We got the same wants, us and the Kid. If’n we strike the right deal, everyone’ll part ways happy.”
“So it’s time we finally use it?” Jesse asks.
“I reckon so.”
I’m guessing it is some coin I ain’t seen, but it don’t matter. I ain’t taking their money. I ain’t taking nothing that forces me to face down the rest of the Rose Riders. Call me a coward and a snake and a good-for-nothing yellow-bellied bastard, but I ain’t drawing on Luther Rose for all the money in the world.
“Vaughn,” I say, turning away from the door. “Lemme teach you that rifle.”
“But Kate forbade shooting.”
“We’ll stick to form, then, and aiming.”
Dawn’s soft light is just beginning to spread over the land outside. It ain’t much to see by, but if Vaughn’s got the best ears among us and is gonna hear threats while we sleep, it’s damn important she gets the basics learned.
Her eyes dart to the bedroom door, as if to say, You don’t want to listen to this?
But I’ve heard plenty. The Coltons ain’t been careful to keep their voices down, which means none of it’s a secret or words they won’t repeat to our faces when the time comes for ’em to play their cards. I gotta step away and figure what card I aim to play back.
“You wanna learn or not?” I ask.
“I do.”
“All right, then. Outside.”
“Right here. The butt’s gotta be firm ’gainst yer shoulder pocket.” I illustrate on myself, pressing my fingers into the depression below my collarbone. “The recoil’s gonna hurt worse if you hold it loose. Also, quit lowering yer sight to the barrel. Remember what I said? You bring the barrel up to yer line of sight. Yer shooting the rifle, the rifle ain’t shooting you.”
She nods and tries again.
We been practicing like this for the last half hour or so, Vaughn bringing the stock up to her shoulder and the barrel to her sights, then lowering it. Over and over again with the emptied Winchester, only it ain’t getting any more natural. We’re gonna be out here all day. She’s overthinking everything ’stead of letting her body learn the motion and just . . . move.
“Yer thinking too much.”
“How else am I to do it?” she huffs. “There are a lot of steps.”
“You gotta trust yerself a little. Have some faith in yer own limbs.”
Vaughn lowers the Winchester and glares at me, peeved. This tough talk—the same way Boss helped me perfect my own aim—ain’t helping with her.
“When you write,” I say, searching for an example she can relate to, “do you sit there laboring over every last word?”
“Sometimes,” she admits.
“And that works?”
“No, not typically. Sometimes I take twenty minutes to craft a single sentence, and then it won’t even be a good sentence, at that. But other days I let myself make mistakes. I write and write and worry about making it shine later.”
“Then look at this the same way. You can focus on each step so precisely that it’s all a waste. Or you can just trust yer hands to do it right.”
“That is the worst analogy I’ve ever heard. Writing and shooting have nothing in common.”
I motion at the bucket I placed a few paces off to serve as a target. “Just aim again. And for the love of God, quit thinking so hard.”
“I’m trying.”
“Try harder.”
“But that requires thinking.”
I throw a hand up. “God Almighty, I can’t win.”
Her lips pinch into—I’ll be damned—a smile. I ain’t seen such an express
ion since she pointed a finger at our crew in that Wickenburg saloon and got me tied to the Jail Tree, but that smile was vengeful. This one’s different . . . pure and loose. It makes her whole face light up. I ain’t never looked at her proper, I realize, and now the looking’s making my stomach pinch up funny.
There’s a creak behind us, and Kate waddles off the front stoop, her hand supporting her belly. “I’ll do the teaching from here.”
“You just remember everything I taught you so far,” I say to Vaughn. “I ain’t a bad teacher. I know what I’m talking ’bout.”
“Jesse wanted to talk to you,” Kate says by way of a dismissal. “Inside.”
Swell. The man who aimed to shoot me just earlier wants to see me alone.
Kate turns her attention to Vaughn and starts her lesson. “It’s all in yer head, see? You gotta be quicker than quick. Ace-high. The best.”
What a load of horseshit. It’s ’bout getting outside yer head, living free of yer own constraints. Lord help us if trouble comes calling and Vaughn is the only one to hear it ride in.
Jesse Colton is leaning ’gainst the frame of the open bedroom door when I step into the house. He’s got his arms folded and one boot crossed over the other. It’s a relaxed position, but one that drips confidence.
I’ve learned there are two types of men that project this look. Cocky ones that’re bluffing, or men that are cocky for just cause—men that’ve earned their scars and drawn their own on others and looked death square in the eye but still managed to walk away smirking.
I get the feeling Jesse’s the latter.
“Kate says you got her outta a bind. I owe you my thanks.” He extends an open palm.
I ain’t buying it. Just earlier, I heard him arguing that Kate shoulda shot me, and now he wants to make amends? I don’t trust him, but I realize he ain’t exactly going nowhere, and the longer I stand here denying him my hand, the more suspicious of me he’ll get.
So I reach out.
His grip is firm—more a clench than a shake—and our hands bob just once before Jesse yanks me nearer. With his free hand he grabs the cuff of my sleeve and rips it back, exposing the rose scar. As he takes in the puckered flesh on my forearm, his jaw tightens.
“Did you kill that family?” he asks.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Why not?” I echo. “Why would I? Why would anyone? They were good people, the Lloyds. I worked for ’em and ate with ’em and slept under their roof. No one deserves what they got.”
Jesse’s brows rise a fraction, but he drops my arm. “Kate said Rose brought you into the gang ’cus he needed an extra, but I think that’s a lie.”
There’s a pair of twin Remingtons on his hips, just as there’d been the day I first met him. I’m bigger than I were then, fuller and taller, and still, Jesse Colton makes me feel small. His palm rests ’gainst the grip of one of the pistols. He’s waiting for an explanation, and I fear that if I answer wrong, the words may be my last.
But God, am I sick of lying.
Plus, I’ve a notion Jesse already knows. He’s quick to doubt, and I reckon he’s already figured it’s the coin that brought me here. He made a mistake. After killing Waylan Rose, he never shoulda emptied the man’s pockets and saddlebags. He just shoulda walked away.
“You were at the Lloyds’ ’bout a week before their deaths,” I say to him. “You gave me a gold piece in exchange for tending to yer horse.”
“I remember.”
“Boss was halfway through with the scar when he found it.”
“And why’s that matter?” Jesse asks. His face is calm as can be, his eyes stuck in that narrow, unflinching glare. He’s playing out a bluff, still trying to pretend he’s not the gunslinger who done killed Waylan Rose.
“You tell me,” I challenge.
“I remember what I gave you, not ’cus it were important, but ’cus its value were questionable. A standard three-dollar coin, but with the three filed off plus some more gold shaved from the edges. Desperate men do that sometimes, shave a bit of the gold for their own pocket and then attempt to use the coin at its face value. Dumb to file off the number, though. No merchant’s gonna miss that. So I gave the piece to you. Figured you could melt it down, find a use for it.”
“Boss said it were his brother’s coin,” I explain, “that he carried it everywhere. He looked ’bout ready to kill me, but I told him it were given to me by a cowboy.”
Jesse pales. “And?”
“And when he asked me if I could recognize the fella, I said yes.”
Jesse grabs the front of my shirt and shoves me into the wall. I cough out all my air.
“I knew you killed Waylan Rose,” I say, gasping. “Yer the gunslinger.”
“You shut up,” Jesse snarls. “You don’t know nothing. Nothing.”
I jerk my chin at his hands, still tangled in the front of my shirt. “Quite the reaction if’n yer innocent.”
“You just told me that yer boss thinks I killed his brother, which puts me and my family on his kill list. How else am I supposed to act?”
“For one,” I say, shoving him hard, “you can go back to thanking me for helping Kate.”
He steps away, running a hand through his dark hair. When he turns back to me, he spits out, “If’n you aimed to run from them after Wickenburg, what in the devil were you doing at our house to begin with?”
Only a fool would answer that question.
“You knew the bastards were on yer tail,” Jesse says, thinking aloud. “You worried you weren’t gonna cut loose after all, and you wanted information that could buy yer way back in. So you somehow figured out where I lived and paid a visit.”
“But I didn’t do nothing with that knowledge. I changed my mind, killed those guys when they did catch up with me.”
“Didn’t do nothing?” Jesse roars. “Look around you, boy. We had to flee our home. We got a cross on our backs now, just like you.” He turns away, then toward me, then away. His right hand’s curled into a fist by his thigh.
“You gonna get this over with?” I say. “Finish thanking me?”
He notices I’m looking at his fist and shakes it out. Then he steps real close, a finger held an inch from my nose. “I can be grateful for what you did for Kate and hate you at the same time. ’Cus you ain’t kept no one safe, not truly. You wanna right wrongs, Reece Murphy, then yer gonna have to face yer demons. We all are.”
He stomps out, leaving me standing there perfectly still, unharmed, un-struck.
When Boss makes threats, I always feel ’em. He punctuates his screams with fists and boots, and the following morning, bruises always remind me of his fury. Same was true with my pa.
This, somehow, is nearly as bad. Jesse Colton’s barely laid a finger on me, and yet I feel every last word of his speech. Those words hit real deep, in a place that don’t bruise but is just as tender.
I slide to the floor, my face in my palms.
Vaughn’s been right. There’s no running from this. If’n I want a new future, I’m gonna have to earn it.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
* * *
Reece
Kate and Jesse spend the rest of the morning whispering to each other outta my earshot, eyes consistently flicking my way. If they think I ain’t aware they’re talking ’bout me, they’re mad. When Jesse finally disappears to check the traps I set ’long the creek yesterday, it’s a relief.
Late in the afternoon, Vaughn works on her aim again while I stand in the doorway and Kate watches from the stoop.
“I don’t like having an audience,” Vaughn complains.
“Too bad,” Kate says. “It ain’t likely to be a relaxing moment next time you gotta use that thing, so you might as well practice in similar circumstances. Now, let’s get to it.” She’s set up additional targets—her Stetson hat a few paces to the left of the bucket and a saddle from the stables a few paces to the right—and starts calling out “hat” or “bu
cket” or “saddle.”
I gotta admit—Vaughn’s improving. Her form is better, her aiming quick. Ain’t I a fine teacher.
“I don’t see what help I’ll be if I never practice with ammunition,” she says.
“The last step is squeezing the trigger,” I call from the doorway. “Yer learning everything up to that, and if you can’t do those first steps sure and true, the trigger and bullet ain’t gonna matter. Besides, you know how to shoot a pistol. You understand enough.”
Vaughn rests the rifle against her shoulder, frowning. “If you both expect me to live in this charming residence for the duration of my life, sighting a bucket until I’ve developed the Territory’s best aim, you are sorely mistaken.”
“There’re worse ways to pass time,” I joke.
“I can’t sit around anymore,” she goes on. “I need to do something. I don’t care what it is, but I can’t waste a moment long—”
“Look here, Charlotte,” Kate interrupts. “I know plenty ’bout acting without thinking. Hell, I could write a damn book ’bout it. The first lesson’d be that it’s a trail blazed with misfortune and bad luck. You might get what yer after, but that don’t mean there ain’t gonna be consequences.”
“Is there something you aim to confess,” Charlotte counters, “or do you typically speak in riddles?”
Kate is quiet a moment, then says, “I done some bad things in my life. Good, undeserving folk have died on account of my actions. Like Jesse’s brother, Will. He’s dead ’cus my youth—Jesse’s too—were founded on acting before thinking. That we didn’t intend for it to happen don’t excuse the fact that it did. And it’s worth noting that justice don’t always make a person sleep better at night. Not in the slightest.”
Vaughn’s listening, but she’s not hearing, ’cus her frown’s only getting deeper.
The sound of Jesse’s boots crunching on the hard earth sneaks up on us. He appears round the side of the house.
