Retribution Rails

by Erin Bowman

  And all the while I remain silent, thinking how grossly I have misunderstood the boy sitting beside me. He is not an innocent man, true. His hands are not free of blood, but neither are mine as of today. The lifelessness in his eyes no longer scares me. It is not an indicator of him lacking a soul, but rather the very real proof that he has one—​one that’s seen and done evil and struggles to make amends with that every single day.

  Outside, I’d called him by his name for reasons I was not entirely sure of. I think maybe I just wanted to hear myself say it. But now I know the truth. He’s not really the Rose Kid. Perhaps he never was. He’s just a kid, just Reece Murphy. It’s that simple, and that complex.

  I have terrible dreams, as he predicted. Mostly of Parker not dying, but crawling his way across the office floor after me, blood dripping into his eyes, a hand clawing at my skirt.

  The third time I wake, I am sweating, a gasp still on my lips. Reece does not stir from his spot on the floor.

  I abandon the bed and wander into the kitchen, where I find Kate awake too, reading a book by the soft glow of the fire. She must have roused it, as it is not coals, but a nest of flickering tongues.

  “Can’t sleep?” she asks, but I can tell she knows precisely why. I imagine she is no stranger to the kind of nightmares that follow dark deeds.

  I nod.

  “Me either.” She bobs her chin at her belly. “Figure I might as well enjoy myself if the little pest won’t let me sleep.”

  “What are you reading?”

  “A favorite.” She holds it up, and I catch the foiled title—​Little Women—​glittering in the firelight. “I think I done read it a hundred times now. You wanna turn?” She holds it out.

  “Oh, no, I couldn’t.”

  “There’s others,” she says, signaling at the shelf behind me. I turn and find many of the books previously shelved in her Prescott home. “Jesse brought ’em,” she explains.

  I run a finger over the spines, considering my options.

  “Yer daddy helped build the train, didn’t he?” Kate asks.

  “He funded a lot of it, yes.”

  “Try Around the World in Eighty Days. It’s got trains and then some.”

  I lift it from the shelf and sit with her, reading. The protagonist, Mr. Phileas Fogg, strikes me as eccentric to the point of insufferableness, but his adventures are compelling enough and his passion admirable, and I find myself turning the pages in a bit of a trance. It is Kate who pulls me from my daze.

  “Charlotte! Oh, Charlotte, feel this.” She grabs my hand and presses it to her belly. The life inside her rolls beneath my palm, then jabs at me with what can only be a limb. Kate smiles wide, the firelight gleaming off her teeth.

  I pull my hand back. “What happens if Reece can’t make contact with the Rose Riders, Kate? Do you intend to hide here forever? Don’t you want your normal life back?”

  “There’s no normal,” she says. “Not for me. It ain’t been normal since my pa died, and even when he were ’round, I ain’t sure it was normal then, neither. We were always hiding.”

  “From who—​the gang?”

  She presses her lips together, sighs through her nose. “We’re all running from something,” she says finally. “Even you. Yer running, ain’t you?”

  “I suppose.”

  “Right. So you can either be scared yer whole life or you can try to enjoy it. I suggest the latter. Otherwise yer gonna blink and find yerself old and weary, taking yer last breath and regretting that you passed yer years tense and worrisome.” She sets her book on the table. “What is it you really wanna do, Charlotte? Start now. Don’t wait for this”—​she motions at the room—​“to pass, ’cus there ain’t a guarantee it will.”

  She retires to the bedroom before I can tell her that what I really need is a hired gun to threaten Uncle Gerald. But after today, I know I need to lie low. I can’t help Mother—​can’t save us both—​if I get myself caught, so I take Kate’s advice in the sense that I turn to my ambitions for a distraction. I retrieve my journal from the bedroom and write by the light of the fire. I write as though I am already the journalist I dream of being, and I make note of everything worth reporting. Reece’s hollow eyes and crippling guilt. Kate’s bulging belly and Jesse’s history with Waylan Rose. Uncle Gerald’s greed and extortion and illegal bookkeeping. I record it all, right down to what I can recall of the weather (frost-dusted mornings and crisp, arid days) and the landscape (ponderosa pines in the mountains and a valley lined with rails).

  When my lids begin to droop, I pad to bed, my brain too busy sifting through narrative details to dwell on the thing that kept me from sleeping in the first place.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  * * *

  Reece

  Come morning, Kate starts suffering what Vaughn calls false labors. Basically, her body’s practicing for what’s to come. Vaughn’s ma being a midwife and Vaughn herself knowing a bit ’bout birthing might come in handy, seeing as the Coltons are far from their Prescott claim, and Kate’s midwife ain’t gonna be here when they need her most. Vaughn insists she don’t know how to deliver no child, but seeing as she knows what false labors are, Jesse and me remain convinced she’ll be a heck of a lot more help than the two of us.

  Vaughn starts doing a lot of Kate’s chores so the woman can rest—​from milking the cows to gathering the eggs to churning the milk so there’s butter for later in the week. It’s keeping her busy, and I’m grateful ’cus she called me by my name yesterday—​my real name—​and I ain’t sure what to make of it. Maybe it was outta guilt, or a slip in the wake of shock from what happened with Parker. Prolly it is for any reason but the thing I keep hoping: that she’s seen I’m something more complicated and human than the monster stories have made of me.

  I throw my attention into checking the snares that afternoon, happy for a distraction. I aim to ride for the rails early tomorrow. I weren’t lying when I told the Coltons I could do this, nor when I claimed it were the best course. But that don’t mean it’s gonna be easy, and the waiting is damn near killing me. The snares yield two hares, but I’m still anxious and jittery as I hike back.

  In the clearing, Vaughn’s hauling a bucket of water from the tank. She straightens, waving when she sees me approaching, her other hand shielding her eyes from the sun as she smiles. My stomach twists like a wrung-out dishtowel, and I duck inside without waving back.

  The Coltons and Vaughn spend dinner assaulting me with questions, pretending to be Boss and seeing how quickly and convincingly I can spit out a response. It ain’t doing nothing but making me overthink things, and I don’t wanna rehearse this. I gotta sound sure and honest tomorrow. Confident. I retire to bed early, and when they utter protests at my back, I close the bedroom door decidedly.

  I don’t hear Vaughn come in later, and ’bout an hour before dawn, when I wake, she’s still sleeping.

  I creep out to the stables and saddle Kate’s horse, Silver—​the palomino that tried to nip my fingers the day we arrived at this clearing. Kate said she’s a good steed, will follow my lead once saddled. I cinch the billet strap and mount the mare.

  It’s a cold morning. Clouds are hanging thick and heavy in the sky, threatening snow, and a sharp wind bites at the back of my neck. I flip up my jacket collar. From a towering pine, a horned owl hoots eerily, watching me move through the trees.

  When I meander outta the worst of the mountains, the sun’s just beginning to crest the distant horizon. I scan ’long the valley, but there ain’t a sign of no one nearby. It’s good news for me. I wanna be wandering the rail, with no hint at where I done come from, by the time Boss shows up. If he shows up.

  You better bet I’m coming, he whispers. Did ya ever truly think I’d let you go?

  I look over my shoulder, tense in the saddle. I ain’t heard him in so long, and now ain’t the moment I want him back in my head. I heel Silver and fly into the valley. I keep her going at a good clip and don’t see a soul th
e whole way to Banghart’s, where I linger on the outskirts of town, worried ’bout the wrong type of folk recognizing me and alerting the Law. I chew on a bit of jerky I brought in Silver’s saddlebags, drink some water.

  Maybe they ain’t gonna show.

  Maybe the talk of Vaughn’s mishap with the bounty hunter never reached ’em.

  I glance at the sun, high in the sky. If’n the gang ain’t here, I gotta get moving. Last thing I want is to be navigating the mountains back to the Coltons’ at dark.

  Grabbing Silver’s reins, I turn her ’round, and once again, we’re riding hard.

  ’Bout a mile or two from town I get an uneasy feeling someone’s watching me.

  Ahead, the land is flat as far as I can see, and ash white beneath the winter sun ’cept for a small smudge of black beside the tracks. It’s moving. A man on horseback.

  The skin on the back of my neck bristles. I glance over my shoulder, and my heart damn near drops to my feet.

  Three more men have appeared ’bout a half mile behind me, too far off to recognize. But then one of ’em raises a hand to his mouth, whistling, and I know it ain’t the Law that’s done surrounded me in this pinch. It’s them—​the Rose Riders. Maybe they been holed up in Banghart’s, snooping ’round for word of me. Maybe they been camping out here on the plains. It don’t matter ’cus they’ve found me, and while this were exactly what I were planning on—​hoping for, even—​that whistle strikes fear.

  The three horses behind me surge to life. They gain on me easy ’cus I’ve brought Silver to a trot so’s to make it clear that I ain’t meaning to run.

  I recognize ’em as they close in. Diaz at my rear. Crawford to the left and Barrera to the right. They all got the reins in one hand and a drawn pistol in the other, their mouths curled into snarls. To the south, the dark figure is taking shape—​Luther Rose, waiting atop his horse, a hand resting on the butt of his pistol.

  “Boss!” I call out, the other boys closing in on me. “Thank God. I been looking for you guys all week and—”

  Hands clench the front of my jacket and things tip sidewise as I’m dragged from Silver. I hit the hard plains, gasping, and find Diaz towering over me. He strips my pistol from my belt and tosses it aside.

  “Diaz,” I begin, hands held in surrender, but he just cracks me between the eyes with a fist. The world goes starry and crisscrossed as he throttles me again and again and again. I sputter, gulp down air, but Diaz goes right on attacking. Fists and boots, no regard for where he hits. The fleshier, the better. I curl—​the only defense I got—​but my face is already wet with blood, and Diaz shows no signs of stopping. Things go fuzzy. Darkness tugs at the corner of my vision.

  “That’s enough!” Boss shouts. “I wanna talk to a man, not a corpse. Bring him over.”

  Diaz hauls me to my feet. “There’s a special place in Hell for traitors,” he says, and spits in my face.

  I don’t even feel the saliva connect with my skin. My whole body’s on fire, and I can barely keep my head up. I count to ten to keep from fainting, stumbling over my feet as Diaz drags me toward Boss.

  With a shove, I fall to all fours before his horse. I don’t got the energy to stand or look at him, so I stay there on the ground. A crunch of hard earth tells me he’s dismounted.

  “Leave us,” he says.

  “But Boss—” Diaz argues.

  “I said fall back!”

  He does.

  A moment later, my chin is pushed up by a pistol and I find myself staring into Luther Rose’s eyes. They’re blue-green, like a reservoir reflecting the sky, cold as frozen ice.

  “Sit up, Murphy,” he says.

  My head spins and my stomach aches. My right eye is all but useless, prolly swollen shut.

  “Drink.” Boss presses his canteen into my hands.

  Half the water ends up on my shirt, so I reckon my lips are split and butchered, too.

  “Apologies ’bout the treatment, but it ain’t easy to swallow that you been looking for us.” He takes the canteen back. “In fact, it looks much more like you been trying to run. First from Wickenburg, then Prescott, and now right here, too, just miles from where that Vaughn girl done bashed in some poor bloke’s head.”

  “No, I been playing it smart,” I insist. “’Cus I found him, Boss—​the cowboy you been after, the one that gave me yer brother’s coin. I found him.”

  His brows peak with interest.

  “I had to run from Wickenburg—​I were surrounded, unarmed—​but then I picked up a lead on the cowboy and followed it to Prescott. I figured I could get the cowboy first and then come find you. But he weren’t home and his wife got the jump on me, tied me up in her barn. I think she aimed to turn me in for the bounty, but the boys showed up and—”

  “You decided to kill Jones and Hobbs instead,” Boss growls.

  “No, that were—”

  “Don’t lie to me, Murphy! Diaz said you did it!”

  “Diaz don’t know nothing,” I snap. “The woman killed ’em. I heard hollering, and by the time I got free of my ties in the barn and made it to the house, Jones and Hobbs were already dead. Diaz showed up a moment later, and the woman fired on him quicker than I could get a word out. He rode off, thinking I were his enemy. I went ’bout earning the woman’s trust, then her husband’s. They don’t got a slightest idea ’bout my true intentions.”

  Boss’s brow furrows as he works this over. “I only need the cowboy. Why didn’t you kill the woman from the get-go?”

  “I figured it’d be easier to earn her husband’s trust if’n it looked like I helped her,” I grit out. “And besides, she were pregnant.”

  “You always were soft,” Boss says, “but that ain’t a fault. Not really. You gotta have a conscience to run an outfit like this, and you could make a fine boss someday.”

  I barely contain a laugh. “A conscience? You kill women and children!”

  “I ain’t never killed a woman,” he snarls, “nor a child. And I ain’t never forced you to, neither!”

  I open my mouth to argue only to realize he ain’t wrong. In all the time I’ve ridden with him, I ain’t never seen Luther Rose fire on no one but a grown man. He lets the others see to the women and children. He watches, like that ain’t a crime in itself. Like he’s somehow nobler for refraining.

  “I argued with my brother on this constantly,” Boss continues. “I said it weren’t necessary, all the innocent slaughters, but he said it keeps yer boys’ bloodlust satisfied, controlled. The real villains are the ones beneath the fella in charge. You see what I’m saying, Murphy? We ain’t that unalike, you and me. We both recognize evil, and you gotta have that vision to be a bossman. You gotta know the difference between good and bad so you can keep yer boys in line, know what’s worth pardoning them for and what earns them a swift shot between the eyes.”

  I can barely believe what I’m hearing.

  Luther Rose puts his hands on my shoulder. “I wanna pardon you, Murphy. And knowing you found the cowboy—​that all this time you been trying to find me to hand him over—​I can. Let’s gut that pig so you can come home and take over for me someday. Yer the only one of my boys left that’s got the disposition for it. What do you say, son?”

  The way he says son is like the sweetest song. His hand’s on my shoulder, warm and strong, and he’s looking at me like there’s something in me worth loving. Like he’s proud of me. Like I’m a thing worth standing by. He’ll clean me up and see to my injuries and make sure I’m cared for. I know it. He’ll be my father if I let him.

  But I ain’t never gonna forget that those warm, strong hands are the same set that carved a rose into my forearm, beat me countless times over, and stood by while innocent folk died on his watch.

  “I ain’t yer son,” I say, “and I don’t wanna be, neither. I want out.”

  He frowns. “That’s a shame to hear, son, truly. There’s lots I could teach you. But I’m a man of my word, and you claim you’ve found the cowbo
y. So lead me to him, and our deal’s done. I’ll have my revenge and you’ll have yer freedom.”

  It’s so damn hard to not smile. Even with my pulse throbbing in my ears and my body aching and beaten, I wanna grin ear to ear. I stifle the urge, keep my face serious.

  “I can’t bring you to him,” I say. “He’s holed up in a clearing, but the only way is in bottlenecks. Someone’s always on watch, and they’d pick you off one at a time before you even got within fifty yards of the house.”

  This ain’t true, of course, but he’s got no way of knowing it.

  “So . . .” Boss prompts.

  “I’ll bring him to you instead.”

  It don’t matter that this is the plan. Boss’s smile is wicked, and I feel like a rat, a bastard, a bit of slime on the side of a creek bed. ’Cus even with the best intentions, this could go wrong. Even with all the planning in the world, I could be damning Jesse Colton. This could end with him dead.

  “When?” Boss asks.

  “Sunday. Get on the southbound train at Seligman. I’ll make sure the cowboy gets onboard before Prescott. Bring Diaz and the others, too, for backup. I’ll meet you in the dining car.”

  Boss considers this a moment, his eyes firm on my bloody face. I reckon he wanted to take care of this first thing tomorrow, but he thinks I’m truly on his side, and he knows I can’t show up beat this bad and demand that Jesse take a trip with me on the rail. It won’t look nothing but suspicious.

  “Fine, Sunday,” Boss says finally. “But first, gimme the bastard’s name. I ain’t letting you ride off without any collateral.”

  I’d hoped to avoid this, and I know the Coltons had, too. But we all knew that gaining Boss’s trust’d be easiest if I give him the name. And besides, Diaz knows which claim belongs to the Coltons back in Prescott. All the gang’s gotta do is ask ’round a little and they’d figure out exactly what I’m ’bout to give up.