by Erin Bowman
“The man you want’s called Jesse Colton.”
“Jesse Colton,” Boss repeats, the corner of his mouth pulling into a smile. Then he leans in real close, every feature on his face going hard and fiery, and says, “If you cross me, Murphy, yer ma will pay for it tenfold. Do you hear me? If you don’t bring me Jesse Colton on Sunday, she will lose a finger. And for each day that follows that I don’t have my revenge, she’ll lose another. When she’s outta fingers, she’ll lose toes. And when she’s outta those, she’ll earn herself some pretty scars. I hear folk don’t like to pay for cut-up whores, and it’d be a pity if she can’t earn a living.”
His eyes dance as he makes this threat, the murderous bastard who swears he does no ill ’gainst women or children. But I can’t show that I’m scared, can’t give away that I’m upset. I gotta look like this ain’t a concern in the slightest.
“I’ll bring you Jesse Colton come Sunday,” I tell him.
We stare at each other a moment, like two gunslingers ready to pull. Then he leans forward, ever so slowly, and offers me his gloved hand.
I shake it. Knowing right well I don’t got honorable intentions, I shake that bastard’s hand. ’Cus I ain’t lied. I’ll bring him Jesse Colton. Just not for the reason Boss hopes.
He straightens and waves the boys over. They gather round, looking at me like a pack of hungry coyotes. When Boss tells ’em they’ll ride out first, Diaz explodes.
“You trust this rat?” he roars.
“I trust,” Boss says calmly, “that he’s got a plan with the best chance of success.”
“The bastard killed Hobbs and Jones!” Diaz continues. “He’s a backstabbing, no-good coward, and he’s gonna stab us in the back ’gain now!”
“Murphy said the lady killed Hobbs and Jones.”
“The woman weren’t even armed.”
“You were so frazzled, you don’t remember what you seen!” I snap. “Who shot at you, Diaz, me or her?”
“She did,” he admits. “She fired on me right through the doorway.”
“Think it’s possible you remembered things wrong? That maybe she were armed all along and it was me that needed help, only you rode off and left me to rot?”
His frown deepens. It were dark that night, and everything happened so fast. There’s a crease in his forehead, and I know that if I press him more, he’ll break.
“Well?” I bark.
“If’n that’s all true, tell me why yer still alive, Murphy. If’n she killed two of our boys and shot at me, why ain’t you dead?”
“’Cus I’m sharper than you, Diaz. I played her like a fiddle, made her sympathize with me, pretended to be a victim. I got close to her so once her husband showed up—the cowboy Boss’s been after all these years—I could turn him over. And look what I got for it!” I motion at my bloodstained jacket. “A beating for being loyal.”
“I still got a bad feeling ’bout this, Boss,” Diaz says, shaking his head. “Murphy ain’t never been one of us, not really. We can’t trust him.”
“Aw, lighten up, Diaz,” Crawford says, all his weight held on his good leg. “Kid’s got a right solid plan, and if it don’t pan out, his ma gets a knife. You think he wants things to go south?”
Boss nods in agreement, then grabs me at the wrist and pulls me to my feet. Every muscle in my body protests, bruised and weary.
“See you Sunday, son.” The other boys don’t seem to catch it, but his voice trails up at the end just slightly, like he’s asking a question.
“See you Sunday,” I echo.
That’s all he wants to hear, ’cus he mounts his horse and heads north. The others follow suit. It begins to snow, and I blink fat flakes from my eyes as I watch the gang grow smaller. They disappear ’long the horizon, and I keep watching to make sure they don’t come back.
I used to think Luther Rose didn’t have no foible, but he does. Despite the legends and stories and infamous tales, he’s human. He’s got a weakness, and it’s me. I’m the son he never had, but he ain’t my boss no more, and I will be his undoing.
I smile, and it hurts like hell.
Chapter Thirty-Four
* * *
Charlotte
It is snowing heavily when Reece finally returns.
He appears on the trail leading to the clearing, and at first he is nothing but a dark smudge among a storm of snowflakes. When I see him slumped forward in the saddle with his oversize hat angled aggressively against the weather, my initial reaction is relief. Dusk is approaching, and we’ve been worried for a solid hour. He’d been gone longer than expected. But as Reece draws nearer, that relief dissolves into terror, for what little I can see of his face is revealed to be covered with blood.
“Reece!” I shout to the Coltons. “Something’s happened to Reece.”
I’m out the door before Kate has wrestled herself to her feet or Jesse has straightened from where he’s stooped to tend to the fire. Mutt chases at my heels, then easily pulls ahead, kicking up snow.
Already an inch has covered the ground, blanketing the clearing and coating the tree limbs with white. Only the tank remains naked, its unfrozen surface reflecting the gray sky overhead.
I skid to a stop before Silver and tug at her reins. Reece takes this as a sign that I mean to help him down, which I do, but he leans forward too quickly, slipping from the saddle, and all but dives onto my shoulder. I do my best to slow his fall, but he still topples headfirst into the snow, graceless, limp.
I roll him over, and my hand flies to my mouth, smothering a gasp.
He found the Rose Riders all right, or rather, they found him. One of Reece’s eyes is swollen clear shut, and his nose—which was still recovering from when Kate cracked him with the rifle a few days ago—is broken once more. Blood coats his mouth, chin, and the bandanna around his neck. His jacket is stained with it too, and I’m sure that beneath all those layers of clothing he is covered in bruises. It’s a miracle he even made it back to the clearing, that he didn’t fall from the saddle miles earlier.
“Christ,” I mutter.
“It’s a sin to take the Lord’s name in vain, Vaughn,” he grits out. “Don’t tell me I done had a bad influence on you.”
He has to be clever about everything. Even now.
“You haven’t seen yourself. You’d be swearing too.”
“Made it all this way in a snowstorm,” he counters. “Can’t look that bad.”
“Smart-aleck.”
He smiles and cringes just as fast, but not before I get a glimpse of his teeth, smeared with red.
Snow crunches behind me.
“Aw, hell,” Jesse says, getting a good look at Reece. Kate is waddling over too, a blanket slung over her shoulders.
Jesse squints down the trail. “Were you followed?” The path is silent, no movement except for the falling snow.
“Nah,” Reece says.
“Yer sure?”
Reece nods, blinks snow from his eyes. “I got jumped before I could get a word out to ’em. But it’s all good. They rode out first. I watched ’em go.”
There’s a collective sigh among the rest of us, and Reece closes his eyes, exhausted. For a moment the clearing is so silent I can hear the crystallized snow ping and plink as it joins what’s already gathered on the ground.
Jesse grabs Silver’s reins. “Charlotte, can you get Reece inside while I see to Silver?”
I nod.
“I’ll help,” Kate says.
“You’ll go sit by the fire and not tax yerself,” Jesse says.
“I’m sick of being fretted over and treated like a delicate doll,” Kate grumbles. “The baby’s gonna come eventually, even if I do nothing but lie in bed for the next week. I can’t keep it in forever.”
Jesse gives her a pleading look, and she reluctantly complies, plodding for the house.
“Reece?” I crouch down beside him.
“Yer using my name,” he says.
I guess I am. I take one of h
is arms and guide it behind my neck. “Just stand with me, all right?” I push to my feet, and he manages to aid in the process. I am too short to properly assist him, and so most of his weight ends up slumped into me, threatening to push me over, his feet dragging clumsily through the snow as we make for the house.
“I know this is part of the plan,” I mutter as we walk, “but it doesn’t look very promising.”
“It’ll pan out. You’ll see.”
“All I see is the infamous Rose Kid looking beat to hell.”
“And ain’t that what you always wanted?” He cocks his head toward me, and the brim of his hat skims my forehead. “To see me suffering and hurt?”
I jerk my gaze back to the house. “I never said that.”
“You’ll hang for this,” he says, mimicking my voice with an uncanny likeness. “That’s what you said in the coach. I know that rope you were making were meant for my neck.”
“You held me against my will then.”
“And now?”
There’s an anguished tone to his voice. Perhaps it is the result of being beaten so badly. Perhaps it is also desperation, a need to have someone validate the good that exists in him, despite all the bad he has done. Whatever it is, I can’t ignore it, and I foolishly look him in the eye.
The one not swollen shut doesn’t appear hollow or lifeless, but deliriously hopeful.
And now things are different.
This is the answer he is waiting for, and I can’t give it to him. Things are indeed different, but not in the way he hopes. Against all odds, I trust him somewhat. But not wholly, and I don’t know if I ever could. Not after he attempted to rob me at gunpoint. Not after that trip in the stagecoach. I cannot forget these things, and he should never forget that I intended to strangle him with a rope made of my own undergarments.
If he longs for forgiveness, I can give that. But I fear he is looking for more.
“That’s what I figured,” he says suddenly. “I’ll see myself in.”
He withdraws his arm from my neck and wearily ascends the stoop. He did not feel warm when he was beside me, but as he steps into the house, I feel his absence, the winter air cold and piercing where our bodies had touched.
Kate fills a bowl with water, and after she’s helped Reece sponge most of the blood from his face and neck, I stuff a sock with snow and hand it over. He applies it to his swollen eye. There’s a nasty gash above it that may need some needle and thread, but it’s hard to tell with his skin so puffed up.
When Jesse comes in from dealing with Silver, we all sit at the kitchen table and Reece tells us what happened. Luther Rose took the bait, but not before Reece took a beating.
Jesse begins talking about Sunday—what time he and Reece should ride to town, if they should travel together or separate, how they plan to take the gang out on the train. Reece suggests that Jesse remain hidden, in a cargo car if possible. After meeting up with the gang, Reece could then lead them into a surprise ambush.
“You can’t do it, Jesse,” Kate says suddenly, her eyes glossy in the firelight.
“Course I can,” he argues. “It’s a good, smart con. Damn near foolproof.”
“Maybe it’s better to just tip off the Law, let ’em know the Riders’ll be on the train.”
“And risk ’em screwing it up and Rose getting away? Nohow. That puts Reece at risk, too.”
I nod in agreement. If even one member of the gang gets away, they’ll know Reece crossed them. They’ll make good on the offer to torture his poor mother, and then they’ll kill him, too, if they manage to find him again. Plus, they have Jesse’s name now, which means the Coltons are indefinitely at risk. Even still, Kate is shaking her head like a spooked child.
“No. I won’t have it.”
“Kate . . .” Jesse reaches for her.
“You can’t,” she repeats, slapping the table. “I won’t let you go risk yer life when it ain’t you Rose wants.”
Reece and I glance at each other quickly, then back to Kate.
“What the devil are you talking about?” Reece asks, but I think I might know. In fact, I feel foolish that I hadn’t considered it before.
Everything she said to me that day she taught me to handle the rifle . . . How her youth was founded on acting before thinking, how her brashness cost lives and loss, how Nate sounds so much like Kate, and how that person is now dead. Because that part of her died. She left it behind.
“There never was a gunslinger,” I say quietly. “It was you, Kate. You killed Waylan Rose.”
“Guilty.” Her lip quivers, caught between a smile and tears.
“But you were . . . what? Eighteen?” Reece balks.
“Is it so hard to believe a girl mighta bested Waylan Rose and his boys?” Kate snaps. “Yer look of shock says yes. I walked into the sheriff’s office in Phoenix a decade back and told ’em the Rose Riders were dead. It was them that chose to see a young man in my place, to assume I were a hired gun. And I never corrected the rumors. Why would I? I wanted to stay hidden, and that was easiest when I were just some sad orphaned girl.”
I don’t doubt any of it. She is brash and bold, quick enough with her rifle and sharp enough to not miss, certainly not one to be trifled with. I imagine she was only more tenacious as a kid, when she did not carry life inside her and sought only revenge for her father’s murder.
“Kate, I ain’t exactly innocent,” Jesse says. “I helped.”
“But I pulled the trigger—”
“Wait,” Reece cuts in. “Kate told me she’d seen the rose mark carved on her father, and also yer brother. If’n she didn’t hire you to be her gunslinger, how’d yer brother get caught up with Rose?”
“My father were killed for a journal that showed the way to a rich gold mine,” Kate explains, hanging her head slightly. “I went to Jesse’s father for help, only he’d passed on. Once Jesse knew I were chasing Rose toward a mine, him and his brother offered their help so long as they could take some of the prize.”
“Only Will never wanted that gold,” Jesse says.
“Is this the same gold you offered to pay me with?” Reece says.
“Yeah, and it’s just as well that you don’t want it,” Kate says. “It ain’t clean money. Too much blood and hate surrounding it. Might even be cursed. Like I said, we don’t touch it if we can manage.”
I recline in my chair, trying to digest this development. No reporter on earth could ask for a better story. This is an epic—lost gold and a female gunslinger and a quest for revenge that catches up with her ten years later, when the Rose Kid finds his boss’s brother’s killer, but instead of seeking retribution, the Kid turns on his own to help the enemy and thereby win his freedom. It sounds like the stuff of fiction, the kind of tale that would have townsfolk talking and a paper going back for reprints.
“Do you think Rose knows the Coltons have the gold?” I ask Reece.
He shakes his head.
“It don’t matter one way or another,” Jesse says. “There’s only one way outta this mess, and I gotta be involved.” He turns toward Kate. “I already lost Will to the Rose Riders. I can’t lose you and the little one, too. I couldn’t live with myself.”
“And I’m supposed to live without you?” she says. “That ain’t fair.”
Jesse’s mouth presses into a sly smile. “That’s insulting, Kate. I ain’t gonna miss.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
* * *
Reece
I peel my clothes off in the bedroom, cringing with each layer shed. What ain’t wet with snow is still damp with blood and clings to my limbs. Even the stuff that don’t cling—like my boots—are hell to remove. Every muscle I got is racked with exhaustion. Bending hurts. Tugging aches. Breathing deep stings. I pray I don’t got a cracked rib. Diaz sure kicked me enough.
When I manage to get fully undressed, I step into the shallow bathing tub. It’s been filled since yesterday, but the water’s still cold enough to make me gasp, and then
I’m cursing myself for gasping, ’cus that makes my whole body thrum with pain.
I splash my face, sponge water over my neck and shoulders. Blood and dirt lift free, swirling in the tub. What don’t come clean I scrub free, slowly and carefully, ’cus every bit of pressure hurts. I imagine that Vaughn’s silence at my question is also something I can wash away.
And now?
What a ridiculous thing to ask. I ain’t surprised by the way she turned her attention to the house, avoided answering. I ain’t nothing but embarrassed that I thought things might be different suddenly, that her calling me Reece these last few days might mean something. I’ve held all the power since our meeting. She was a mark for theft. She was a prisoner in a coach. She was a mouse and I were the cat, and I can see why that is so unfair, why it is wrong and greedy of me to hope that she sees us as equals.
And still I’d hoped.
I don’t know what’s gotten into me. I ain’t looked at a girl twice these past few years. Hell, I never wanted to lay eyes on a girl, period. I saw how Rose used my mother to keep me loyal, and I knew fancying someone would only give him more ammunition to use against me. So I been keeping my head down. Till now, I guess. Just a little bit of distance from him, a chance at a new life, and I’ve let myself get sloppy.
I finish washing and step outta the tub. While drying, I catch sight of myself in the small mirror above the dresser. I look as bad as Vaughn implied. I’ve regained some visibility outta my right eye, but it’s still badly swollen, and while the gash on my brow has stopped bleeding, it don’t look pretty. There’s a shadow of a bruise already showing on my chest, too, and I reckon it’ll be joined by more come morning.
I fish my clothes from the floor. With some cringing, I get my socks and underthings on. The pants are harder, but I manage to wrestle ’em on and have just finished with the button when there’s a knock at the door.
Before I can say nothing, it cracks open.
