by Erin Bowman
“Jesse said you could borrow one of his—oh!” Vaughn’s gaze lifts from the clean shirt she’s carrying, and she blushes. “I’m sorry. I’ll . . .”
“Just give it here.” I snatch up the shirt and struggle to put it on. I hate how I can’t move without cringing, that the simplest tasks have become a challenge. I can feel Vaughn watching, and when I look, she’s focused on the bruise on my chest. The way her eyes dart away from my skin only to flit back makes me wonder if maybe I were wrong before. Maybe I pulled away too soon, didn’t give her a chance to answer. I ain’t been with many women, but I know they don’t blush for no reason. Then again, most don’t enter a room when the occupant ain’t had a chance to respond to their knocking, neither. I go to work fastening the shirt’s buttons.
“So what happened, precisely?” Vaughn asks. “The confrontation and the fight?”
“I told you already.”
“Yes, but the details. Were you not terrified? How did you think so quickly in a situation like that?”
Her tone is so serious, concerned. There’s even a bit of awe.
My hands fall to my sides, the shirt buttons forgotten. Something has changed; she just couldn’t find the words to express it. Her eyes leave the bruises to meet my gaze. She seems closer now than she did as she helped me into the house, which is crazy, ’cus we’re standing several feet apart. A bit of my blood still stains the collar of her dress. I remember how her frame strained beneath the weight of mine, how I were a burden she couldn’t bear and yet she tried nonetheless.
Vaughn gives me the most innocent, carefree smile as she breathes out a laugh. Something careens ’gainst my ribs.
Then she flips open a journal I hadn’t noticed her carrying, and as her expression steels, I see my mistake.
“What does Rose look like?” she continues. “Give me his likeness. And the others. I want their names again and a description of each.” She is no longer looking at me, but at the pencil she’s brought to paper.
I’m a damned fool. I am so naively stupid.
“Get out,” I say, throwing a hand at the door.
“What?” Her face snaps up, and she’s so confused it’s almost comical. Almost.
“Get out!”
“But—”
“This ain’t a story, Vaughn, it’s our lives! Mine and Kate’s and Jesse’s. It ain’t something for you to treat like a game or to write up with fancy, romantic words, alls so you can sell it to some sensational paper and line yer own pocket. Our misfortunes ain’t yer ticket to success.”
“I thought that—”
“You didn’t think nothing, dammit. You’ve never had to! You gone through yer whole life getting everything you want, prolly even taking some of it. Well, you can’t take this! Have some decency, for Christ’s sake.”
She glares at me a moment, a violent crease between her brows, pencil gripped so hard her knuckles go white. Then, like the child she is, she leaves and slams the door.
That night, I pace the kitchen, unable to sleep.
Do you think Rose knows the Coltons have the gold? Vaughn asked.
I’d shaken my head truthfully in that moment, but now a memory haunts me: Luther Rose showing me a coin that looked exactly like the one he’d pulled from my pocket that day at the Lloyds’.
“They’re twins, see,” he’d said. Like my piece, the currency marking had also been shaved off, but the eagle gleamed in the firelight. “Waylan and me grew up in an orphanage. When he ran off, he swore he’d return for me once he had the means to provide a decent life. I begged to go with him then and there, but he were eight years my senior and I’d’ve only slowed him down. He said there were nothing like these coins in the world, not with the way he’d done shaved off some of the details, and so long as I had mine and he had his, it would be like we were together.” He laid the two coins ’gainst his palm, tracing the faces with a thumb. “Waylan came back for me, like he promised, but he were different. Quieter, keener. He stood straighter and smiled more, only the smile were crooked and a little empty. When the orphanage director tried to stop him from taking me, he shot her in the chest, then emptied the donation box before we fled.”
“Why’re you telling me this?” I’d asked. It was but a few days after my attempted escape from the whorehouse. I was bruised and sore, my limbs still tight and tender.
“’Cus I want you to understand that love makes us do odd things, son. Remember that.”
He worried his palm with his thumb. The coins had disappeared into his jacket.
“Do you think he ever found it? The cache he was after in the Superstitions?”
“Gold,” Rose clarified. “It were solid gold ore—rumored to be enough for a man to become a king. Or to disappear.”
His expression were difficult to read in the firelight, but it looked almost like longing. I got the feeling it were his brother who wanted the kingdom, but that Luther wanted to disappear, to make a life for himself. Maybe even an honest one, with a family and a respectable career.
“So do you think he found the gold?” I asked.
“Yeah. I think it’s what killed him.”
Before, I thought he meant that the quest had killed his brother, that Waylan had led his men into the heartless, cursed depths of the Superstition Mountains, and though they’d found the gold, they’d been too weak to make their way out. Maybe they got lost. Maybe they starved. Maybe even it was Indians who got the best of ’em.
But as I sit before the Coltons’ fire, I fear I heard Luther Rose wrong. Or misunderstood. Perhaps he meant that his brother found the gold and then was killed for it. Kate wanted revenge, after all, and she got it. With it, she inherited an enormous fortune, one she’s kept hidden and quiet because it ties her to so much blood.
And prolly Rose suspects this.
Which means he’ll want more than vengeance. He’ll want the gunslinger who killed his brother, and then he’ll want all that gunslinger’s gold, too.
I straighten from the chair, peer out the window. The snow is undisturbed, pale and gleaming beneath the moon.
I weren’t followed. I know I weren’t. My head were heavy as Silver carried me back, but I’d managed to look over my shoulder a few times. There were nothing but snow and wind on my tail. This house is still safe, secure.
But if Jesse fails on Sunday . . . if he dies when Rose lives, I’ll be asked to show the way to this house. If I run, I’ll be followed. If anything goes wrong, this clearing will fall.
I consider telling the Coltons that Rose likely knows ’bout their gold. I consider, also, the fear it’ll evoke, the way the plan might crumble, and I can’t run no more. Neither can the Coltons. The Rose Riders won’t stop coming. They’ll track us to the gates of Hell.
So we’ll do what needs being done. We’ll board that train, shoot clean and true. And if Jesse Colton misses, I’ll finish what’s been started.
Chapter Thirty-Six
* * *
Charlotte
The snow stays on the trees through the night. There is no breeze, and so it rests there, blanketing the limbs like slender white dress gloves come morning.
It is only after I have descended the worst of the chilly mountains and am leaving the barely visible trail that signs of the storm fade. To the south, the plains are a patchwork of dusty gold-brown and muddy snow, unfolding toward Prescott.
I left at dawn, and I did not tell a soul.
Reece never came to bed, and when I crept into the kitchen after a night of fitful dreams, I found him before the fire, asleep in a chair, his head at an awkward angle. Without his hat, I could see the whole of his beaten face. He looked younger in sleep, and peaceful, too. He so often confronts the world glowering, his demons etched across his brow, a sullen expression held tight in the muscles of his tanned cheeks. Asleep, he did not look like the young man who had ordered me from the bedroom the evening prior, his eyes flashing with anger. Instead, he looked like someone I should wake to bid farewell.
But I knew better.
I’d spent the evening avoiding him. Kate must have heard the entire affair, or at least his outburst, because as I dried dishes, she said, “When folks tell us our own faults, it’s only natural to deny ’em. The things Jesse threw in my face! And the things I threw back! Sometimes we see others more clearly than we see ourselves. At least ’bout the stuff that matters most.”
I hated that she was defending him instead of nursing my hurt. Worse still, I hated that she was right. That Reece was right.
I was using their story—their life—as a step to climb. That much I can admit. But it was for reasons more complex than my own ambitions. The only way I’ve been able to keep that pool of blood beneath Parker’s head from spreading before my eyes has been to throw my efforts into comforts, into writing. I did it to cope, not realizing the damage and hurt I caused others in the process.
This whole time I have wanted nothing but to silence my uncle, and Reece is correct when he says I have put my family’s quandaries above those of the Coltons. I have been so intent on having someone else solve the problem for me, I failed to see that I had the power to solve it myself.
And so I will leave them to their story—Reece and Kate and Jesse—the tale I am not entitled to tell. I will see to mine instead.
It will not be easy, or free of risk. After all, folks entering the lions’ den rarely emerge unscathed. But I have watched Reece face his demons, and I am willing to face the devil in my own life. I carry on for Prescott.
It is a Saturday, exactly a week after the gala that welcomed the rail to the capital, and the streets are painfully quiet compared with the last time I was in town. Snow lingers in the shadowy recesses of windowsills and rooflines, hiding where the sun cannot reach it. Everything else has melted, and the sorrel’s shoes leave prints in the damp streets.
A block from the post office, I pull out my journal and retrieve Uncle’s ledger sheets from where I’d tucked them for safekeeping. I copy the numbers into the journal, then tear out a fresh page and draft a letter. When I’m finished, I flag down a young boy who has a bag of salt tucked under his arm. He jogs across the street to meet me, his nose pink from the cold.
“Will you take this to the post office”—I hand him my note—“and have it mailed to this address?” I pass him another scrap of paper bearing the address for the Yuma Inquirer, with attention to the editor, Ruth Dodson.
“Mail it with what money?” the boy asks. “Look, miss, I ain’t got time for games. Ma’ll have my ear if I ain’t home with this salt soon.”
I give him enough to cover the postage. “Come back when the job’s done, and I’ll give you a full dollar.”
He looks at the coin in his palm. I took it from a pitcher on Kate’s mantel, where, dusting with her the very day we first arrived at the clearing, I’d discovered that she stores a bit of spare change. I feel guilty about swiping the money, but have every intention of paying it back.
The boy snatches up the note and turns briskly on his heel, heading for the post office. I’d expected him to question why I couldn’t mail the letter myself, but I suppose the prize was too pretty.
A carriage rumbles by.
A bird warbles out of view.
The courthouse clock strikes the hour.
The boy is taking too long.
Just as I’m certain my identity has been discovered, the post office door opens and he steps back onto the street. Relief floods me. I can be recognized in time, but not yet. There is one more thing I need to do.
“It’s mailed?” I ask when the boy jogs over.
He nods. “Gimme the dollar.”
“Only if you promise to not speak of this to anyone.”
He shrugs, unconcerned. “Whatever you say, miss.”
I pass him the coin he’s earned, and he tucks it into his pocket, then walks off without a goodbye. I glance up and down the street. No one seems to have noticed our transaction.
A stagecoach pulls up alongside the post office. A canvas bag full of letters and parcels is loaded. Even if someone were to search the letters, it’s the boy’s handwriting on that fateful envelope, not mine, but still I linger, waiting for the coach to drive off. I watch as its wheels leave narrow lines in the dirt streets, and then I wait an extra minute once it turns from view. Five minutes. Maybe ten. Enough that it has exited the city proper.
Satisfied, I ride to the offices of the Morning Courier, barely a block from the courthouse. The streets are busier now, and more than one set of eyes drifts in my direction as I stop before the two-story brick building. A proud whitewashed sign boasting the word COURIER looks down on me from above an arched window. I secure the sorrel and head inside. Even before the door swings shut behind me, a man in dusty work clothes has rushed over to inspect Uncle’s horse. He glances my way, and I give him a sheepish grin. The snakelike smile he shoots back betrays him, as does the speed at which he rushes off.
He does not realize he is playing right into my hand.
I hurry up to the second floor, where Mr. Marion has set up his office and printing press. A daily paper is a rarity in this part of the country, and already typesetters are hard at work, lining their composing sticks with tomorrow’s stories, letter by letter. The cases the men labor at are tall, like podiums, but several times wider—a sight both intimidating and inspiring at once. To think that every page of printed word is possible because of the individual letters housed in each case’s drawers.
One of the men catches me watching and jerks his head toward a slightly ajar office door. Of course I must be here to see the editor. Why else would a woman visit a press?
I nod my thanks and knock on the door. A voice calls for me to enter.
Nudging the door open, I find John Marion bent over his desk, scribbling frantically. When he looks up to greet me, I am not prepared for his plainness. The editor writes with such force and fanfare I presumed him to be a striking man or, at the very least, a man who exuded authority, but he has a patchy beard and an unassuming narrow face. His dark hair is swept back, so when he looks up to greet me, I can clearly see the puzzlement in his eyes.
“Can I help you?”
“I’m sorry to bother you, Mr. Marion. I know you’re a busy man, and based on the staff you keep, I can see that what I’m about to ask you is not customary, but—”
“Spit it out already,” he says. While his tone is gruff, his expression is not. This is just his demeanor, I realize. Much like the words he prints, Mr. Marion is not one to dance around his point or waste time on pleasantries.
I smooth my disheveled dress. “I come asking for a job.”
His forehead furrows.
“I want to write for the paper, but I understand that I might need to start as a typesetter and work my way up.”
He sets his pen down and looks at me pointedly. “And you assume I will turn you down because there are no women on my staff?”
“I saw the composers on the way in, sir.”
“I have hired female typesetters before. My wife was one.”
“Well, I have no intention of marrying you.”
He lets out a belly laugh, and his plainness pales with it. Father was by far a more handsome man, but Mr. Marion reminds me of him in this moment, bright-eyed and smiling.
“Nor am I searching for a bride. My wife is retired, not deceased. But I like your wit. A paper needs a sharp sensibility to succeed. Not even having read your work, I can see that you’ll do well. Here, or with another press.”
I try not to show my confusion. Mr. Marion is different from what I anticipated. I expected to be dismissed immediately, not entertained. I believed him to think women incapable of such a role, but perhaps it is only Uncle Gerald who has told me this. Perhaps I am unfairly combining his beliefs with those of Mr. Marion.
“That said,” the editor continues, “I do not even know with whom I’m speaking.”
“Charlotte Vaughn, sir.”
He frowns. �
��A relation to Gerald Vaughn, I presume?”
I nod. “I’m his niece.”
Now Mr. Marion looks deeply conflicted. I do not match the image Uncle has surely painted of me.
“Does your uncle know you’re in town? I believe he’s been looking for you.”
There’s a commotion in the hallway, followed by a bang as Uncle Gerald barrels into the office and the door rattles against the wall.
I knew he’d be arriving, yet when I turn to face him, I’m still not prepared for the way his presence makes my breath pinch off. He is dressed well despite the fact that he should be spending today at the mines with the workers. If he were anything like Father, he would be in slacks and suspenders, a work shirt and cap.
“Charlotte, thank goodness,” Uncle croons, gathering me into a hug as though he truly cares for my well-being. “My apologies about the interruption, John,” he says to Mr. Marion. “It won’t happen again.” He gives the editor a parting nod and ushers me out of the room, acting as though I am too weak to stand on my own feet. By the time we enter the stairwell, the act vanishes, along with his caring tone.
“I was relieved to see my horse is well. As for you . . .” His gaze dips to my feet. “You’ve found shoes. How unfortunate.”
We burst into the morning sunshine.
A small crowd has gathered on the opposite side of the street, and so the act resumes. Uncle with an arm over my shoulder, for I’m a sick, troubled girl. A hand gripping tightly about my wrist in case I get a notion to run.
The spectators watch as Uncle escorts me toward his steed. One woman clutches the front of her dress in relief. Another has a look of pity in her eyes. They are all concerned for me, pleased to see me home. Uncle’s stories have spread like wildfire over the dry plains.
I look the part, too, I realize. My dress is far from clean. Reece’s blood still stains the collar. My hair is greasy and unwashed, hanging stringy and wild around my face. In hindsight, it’s a wonder Mr. Marion even listened to a word I had to say. He likely printed a piece about my kidnapping on Uncle’s behalf after all, citing my poor mental state and the reward that would be given for my safe return home.
