by Erin Bowman
“You forget that everyone thinks you’re crazy, Charlotte. They’ll think you killed yourself.”
I swallow, trying to ignore the cold metal against my skin. “But will people in Yuma, who know me and Mother? People who trusted Father and respected our family? The Gulch Mine may be here in the Prescott area, but its business partners extend along the Colorado, into Yuma, and beyond. If they learn of your true nature, you will have no future in this Territory.”
He leans closer, the barrel pressing harder into my throat. “That’s assuming they buy the story. And the Inquirer?” He barks out a laugh. “A paper run entirely by women? No one will believe a word they print.”
“Are you willing to bet on that?” I say.
Fear flickers over his face. He can see the dominoes lined up, the way they will each topple when the Inquirer prints the story. It will be there in black and white, confirming any rumors and whispers that have started to circulate throughout Prescott. The miners will be furious. If they don’t kill him, the repercussions will. Mr. Marion may feel bold enough to print his own story. The Law may come calling.
Uncle’s influence will crumple. His honor will vanish, his reputation shatter.
He will be ruined.
This one article will ruin him.
He deflates, the pistol falling away from my skin as he slumps against his desk. “How could you do this to me?” he asks.
“You did it to yourself,” I respond. “The key?” I hold my hand out and he drops it into my palm.
I leave him standing there, slack-jawed and stunned, and unlock the door. In the hallway, Mother pulls me into an embrace. Not a heartbeat later, a gunshot rips through the house. I push away from Mother, looking down at my body—at her—certain that Uncle has just fired on us.
We are well. The house is silent, save for the ringing in my ears.
I turn back toward the office.
I already suspect what I might find, but I nudge the door open anyway.
Uncle Gerald is slumped face forward on his desk, having put a bullet through his brain.
“You can’t stay here,” Mother says, setting a steaming cup of tea before me. “Paul might not believe our story, and if he goes to the sheriff, there’s no guarantee they’ll listen to our side of things. At least not until the story you mentioned is printed and people reconsider the lies Gerald has spread about us here in town. There’s also Parker to worry about. Dead at your hands. How did it ever come to this?”
Her expression is wrought with worry, and rightly so. She is absolutely correct. While one problem is solved, another has surfaced, and I never anticipated Uncle choosing the path he did. I’d expected him to run, starting over as a new person miles away where no one knew him. I’d banked on him experiencing shame and regret. I’d wanted him to suffer, to scrape by, to toil. Just once, I wanted him to truly labor for the things he might call his own. He was supposed to pay for his crimes, not escape them, but I suppose retribution and justice are merely cousins.
“Charlotte?” Mother says.
I take a sip of my tea, trying to blink away the image of Uncle Gerald’s body. It reminds me too much of Parker, only instead of the blood creeping across floorboards, this time it seeped into ledger papers.
“Charlotte, do you hear what I’m saying? Paul will be back tomorrow. He only went to Jerome to check affairs at the mine. And if the people at Banghart’s are looking for Parker’s killer . . .” She exhales heavily. “You need to be gone when he returns.”
“And leave you to be charged with Uncle’s death?”
“Then what do you propose?”
I set the teacup down, tracing the floral pattern on the saucer with my thumb as I weigh our options.
“You should return to Yuma,” I say finally, “but visit Mr. Marion first. Tell him I’ve been staying with the Coltons this past week, and that anyone claiming the death of a bounty hunter in Banghart’s was done at my hands must be mistaken. The Coltons will vouch for me. I’ll have them write him a letter. But if Mr. Marion’s agreeable, urge him to print a story saying as much with haste, and also to cover Uncle’s fraudulent business practices. I had suspected Mr. Marion to be in Uncle’s pocket, but after today, I believe he will do what’s right. I sent the original ledger sheets to Ruth Dodson, but I copied everything into my journal first. I’ll give you those pages before I leave. If it’s not enough for Mr. Marion, have him contact Mrs. Dodson to confirm the story. Once everything prints in the Courier—plus the Inquirer back home—we should be fully cleared. People will believe the suicide was legitimate, not a story we used to cover up a murder. I’ll come home then.”
“And in the meantime?” Mother asks, her brow wrinkled.
“I’ll stay with the Coltons. Kate is pregnant and approaching her time. She’ll need help delivering the baby, and I’ve learned from one of the best.”
A smile flicks over Mother’s face, and I glance away. The light is changing beyond the kitchen window, warning of approaching dusk. I need to leave now. The Rose Riders will board a train in Seligman come dawn, which means they are likely traveling north or already near the depot, and this is the safest time to travel.
I flip open my journal to the pages where I copied Uncle’s ledgers. Tearing them free, I slide them across the table to Mother.
“Stay one night, please,” she urges.
“I have to go. Please just trust me on this.”
“I’ve always trusted you, Charlotte.”
“See you in Yuma?” I ask as we hug.
She smoothes my wild hair, lays a kiss on my forehead. “See you in Yuma.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
* * *
Reece
Jesse and me spend the afternoon going over our plans.
He’ll board the train at the depot, and I’ll chase it down on my horse later. The gang don’t know what Jesse looks like, and that will be the key to duping ’em. Jesse and me can’t be seen together till we’re ready to fire our pistols.
We walk through countless scenarios: if’n all the boys are waiting in the dining car like I requested, if Rose’s got ’em spread throughout the train, who we take out and in what order if’n something goes wrong. (Rose first. Always Rose first.) Kate butts into our planning all afternoon, sometimes offering advice, other times pleading with Jesse to reconsider, and by the time we sit for dinner, she’s rattled something fierce.
“Quit pacing, Kate, please,” Jesse begs.
“I don’t want you to do this.”
“It ain’t about want, it’s about need.” He looks to me for support.
“Don’t put me in the middle of this,” I say.
But I think even Kate knows there ain’t much can be done otherwise, not if they want a normal life. They need the Rose Riders gone. I need ’em gone. The whole Territory’ll be safer with ’em buried, too.
The Coltons argue a bit more, till Jesse takes Kate’s hand and pulls her onto his lap. He presses his lips to her forehead. It’s just the one kiss, but I feel like I ain’t supposed to be present. I retreat to the bedroom and shut the door.
As a kid, I were good at becoming invisible. Whenever Pa went for the bottle, I’d slink into the shadows and move ’bout our house like a ghost, keeping my back pressed to walls, trying not to breathe too loudly. Above all else, I never entered the room he occupied ’less it was absolutely necessary.
This is how I act now, only it ain’t outta fear, but respect.
I want the Coltons to have their own moment, their own room, their own world. They only face the coming dawn ’cus of the blood I brought to their doorstep.
I reckon this is the dark cloud Kate were talking ’bout. I carry deep wells of guilt inside me, and yes, I ain’t innocent in the path I’ll walk tomorrow with Jesse. But Kate also knew what she were doing ten years back when she shot Waylan Rose between the eyes. She killed him and every last boy riding beside him. She believed them all dead, and still her and Jesse took precautions, built a
hideaway, knew a day might come when they’d need to flee. The ghosts of our misdeeds can haunt us till we lie in our own graves, and it ain’t helping me to lug my guilt ’round everywhere. I think ’bout Kate, brushing her hair over her shoulder, batting away that cloud of regret. I imagine mine the same, trailing behind like a cape, reminding me of what I done and all the ways I can do better. I’ll tolerate it. Some days I might even wear it. But no matter what, from this day forward, it will not wear me.
I can hear Kate out in the kitchen, reading aloud from Little Women—to the babe inside her or Jesse. Maybe both. I collapse on the bed, still fully clothed. The pillow smells like Charlotte. I weren’t even aware I knew what she smelled like, but this is her, surrounding me. The mattress is stiff, but still so much softer than the floor.
My eyelids flutter shut.
When I jolt awake, the sun’s set and the house is dark. Kate ain’t reading no more, but Mutt’s growling low in the kitchen. I can make out a pair of voices, whispering too soft for me to hear nothing useful.
Then there’s the muffled creak of floorboards. The handle of the bedroom door turns.
I lunge for the nightstand, only to remember my pistol’s out on the Coltons’ table along with my belt and knife.
“It’s me,” Charlotte says from the doorway.
“Jesus Christ.” I sink into the pillow, my chest hammering. “You scared me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine. You just . . . you can’t go sneaking up on someone like that.”
“I mean about the other day,” she says. “How I asked for details. You were right. It’s not my story to tell.”
Jesse passes by the door, heading back to bed with a candle in hand and Mutt on his heels. When his door shuts, the light dies with it, and I turn toward the nightstand. After rousing the lantern, I twist back to Charlotte. And freeze. There’s a welt on her cheek, and her coat’s hanging open and askew on her shoulders. She’s still wearing the brown dress I last saw her in. There’s blood on it.
I jump from the bed, and my hands push the coat down her arms till it catches at the crook of her elbows. Then I’m inspecting her—brushing her hair back to see her neck, the side of her head—searching for whatever injuries left the dress collar stained.
“It’s yours,” she says. “Reece, it’s your blood.”
From when she helped me into the house. I realize my hands are cupping her face, and I step away quickly.
“Why’d you come back?”
“Kate will need help with the labor,” she says, but she’s looking at me like maybe that ain’t the only reason. “I need to lie low for a few days, also.”
“Yer uncle’s been seen to?”
She nods.
“How?”
“I’m tired, Reece. I’d like to sleep.”
She shuffles for the bed and moves one of the two pillows to the foot of the mattress so her feet will be up near the head. Then she sheds her coat and shoes and crawls beneath the covers.
“You ain’t gonna strangle me with a noose while I sleep?” I joke when I realize what she’s suggesting.
“Do you plan to steal my earrings?”
I smile, and she gives me a crooked, closed-lip grin in return. I douse the lantern and ease onto the bed, staying above the quilt. It’s a cool night, but I don’t got a need for it. Not with her hip just barely grazing my leg, making the bedding between us feel as hot as coals.
“He shot himself,” Charlotte whispers a moment later. She goes on to explain it all. It were a good plan, a sneaky angle. Tie the noose and let the man hang himself. It ain’t all that different than the con I’m pulling on Rose.
“I thought he’d just run, disappear,” she continues. “Maybe try to make a name for himself in a new town where no one knew him and he could change his name. But he’s always been a leech, my uncle. He only knew how to follow a trail already blazed by others.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t help more.”
“You helped plenty,” she says.
“That ain’t true.”
“You said everything I needed to hear. Trust me, Reece.”
“All right, Charlotte Vaughn. If you say so.”
I ain’t got the slightest what she’s really driving at. I been gruff and closed off and judgmental. The things I said to her most recently weren’t exactly kind. She ventured to Kate’s claim ’cus she wanted a gunslinger, and when none of us provided it, she made her own luck, executed her own plan. She don’t owe us nothing. Kate’s tough enough to make do without a midwife when the time comes. I reckon Charlotte knows this same as me, and if she truly needed somewhere to hole up a few days till the papers clear her and her ma’s names, she coulda done just that at the Coltons’ Prescott place. Coming all the way to the hideout after losing the day’s light couldn’t’ve been an easy ride, but perhaps this is just a decency she wants to offer. She’s a good person, Charlotte. She ain’t chasing a story no longer, so maybe it’s like Kate said. Maybe there’s just something more.
Chapter Forty
* * *
Charlotte
I am envious of the speed at which Reece falls asleep. Barely a few minutes after we cease talking, his breathing falls into a peaceful, languid rhythm, and though the house is silent, I can’t find sleep myself.
And Lord am I tired.
Still, my mind keeps reliving the same moment: the look of surprise on Reece’s face when he woke to find me entering the bedroom, then the storm that spread across his features when he thought I might be injured. He was out of the bed in one fluid moment, his hands on my shoulders and neck, then cupping my face.
I hadn’t recoiled.
He moved as quickly—perhaps even faster—than he had in those days I spent in the stagecoach, but I felt no fear from the movement this time, no threat. He was deliberate but concerned, his touch gentle. When I think of it now, the places he touched seem to tingle with heat. His thumbs on my cheeks, his palms on my jaw, his fingers grazing the nape of my neck.
I flex my feet beneath the blankets, clench and unclench my hands.
I try to tell myself I am reliving this moment because it is kind and warm and good. Because it is a welcome change from the nightmares of the bounty hunter’s blood or my uncle’s vacant eyes. But then I’m feeling the ghost of Reece’s touch again—the jacket slipping from my shoulders, his hands tracing my jaw—and I know it’s more than that.
Why’d you come back?
Because I needed to disappear for a little while.
Because Kate will need my help.
And because maybe I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to Reece Murphy.
Dreams find me eventually, and they are not pleasant. Uncle’s cooling body. His lifeless eyes. His blood covering the ledgers, seeping into the grain of the desk.
“Charlotte,” someone says, shaking me at the shoulder. “Charlotte!” I jolt awake to find Jesse crouched beside me. “The baby’s coming.”
He looks as though he’s seen a ghost, and suddenly the words come together for me, the fog of sleep rolling off.
The baby. Kate.
I stumble out of bed, reaching for my shoes. Reece is awake now, too, and he watches us leave, concern etched in his features.
In the Coltons’ bedroom, Kate is pacing. Her nightgown is wet from the waist down.
“I told him not to wake you,” she says. “It’s just the waters breaking. I ain’t even felt nothing yet and—oh.” She puts a hand to the bed frame. For a few seconds she is elsewhere; then she looks up at me. “That weren’t half bad.”
“They’ll get . . .” Not worse. What was the way Mother always put it? “More intense.”
Jesse’s energy is tight and frenzied, so I send him to stoke the fire and tell him to get Kate some water. I walk with her in small circles at the foot of the bed, letting her pause whenever a new wave strikes. The rhythm becomes almost peaceful, and we carry on like that, our fingers threaded together as we pace.
By dawn, Kate’s gone into herself, seemingly unaware that the rest of us move about the house. As each new wave builds, she pauses and bends over, moaning through the worst of the pressure.
“What’s wrong?” Jesse keeps asking. “Something’s wrong.”
“Everything is fine,” I insist.
I’ve aided Mother through enough labors to know that this is normal. The waves are predictable, growing more intense with each pass. Kate is sweaty and tired, but it’s called labor for a reason. All Jesse sees, however, is the blood on Kate’s nightgown and how she continually buckles over to breathe through a wave, as though it might split her in two. I finally shoo him from the bedroom so Kate can focus, telling him to keep Mutt outside, too. The dog is just as excitable as Jesse, and Kate does not need distractions.
But a few minutes later Kate waves me away as well, wanting a moment of true solitude, and I slip into the kitchen. Jesse and Reece are hovering at the table, looking spooked. They’re both wearing their pistol belts, ammunition crammed into every last hold.
“I can’t leave her like this,” Jesse says.
“I’ll be with her,” I say, “and we’ll be fine. It’s you two we ought to worry after.”
He must hear a truth in my argument because he plucks his hat from the table, claps Reece on the shoulder, and goes to saddle his horse. But Reece lingers, even after the door slaps shut behind Jesse.
“You have to get him, Reece. Rose and all the others.”
“That’s the plan.”
“I can’t bear to see bad men keep winning.”
He gazes at his boots, then back at me, bringing the brim of that ridiculous hat up so that I can see his eyes. They’re brown. I spent so much time scrutinizing their hollowness that I never noticed their color.
“So that’s why you came back?” he says. “’Cus you wanted to see how this all ends?”
“It also didn’t feel right to part without a proper farewell.”
