—You won’t walk out of there alive.
—Dorcas isn’t a killer, and neither is Jed.
—Jed was hired on by the Rangers at the border. He’s a killer.
—He won’t kill me.
—What’s your plan? Walk in there with a white flag, chat a little, win Dorcas over, and walk out with our folks?
—When you put it like that, it sounds so stupid.
—It is stupid.
—Give me a better one.
There wasn’t one, and she knew it. I expected her to offer to go with me, to have my back, but she didn’t, and I knew then that something had changed with her and Jehu, that her loyalty was to him first. It stung, but also felt right. Luke walked up and past us to saddle his horse, and that felt right, too.
—What if Dorcas isn’t reasonable?
—Then it probably won’t be a lie that I’m dead. You make sure that boy doesn’t come down there, understand?
—I do.
Hattie hugged me, and it felt like goodbye. Like when all was said and done, if I made it back up to Cold Spring Mountain, she and Jehu and Newt would be long gone.
36
Claire Hamilton’s Case Notes
Events of September 4–5, 1877
Written September 12, 1877
Heresy Ranch
Timberline, Colorado
We didn’t know what Garet, Jehu, and Hattie would do to free us, but we had no doubt they would do something. Stella came into her own that night, shed the brooding, angry follower, and became a leader—organizing, taking charge, planning for a couple of different possibilities. Joan listened to her sister with a rapt expression, one where surprise lingered around the edges. It’s said that there is always one who loves more, in marriage, family, friendship, and I’d always had the impression that it was Stella in the case of the sisters. I’d been wrong, and it was a little bit of grace to see this relationship blossoming into one of equals.
I was happy to let Stella take the lead. I tried not to show how much pain I was in, how my vision was hazy, my stomach constantly on the verge of rebelling, the effort it took to keep the bile down. I gained a new appreciation of Garet’s ruse, though I am in no way comparing my fleeting injuries to her terminal sickness. I didn’t have the energy to move and had even less energy to exert the mental capacity necessary to plan our escape. Mingzhu stayed by me, playing devil’s advocate to Stella. Stella from a few weeks ago would have yelled at her, shut her down immediately. Tonight she took Mingzhu’s suggestions to heart and was willing to adjust the plans if necessary.
Unfortunately, it all boiled down to one thing: we couldn’t get out of this room without someone else’s help. The best plan we had was to disable the guard at the window when Garet and Hattie made their move. We didn’t know when that would be, where they would hit, but we never doubted they would come.
It was well past midnight when we heard movement outside. There was an energy about it, but not an urgency or a panic. We’d dimmed the lamps earlier so the guard couldn’t see what we were doing, and Stella had kept the window raised slightly to eavesdrop on him. The guard was talking to another man, asking what was going on.
“Someone’s riding up under a white flag.”
We heard the guard curse under his breath at being left at the back of the house, out of the action. Mingzhu and I were on the bed, feigning sleep. Stella sat on the floor, her back against a wall, doing the same. And Joan sat in a chair in the corner. There was a rustling outside and then silence. Stella lifted the window and leaned out to check the area. “He’s gone,” she whispered.
We all moved to leave, but Stella stopped us. “I’ll go.”
“We all have to go,” Joan said.
“No. The four of us would never make it past the guards. Grace can’t move fast, and we can’t walk our way out. There would be lots of shooting, and that’s not a fight we would win. I’m going out there to see what’s going on, try to figure what Garet’s play here is.” Stella got a gun from the wardrobe.
“I don’t think we should split up,” Joan said.
“I don’t, either,” Mingzhu said.
“I’ll be back in five, ten minutes.”
She was out the window before we could say another word, and Joan was reaching for a gun to follow. I got up and stopped her. “She’s right, Joan. We can’t shoot our way out of here. What if someone walks through that door and we’re not here? The alarm will go up, and that ruins whatever plan Garet has.”
“You two can stay here and be cowards, but I’m going to help my sister.”
The telltale sound of someone opening the bedroom door stopped her. I grabbed the gun, put it back, and managed to close the wardrobe before the door opened. Opal looked around the room until her eyes fell on Mingzhu. Any hope that she was here to free us was dashed when I saw her expression and the holster around her waist.
“Did you turn outlaw?” Mingzhu asked.
“You did.”
“Not really. Only helping out our friends. Unlike you. What did they promise you?”
“Nothing.” Her gaze shifted to me. “Valentine really did a number on you.”
“What do you want, Opal?” Mingzhu asked. “Are you here to gloat? To kill us? To try to make me feel guilty again? Or are you here to help us?”
“Garet’s here. As soon as that Connolly woman has Garet in custody, she’ll let y’all go.”
“No, she won’t,” Joan said.
“Oh, have you been having breakfast with the sheriff?”
“What the hell does that mean?” Joan asked.
Mingzhu explained. “It means you’re privy to private conversations.” When Joan and I still looked puzzled, she said, “It’s a private expression. One of many things Opal and I have shared over the years. Does none of that matter to you? Everything we’ve been through?”
“It didn’t seem to matter to you,” Opal said. “You’ve been trying to leave me for years. Now, with her, you have your chance.” Opal threw me a nasty look, and I wondered how close their relationship had been and what the true motivation for this betrayal was.
“And you have the chance to get out of this life, too. If you hadn’t been so eager to take your revenge on me, I would have told you.”
I knew it was a lie; Mingzhu and I had talked about Opal, and she’d made it clear that the accordion-playing whore didn’t figure into her future. But Mingzhu was inching closer to Opal, keeping her voice low and soothing. She had managed to keep the whore’s attention distracted from the fact that Stella wasn’t in the room.
“Of course, you were always in my plans. We’re sisters, remember?”
Mingzhu was stroking Opal’s cheek, and Opal’s naked expression of hope and longing made my stomach twist.
“You promise?”
“Who would play the accordion for me?”
Opal hugged Mingzhu, and I caught her eye over Opal’s shoulder. She cut her eyes down to Opal’s holster, and I moved as quickly as possible and stole her gun. When she tried to pull away from Mingzhu’s embrace, Mingzhu held her tighter. Joan took the gun from my hand and hit Opal in the back of the head with the handle. Mingzhu let go, and Opal stared at her sister in astonishment.
“Ruby?”
“You shouldn’t have betrayed me, Opal.”
Joan hit her again, and Opal crumpled to the floor. “Get the guns,” Joan said.
We followed Joan out the window and crouched in the dark next to the house. “We need horses,” Joan said. “Can you two get four horses saddled?”
“Yes,” Mingzhu said.
“Don’t shoot anyone if you can help it. Hit them over the head. There’s knives in the tack room. I’m going to find Stella.”
We went our separate ways, Mingzhu and I crouched in the shadows. Pain burned through every part of my torso, but I gritted my teeth and stifled the groan that I wanted to make. Deacon stood in the yawning doorway of the barn, smoking. Mingzhu watched him with an expression of pure hatre
d. I motioned for her to follow me around to the back, remembering my failed attempt at eavesdropping all too well. I picked up a nearby stone and threw it far to the right of where we were, hitting a horse in the corral. I cried out in pain this time, and Mingzhu helped me run across the open yard when the guards were distracted by the bucking horse. We made it to the back of the barn and rested against the wall. Sweat poured down my temples, and my breaths came in gasps. Mingzhu squeezed my hand. “Stay here.”
“No. We go together.”
“You’re in no condition to take on a man. I have to take care of this myself.” She embraced me. “Wait here. I mean it.” She peeked around the wall again, took a deep breath, and entered the barn.
I realized too late she’d left her gun.
When I looked around the wall, the barn was empty. There was no sign of Mingzhu anywhere. I crept into the barn and whispered her name. Besides the soft nicker of a horse in the stall next to me, the barn was quiet. In the distance I heard a shout, the jingling of tack, and soft footsteps on the dirt-packed floor of the barn. Before I could turn, I felt the cold steel of a gun press against the base of my skull just below my right ear.
“I guess Valentine didn’t do a good enough job on you if you’ve managed to escape.”
“I’m tougher than I look.”
“Not tough enough to stop a bullet to the back of the head. Drop your guns.”
There was nothing for it but to obey. I bent down to place the guns on the floor and was standing up when the man kicked me in the back. I fell forward, eating a big helping of dirt that tasted of horse manure. I tried to crawl away, but Deacon kicked me in the side, precisely where Valentine had earlier. I screamed and curled into a protective ball.
Deacon let loose a string of fire-and-brimstone warnings that morphed into gibberish, a language only he and his Creator could understand.
I’ll never forget the crazed look in his eyes. He wasn’t seeing me, or the present, but some far-off memory, or maybe a vision of the future. A vision that was cut short by an ax to his neck. Blood spurted from it in a steady rhythm, arcing through the air and hitting the stall doors. The horses smelled the blood and grew restless, stamping their feet, nickering, a couple kicking the walls. “Dead-Eye” Deacon Dobbs grasped at the wound, but managed only to redirect the blood down his chest, a bright red streak across the starched white front of his shirt. He turned enough that I could see who wielded the ax: Mingzhu. He was a dead man standing, but she pulled the bloody ax back like a baseball player and drove it into his abdomen. He curled forward over it and tipped onto his face, dead.
She came to me and helped me stand on shaky legs. I was thankful for her embrace, to help me steady my wobbling knees and racing heart.
“Did he hurt you?”
“No worse than Valentine. We need to hurry.”
“Wait. Claire, we can saddle two horses and be on our way.”
“We’ve been through this.”
“All I care about is me and you making it out of here alive. I want that life in San Francisco with you.”
“Do you know how to ride us out of this valley? In the dark? Because I don’t.”
Her silence was her answer.
“I understand if you don’t want to, none of this is your fight. But I have to see this through.”
“This isn’t your fight, either.”
“You’re right. But they’re … my family. I’m not going to abandon them.”
“I want to be your family.”
“You barely know me.”
“You know that’s not true.”
I blushed, thinking of our nights alone. “I didn’t know if …”
“It was genuine on my part? It was. It is. I told you last night.”
“I know, but it’s difficult for me to believe, to trust …”
“I’m not perfect. I’ve told hundreds of men what they wanted to hear, what they paid to hear. But I’ve never lied to a friend, or a lover.”
She cradled my face, and our lips had barely touched when the gunshot rang out.
37
Margaret Parker’s Journal
Events of September 5, 1877
Written October 2, 1877 cont
Heresy Ranch
Timberline, Colorado
I rode up to my ranch alone, with a white handkerchief tied to the end of a stick. Lamplight shone from the windows, bringing to mind days past when we would have been snug inside, sitting around the fire: me settling the books, Hattie sewing, Jehu and Stella repairing a piece of tack or mending a saddle blanket, Joan playing with her dog on the floor. We’d had a good life, a simple one, a life that had deserved to be lived in peace. I rode down the lane with one intention: to make sure my family could live in peace again.
A dog barked nearby, and a man came out from behind a tree. His hat was pulled low and all I could see was a cigar glowing in the corner of his mouth. He came forward out of the darkness, his rifle barrel resting on his shoulder. In a hoarse whisper he said,—That you, Garet?
—Yes, Ought-Not. It’s me.
He looked around before coming closer.
—What the hell are you doing? Get out of here. They’re gonna kill you.
—Is Dorcas in there?
—Yes, and Spooner and Valentine. He jumped at the chance to catch you. Thinks you stole his son. He also said something about you killing his wife, but he’s loaded to the gunwales and not making a lot of sense. He did a number on that Grace woman, warming up for the main event, he said.
—He hurt Grace?
—Beat her up some. She’ll be fine.
—What are you doing here helping them?
—I’m not. I’m waiting on Opal. She’s in there to see her sister.
—Why is Ruby in there?
—I tried to convince Opal to leave with me, to get the hell out of here before something happens we regret. But she couldn’t help herself. She had to see Ruby brought low.
—I know you’ve had a thing for her for a long time, Ought-Not, but Opal’s going to be nothing but trouble.
—I’m starting to think you’re right.
—Help me.
Ought-Not stared at the cabin for a long time before looking back up at me.
—I did like working on those cattle ranches in Texas. Think you might be interested in expanding your outfit?
—I might be, but right now I have to get my family to safety. Tell me what I’m up against.
—Deacon’s here, Spooner, Valentine, and about four or five Pinkertons that Connolly woman brought.
—About eight, then?
—Not counting me or Opal.
—Jack and Domino? Scab?
—In town. Scab said he don’t mind killing Mexicans but he ain’t killing white women. Jack and Domino ain’t got no complaint with you, neither, like me. We all liked working out here for you. You’re a fair boss, and a dang sight prettier than the jefe we worked for in Texas.
—Would they help me?
He shook his head.
—They ain’t gonna go against you, but they ain’t gonna go against Spooner, either.
Ought-Not spit on the ground.
—He’s a killer now. It’s why the three of us want out.
I’d resisted the idea that Jed could have changed so much, but if Ought-Not said it, I believed him.
—What’s your plan anyways? Ought-Not said.
—Ride up under this flag and talk to Dorcas.
Ought-Not waited for more, and when it didn’t come, he shook his head.
—That’s a damn fool plan.
—Not if I have you on the porch, watching my back.
Ought-Not stared off in the darkness, worrying the chaw of tobacco he had in his cheek. He spit again.
—Hell, why not? You’re saner than Spooner is.
I waited down the road a piece while Ought-Not went to the house to tell them I was here. It didn’t take long for the Pinkertons to show themselves, dark coats and hats, double-holste
red pistols, bandoliers full of bullets, and shotguns held in two hands across their bodies, ready for action. Luke’s single rifle covering me somewhere in the dark sure did seem weak in the face of all that firepower.
Opal, Valentine, Spooner, and finally Dorcas came out of my ranch house. Damn if I didn’t admire Dorcas in that moment. There was no doubt in my mind she was in charge, and, well, it gave me a new line of argument for when we finally did talk. All the Pinkertons aimed their rifles at me and chambered a bullet.
—She’s under a damn flag, Ought-Not said.
—That sure is a lot of muscle for an unarmed woman. I appreciate the compliment more than you know, I said.
—Check her, Dorcas said.
I took my coat off, tossed it on the ground, and held my arms out.
—See? Unarmed. Where is my family?
—Family? I don’t have your family. I have two stupid farm girls, a Celestial, and a traitor. Turn yourself over to me and I’ll let them go.
—OK.
—What?
—That’s why I’m here, to turn myself in. But I want to make sure you truly let them go before I do.
—You don’t trust me?
—Nope. Or Spooner and definitely not that son of a bitch Valentine.
The blacksmith moved as if to come drag me off my horse. Dorcas stopped him.
—Opal, get the women.
She looked irritated at the order, but followed it easy enough when Spooner told her to do as Dorcas said.
—Before we make the exchange, I’d like to talk to you for a minute. Alone.
Spooner started down the steps, and I laughed.
—Not you, you traitorous rip. Dorcas.
—Just shoot her, Spooner said.
—Unarmed doesn’t mean unprotected. There’s a gun trained on you, Dorcas. If anyone shoots me, you’re the first to die. I hope you’ve promised Spooner and Valentine enough to want you to live.
She held up her hand, said something to Spooner in a low voice, and came toward me. I dismounted and waited by my horse’s head. When she caught clear sight of me, her expression changed.
Heresy Page 35
