“How’s that?” Bronx asked again.
Wrinkles swallowed the old gent’s eyes. “Well, way back when, a man of means would set up a fella with supplies. Then take a share of his money should he find a lucky strike.” Asa stretched arms high over his head, sweat rings rank even in the clean wind. The woman behind them sneezed. “Mr. Tabor did just that back in the day. And his miners struck gold, had to give him much of their wad. Got him his Matchless that way. Mostly big mining companies these days. Even should a man find a strike, he don’t have the funds all by hisself to mine the metal.”
“Hard work is a good thing. A man’ll do just about anything he needs to.” Bronx leaned back against the worn bench and all but clamped his hand over his unruly mouth. Bulldog’s words, every time he’d done something awful.
Something awful he hadn’t really needed to do.
“You got that right, pilgrim.”
Memories tornadoed through Bronx’s brain, his heart. He nodded, moving thoughts around faster.
A man’ll do just about anything. No matter losing a couple of toes, Bulldog had declared those very words after they’d hid out two days in a blizzard. Then he’d marched them both straight up a frozen waterfall.
With a shiver, Bronx batted away a swarm of coal dust. Asa snapped the window shut, but couldn’t shutter Bronx’s mind. Around them, passengers squawked like a henhouse, and his skin rustled.
Yep. Bulldog. But Mounties were chasing Bronx all on his own. And on this side of the 49th, Pinkertons, too.
Therefore, Bronx Sanderson was in twice the trouble. Nerves flicked down his spine like lice.
He forced himself to settle again. That is, Shandy Brinks was in twice the trouble. And Shandy lived in a life Bronx no longer lived. A life all over and done. He touched his greasy, fake-blacked hair just to be sure. Hadn’t seen a reward poster for Bronx Sanderson in quite some years, but a blond-headed Shandy wearing his face was ripe for capture. So Bronx decided to brave his own self for a change.
Well, despite the shoeblack.
Plenty of places to get lost in a town two miles high.
Asa slapped his knee, and dust rose in the air. “Well, should you decide on hammer and nails, you find me at the Delaware, you hear?”
“Yep. Thanks kindly.” And Bronx meant it. Good to have a chum. Good to have options. As a kid in Saint Joe, outlawing had seemed the only one after the old lady tending him died and his brother turned Texas cowboy. Bronx flushed, hot. Apprenticing with the local blacksmith hadn’t mustered a mite of enthusiasm. But he’d found a way with horses. They’d follow him out of a corral like that child’s tale of the Pied Piper.
Shame blistered beneath his decent new clothes.
Asa sighed deep down in a bedroom tone Bronx had once used with Rebekah. “Ah, beauties. Mosquito Range that side. Sawatches over there yonder. Mount Massive. God’s country, don’t ya know?”
Bronx grunted. Reminded him a tad of Mount Cascade hunkering over Banff. After growing up on the prairie, he found himself liking mountains. Never thought of them as female, though. Coming to Colorado hadn’t been a hard resolution at all. And Leadville, a bustling town at the top of the world, well, Bronx Sanderson would make a new life here for a while, just fine. And far enough from everybody else’s business.
“You sound like a spiritual man, Asa.”
“You ain’t?” Asa moved and his stink rustled up even more.
Bronx held back a scowl. No. As Shandy Brinks, he’d lost his soul a long time ago. But maybe...maybe now, as his real self, maybe somehow he’d find absolution. Find his way.
Find his brother.
“Not much,” he said. “You?”
“Oh, Ma raised me on the scriptures, but I found life a lot less lucky than killing a giant with a little rock.” He barked a loud laugh. The nag behind them kicked under their seat.
But Bronx didn’t laugh. It still hurt bad. “You are lucky to have a ma.”
“I am so lucky, pilgrim. She’s a fine soul.” His eyes squeezed closed in thought. “You lose your ma, son?”
“Yep. She died when I came into this world.” Bronx’s heart splattered hard all over his ribs. How could he miss something he’d never had? She’d lived long enough to pick his name, that’s all. His pa had liked places, had named his big brother Tulsa.
Pa. Bronx snorted. The pa who left the day after getting another son inside Ma. Lost in the goldfields somewhere, never to be heard from again. And Tulsa, left behind at seven years old, well, Tulsa had tried his best.