“It’s you,” I said. “The traitor.”
“I was faithful to my country. My country isn’t the same as yours.” His accent was stronger now, far more pronounced, a sharp Kentucky twang. He had stopped trying to hide who he was, who he wanted to be.
“Beyond that. You were a traitor to Pinkerton,” I said.
“I should have venerated him for what? Was he loyal to me, when he kicked me out in the street?”
“You deserved that.”
He laughed and took a long drink from his mug of beer before answering. Because he was sitting down, I couldn’t be sure whether he was wearing a gun under his jacket. His hands were on the table, so I knew whatever happened, I could reach mine first.
As if it were unimportant, as if our conversation were just mere conversation, he mused, “Does anyone get what they deserve? Is that what you think?”
“Yes.”
“Then I hope you sleep well at night on your lovely pillow of self-righteousness.”
“I sleep fine,” I lied.
“Without either Tim Bellamy or Allan Pinkerton in your bed?”
“Appalling, still,” I said. “You don’t know the first thing about my private life.”
“Only that you’re a whore.” His voice grew more intent, colder. “And you never were a good agent.”
I gestured at our surroundings. “Good enough to catch you.”
“Ah, but have you caught me?”
“It would seem so.”
With one long, slender finger, he pointed over my shoulder at the door to the outside. “I can see the exit. I’m faster and bigger than you. What are you going to do to stop me?”
In answer, I rose and brought my gun out of the folds of my skirt with both hands, pointing it straight at his heart. I’d never had to shoot a man in the line of duty, but I’d kept in practice. I’d also set aside the Deringer for a lightweight Colt Baby Dragoon, figuring that if things got so desperate that I had to shoot, I’d better have the option to shoot more than once.
The look on his face did not soften. If anything, he looked more defiant, not less.
Someone at the next table stood so quickly that their chair overturned. I could hear murmurings. It would have been better to corner him alone, but I couldn’t take the chance at losing him.
He said, “That’s a very small gun.”
“The bullets are big enough.”
He rose—seeming taller than I remembered—and backed away, edging past the table toward the open floor. I thought I saw the outline of a holster on his hip but couldn’t be sure.
The crowd surged and swam around us, buzzing like a hive. For a moment, there was nothing but empty space between us, but there were too many people behind him, and I didn’t have a clear shot. I should have waited. I hadn’t waited. Now, one way or the other, we’d have our reckoning.
The crowd was thinning quickly as the inhabitants of the saloon stood and ran. A few ran between us, and I stepped forward to keep my eye trained on Mortenson. He grabbed at a woman running near him and missed, cursing as she slipped his grasp. Soundlessly, she kept running, and I cheered her just as silently as she escaped. I didn’t want to hurt anyone else. Only my quarry. Only he deserved to suffer for what he’d done.
In what seemed like the space of a minute, it was just the two of us facing each other.
“You took that ring, didn’t you?” It wasn’t really a question.
He didn’t have to ask which ring. He had tried to discredit me, to discourage me, so many years ago. Our vendetta had begun then; I just hadn’t realized it. I wondered whether he had, when he took the snake ring from me on the streets of Chicago and slipped it back into the safe two days later, hoping to turn Pinkerton against me. It hadn’t worked. At least on that front, I had won.
“Why does that matter?” he asked.
“Everything matters. You should know that, as a former detective.”
“Former? Ah, Kate. You’re such a fool sometimes. Once a detective, always a detective.”
I let his words hang in the air, unanswered. We were done playing. Everything behind us was unimportant now. What mattered was that one of us would survive the confrontation, and it was time to settle which one.
“You won’t shoot me,” he said. “Whatever else you are, you’re a lady.”
His hand was on its way down to his holster when my first bullet caught him in the shoulder, spinning him halfway around. The recoil stung, but I forced my hand back up into position for a second shot while he struggled to right himself, his gun in his hand. He got a shot off in my direction, and with no time to aim, my second shot went wild. I heard his gun click in the silence, out of bullets. We both took a breath. Then he hunched low, clutching his shoulder, scurrying behind tables and between chairs toward the exit.
I went to take a step forward and fell. Only then did I realize my right leg wasn’t working quite right. I looked down to confirm it. I should not have. Through the many layers of my skirting, I couldn’t see the wound, but the blood was spreading quickly, and the fabric was already heavy with it. The stain radiated out from my thigh. The leg was numb now, but I knew the pain would come quickly, and I couldn’t get ahead of it, no matter what I did.
I cursed angrily, loudly. I’d come so far; there was no chance I would let him get away.
I fired from where I was. My third shot missed. My fourth one buried itself in his back, and he fell. But then he was up again, faster than I was, and out in the street. I ignored the fire in my right leg and hauled myself up on my left, hobbling as fast as I could, panting. I had one bullet left. I prayed for the chance to use it.