Boss turns, shouldering his way into a boarding house. A man appears on the staircase landing, lantern held out to see what the fuss’s over. He’s young—maybe a few years younger than me. I watch his eyes go big with fear as he reaches for his waist, only to remember he’s in his night things and don’t got a pistol belt with him. He grabbed a lantern ’stead of his piece.
Boss’s arm snaps up and he fires. The poor fella drops like a lead weight. He starts screaming and hollering in pain, and I feel that sharp sting of regret, that agonizing guilt. He weren’t even armed. What was he gonna do, throw the lantern at us? It weren’t a fair fight, and I just stood and let it happen.
Boss don’t shoot him again. There ain’t time to waste, and the poor kid’ll be dead soon enough. Because I’m as awful as the rumors say, I don’t do the merciful thing and finish the guy. I just run after Boss.
The hallway is long and narrow, lined with doors. Boss plows into the last room so hard, the window shutters on the opposite wall rattle and flap. A gust of cool December air hits my cheeks. The bedsheets are strewn about, but the room’s empty. Boss jerks his head at the window, giving me a silent order. I’m to check, see if there’s someone waiting outside.
I tuck my knife away, creep nearer, and venture a peek. The window opens onto an alley filled with goods, but it appears quiet. A lucky break. I throw a boot ’gainst the window ledge and heave myself out. Just before I hit the street, I catch movement across the way. Light glints off a long barrel.
“Shooter!” I yell to the others, but it ain’t much of a warning. The marksman opens fire from where he’s crouched behind several barrels. The wood ’round me goes popping and splintering. I flatten onto the dirt street.
“Murphy!” Boss shouts, waving wildly while Crawford sends shotgun rounds ’cross the way. “Murphy, get the hell outta there!”
He joins Crawford in his assault on the gunman, and I run like hell. Well, more like scuttle on all fours, staying low as I can and moving away from the gunfight till my back hits a wall. Feeling blind in the moonlight, I realize it ain’t a wall, but a low ledge, maybe for keeping all the goods organized and in place. I haul myself up and over.
I land on my stomach—hard enough that the air blows outta my lungs. I heave and cough, glancing back the way I came. Boss and the others ain’t following. They’re trapped in the boarding house, maybe cornered. I need to go back for them and . . . do what? I don’t got my belt. I ain’t got a pistol to fire. I’m a dead man. Just like them.
“One went that way!” a man shouts. “Toward the stage stop.”
I push to my feet and run. There’s indeed a stage stop just ahead, with a coach parked out front and four horses already harnessed. Which don’t make a lick of sense. No one goes leaving horses harnessed through the night.
But there’s a tinge of color to the sky. It ain’t the middle of the night like I thought it were, but rather much closer to dawn. This could be the very coach the deputy meant to escort us to Prescott in. Maybe the lawman even had the notion to depart early.
Gunfire rings back the way I came. I ain’t gonna live through the morning, let alone the next ten minutes if’n I wait for my crew. And if I try to circle back and meet ’em, I’m just gonna end up shot or back in custody, with a noose in my future.
But the coach . . .
I look at it again, not quite believing my luck. Its curtains are drawn tight. The driver’s box empty. And the reins are just dangling there, waiting to be took.
I scramble into the seat. The steeds spring to life at the snap of the reins, and the coach lurches forward. I keep cracking the lines, urging the horses on, ignoring the hollering and shouting and gunfire that seems to be right on my heels. A couple of shots get fired my way. My experience driving a plow for the Lloyds is all that keeps me in control of the cumbersome coach, and I miraculously make it to the next cross street without a bullet in my back. Yanking on the reins hard, I turn north. Something thuds behind me—parcels and baggage falling off the rear boot, maybe. An empty stretch of pale dirt waits ahead, the last of Wickenburg’s buildings fly by me in a blur, and then the coach is bouncing over the rugged terrain of the desert beyond.
If’n the Rose Riders manage to get outta town, they’ll push hard a few miles, then rest.
And I ain’t with ’em.
I ain’t got a single way to even know where they’re at.
And right then it hits me, like a bullet to the chest: I don’t want to find ’em, and I don’t have to.
I’m free.
Free.
The word’s like a spike, a hammer, an echoing blast.
I do the math. These coaches can cover a solid five miles an hour, more even, in good conditions, which is ’bout the same as we ride any distance in the saddle. But if I run the horses ragged, Prescott could be in my grasp by late in the day. It’ll be the last place Boss goes. He’s sure to avoid setting foot where he’s due for trial. While they’re seeing to injuries and formulating a plan, I can outride ’em. Ditch the coach a few miles from the capital. Walk in not as Reece Murphy, Rose Kid and murderer and scum of the earth, but as any damn name I choose.
I can start again.
Jesus Christ, I’m free.
Getting arrested . . . damn near hanging . . . It’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me.
I slap the reins hard, guiding the team north and keeping within eyeshot of the Hassayampa. I’ll slow in a few hours, maybe even give the team a rest ’round noon. But for now I’m putting as much distance between me and Wickenburg as possible. I’m still the only soul who can identify the cowboy Boss is after, and I ain’t daft enough to think he won’t come for me if he spots me ’long the horizon. And somehow I know he’s gonna make it outta Wickenburg alive. That devil could crawl from the deepest pits of Hell itself.
The dry desert earth goes racing by. I keep my sights on the rutted trail of coaches that’ve traveled before me and pray I don’t bust a wheel.
Chapter Ten
* * *
Reece
Hours later, the sun’s peaked in the sky, but the temperature don’t seem to be getting much warmer. I been gaining elevation most of the day, and still I’m sweating in the driver’s box. The horses’ve slowed, too, their breathing growing labored.
I consider unhitching the team and riding one of the horses into Prescott, but I ain’t a good bareback rider—’specially not for any long duration—and mountains loom to the north. I’ve crossed ’em a few times on those occasions Boss wanted to focus on the Atlantic Pacific for a change. It were a long, trying ride, even in the saddle. I’ll stick with the coach.
Ahead, the pines are bright and lightly snow-dusted. The colorful sight is almost blinding after spending the last six months riding between Yuma and Tucson ’long the Southern Pacific. I’d been starting to think the whole world were nothing but shades of dirt.
I gaze back at the way I came and freeze. There’s a speck of red in the distance, tailing me. But no, that can’t be right. Not with the bullet Crawford took to the knee.