I shake my head, press my hand to my temple. When I look again, I can’t make out nothing. No red, and rightfully so. If Crawford were following, he’d have that red where it belongs: lining his jacket so that he blends into the dirt and shrub.
I scan for a plume of dust, anything suggesting motion. Nothing.
Maybe the heat’s getting to me. I’ve seen my pa before on the scorching desert plains. In the worst of the summer heat I’d sometimes look over my shoulder and catch him riding after me, a rifle aimed at my back. One time, when we were making for Bisbee in mid-July, we came out of a dry, parched valley, and at a crest in the land I saw all four of the Lloyds hanging from a mesquite tree. They rippled in the heat. When I blinked, they vanished.
Then again, it’s December, nowhere near hot enough for that kinda mind trick.
I reckon I need water, then. Food. I ain’t had neither since the sorry excuse of a meal (a scrap of stale bread and a sip of water) that were brought to me at the Jail Tree ’round dinnertime.
The Hassayampa’s started to flow a bit here, prolly on account of snowmelt. It’s as good a place as any to give the horses a rest.
I draw rein and stumble from the driver’s box. When I get to the riverbank, I all but crumble to my knees and gulp down a few handfuls of water. It’s cool and glorious.
My stomach growls in protest. I need more than just water.
I’m a good shot with a pistol—Boss made sure of that over the years—but there ain’t nothing to shoot at. Even if there were, I don’t got a weapon on me besides the knife. I return to the coach and search it, just in case it were loaded up with any food for the journey. What I find ain’t impressive. The roof is empty, and the rear boot holds only one chest, filled with a blanket, some maps, and what looks like extra gear for the horses were one of their harnesses or reins to bust while on the move. If’n there were any other provisions aboard, they’re now on Wickenburg’s streets. I flew outta there like a gunshot, and I heard things go bouncing free. Foolish, really, to think I could shake the Riders so easy and have provisions waiting for me on a silver platter.
I pull Boss’s kerchief from my pocket. It’s got my blood on it from last night, and it still smells like his jacket, which makes a shudder creep down my spine. I take my hat off and rake my hands through my hair, use the kerchief to wipe sweat from my brow. Then I tuck it away and grab the coach’s door handle. It’s a fool’s wish to think a chest of food might rest on the seats the posse intended us Rose Riders to fill, but I gotta be thorough.
I yank open the door.
It swings toward me.
And I swear.
The coach ain’t empty. There’s a body on the tiny strip of floor between the two benches.
It’s the girl from the train. Charlotte, the deputy had called her.
At first I think she’s dead. There’s blood in her matted hair and a bit more dried between her brow and ear. Her body’s at a weird angle, too, head near me by the door, arm pinned under her own weight, and one leg still up on the bench seat. But then I see the shallow rise and fall of her chest.
She’s unconscious.
The goddamn, no-good, nearly-got-me-killed devil is just unconscious.
A pretty Colt pistol rests beside her face.
I grab it. Press the barrel to her skull. My finger rests ’gainst the hammer, but I don’t cock it, don’t reach for the trigger.
I ain’t a virtuous man. I’ve watched plenty of women die at Boss’s boys’ hands. But I ain’t never done the deed myself, and Boss ain’t ever forced me to. For whatever reason, he were content with me watching the horror and saving my bullets for men.
I look at the girl, then the pistol in my hand, then the girl again.
Cursing, I withdraw the weapon and stuff it in the back of my waistband. I can’t do it. Not when I’m finally free of the Riders and able to choose my own path.
She musta been on the run, maybe scrambled into the carriage for a place to hide. She’s dressed, but barefoot, which makes me recall the empty bedroom at the boarding house, how the shutters banged as we barged in. She coulda been staying in that very room, mighta ran for cover soon as she heard Boss’s shot in the foyer. All them things I heard go bumping when fleeing prolly weren’t trunks falling to the road. It were her taking a tumble, hitting her head. That she’s been out this long is troublesome. Could be she’s close to death. Or dying. I look at the Hassayampa and consider dragging her from the coach and leaving her ’long the riverbed. But she don’t even got shoes on. I reckon leaving a woman to starve ain’t any better than shooting one in the skull. Maybe it’s worse. It wouldn’t be a quick death, the starving.
“Goddammit,” I say, smacking the bench in front of me.
The girl don’t so much as stir.
“Goddammit,” I say again. I stand there staring at her a minute, then finally draw my knife. It’s a bowie, near identical to one Boss carries, with a smooth wood handle and simple guard. He gave me this blade when I’d been riding with him a little over a year, as a sixteenth birthday present. He’d berate me for not using it to slit the girl’s throat, but I’m calling the shots now.
I shove the tip of the blade through one of the coach’s leather curtains and start shredding it into strips. When I got myself a dozen to work with, I pat Charlotte down for other weapons and search the carriage, finding nothing but a half-filled journal sitting on one of the benches. I bind her ankles together, same with her wrists. My blue bandanna ends up serving as a gag.
I don’t know what the hell I’m gonna do with her. Maybe she’ll stay out till Prescott. Maybe I can dump her near a doc’s or something and her fate won’t rot my conscience. My conscience. Ha! It’s a miracle I even got one anymore.
When she’s good and secure, I hop down from the coach step. After making sure the door is also tethered tight, the leather threaded through its window and the adjoining one, then knotted tight ’gainst the wooden framework, I head for the Hassayampa.
I wander the banks till I find a hearty prickly pear cactus. The pear-shaped fruit is long since gone, but with an extra strip of leather curtain wrapped ’round my hands, I cut off a few of the flat disks and take to stripping ’em of their skin and sharp spines. The plant were prolly ripe for eating a month or two back, so it ain’t the most delicious or filling of meals, but it quiets my stomach some. Crouched low ’long the bank, I gather and skin a few more disks, then wrap ’em in another strip of leather for later.
Charlotte’s still lost to the world when I return to the coach.
You should kill her, son, Boss whispers in the back of my head. Before she gets you caught and hung. Or before word leaks of where yer at and I come to get you.
I climb into the driver’s seat and coax the team north. I wonder how far I gotta ride before I can get the bossman outta my head.
I hear another voice whispering, but this time it’s my own. You won’t never be free of him, Reece. He’s already a part of you. Yer already too much like him to turn yer life ’round.
Chapter Eleven
* * *
Charlotte