“He said he needed another man,” I say. Despite all my yammering, I don’t really wanna be shot, and that’s exactly what’s gonna happen if I mention the coin her husband gave me.
“That sounds like a lie. The Rose Riders don’t take on just anyone.”
“Well, they took on me, and at the time, I weren’t complaining. It sounded a heck of a lot better than hanging.”
“?’Cus yer weak,” she says. “Rose knew he’d be able to bend you to his will. And he were right, seeing as yer what now—eighteen, nineteen?—and still ain’t made a break for it.”
“Look, are you gonna shoot me or ain’t ya? ’Cus I don’t particularly like getting lectured while bound and beaten. This ain’t what I wanted! You think I asked for this to be my life? I didn’t have a choice.”
“Were you followed?” she says, like I ain’t even had an outburst.
It ain’t worth mentioning how Crawford’d been on my tail. All it’ll do is put her on edge, make her trigger finger all the more eager to flex, and I’m sure I lost him in Prescott, besides.
“Not that I know of,” I say.
She scoffs, shaking her head. “I swear, them lawboys are worthless.”
“You sound like Vaughn.”
“Who the hell is Vaughn?”
I open my mouth to answer, and pause.
Any other soul’d be lugging me to the sheriff right now. Most of ’em would shoot me first and deliver a corpse later. They’d take the bounty and revel in the praise they’d get from townfolk, the story in the papers painting them a hero. But this woman don’t want none of it. ’Cus she don’t want to be named, don’t want to be known for her heroics.
Not when she hired a gunslinger to kill Waylan Rose and his boys. All this time I been thinking the cowboy would lead me to Waylan’s killer, but he prolly is the killer. The cowboy could be the gunslinger and the Colton woman coulda married him. Her surname’s changed with the exchange of wedding vows, but her past ain’t.
This is the end of the puzzle, no matter how I look at it.
I almost wish Boss were here so I could point a finger, say Her husband’s the one you want, and then walk away. But Boss ain’t here, and his boys ain’t neither, and I’d rather keep it that way. This is valuable information, worth bartering were they to catch up with me. But right now I need this woman to cut me loose. I need to take a horse and keep on running.
And Vaughn—God bless her—is the way.
So I look back at the Colton woman and say, calm as anything, “Vaughn’s a girl with ties in Prescott. She were hiding in the stagecoach I stole when fleeing Wickenburg.”
The woman’s face goes blank. “Where’s she at now?”
“In the city, I reckon. She ran, and I let her go.”
“And she knows you’re the Rose Kid?”
I nod. “She knew I were headed this way, too. Chances are she’s found a lawman by now. Hell, I’m half surprised they ain’t shown up inquiring after me yet.”
Panic flicks over the woman’s features as she considers her options. She’d be best off letting me go and when the Law come knocking, telling them she ain’t never seen me. It’s obvious she don’t wanna be the one to turn me in. She don’t want that printed in the paper. That she’s stayed hidden from Boss so long already is a small miracle.
“Why’d you keep the girl alive?” she asks. “You shoulda killed her. That’s what yer kind do to folk that get in the way.”
“Killing unarmed women ain’t really my fancy.”
She frowns, glances at her rifle, frowns deeper. Finally she says, “You coulda picked any godforsaken claim ’long this creek, but you picked mine, and now I got myself tangled in some Rose Rider mischief whether I asked for it or not. There’ll be consequences if’n I turn you in. Same goes for if the Law comes investigating and finds you here.”
“So why don’t you just shoot me and get rid of my body?”
“’Cus I got a notion you ain’t the monster yer pretending. I don’t think yer good, neither, but I wouldn’t feel right ’bout shooting you no more. Not after what I’s learned.”
Her eyes are fixed on my scarred forearm. Well, I’ll be damned. She’s got a nurturing bone after all.
“Then let me go,” I offer.
“That would require me to trust you. And I don’t. Plus, it ain’t just me I gotta think on no more”—her hand moves to her belly—“so I’m gonna wait for Jesse to get home. We’ll decide what to do together.”
“Jesse. That yer husband?”
Her lips pinch tight. She’s said more than she meant to.
She’s right not to trust me. I got the name that will buy me freedom now. If’n I get outta this barn and Boss still somehow catches me, I’ll gladly hand over the name Jesse Colton and the place he calls home, so I can walk free. Boss is a man of his word, and so long as he swears he won’t lay a hand on the woman or her babe, the devil in me’ll give her husband up.
It’s like she said. I ain’t a monster. But I ain’t all that good neither.
Back up at the house, her dog starts barking, and not in a friendly way. This is a guttural growl, capped with sharp yips like the ones he threw at me earlier.
“What the—” The woman grabs her rifle.
It could just be the sheriff, come calling on account of Vaughn’s babbling, but I fear it might be worse.
Crawford.
I’d left my horse out front of the woman’s house. The mare’s prolly still standing there, seeing as she ain’t with me in this barn. If’n Crawford carried on through Prescott, he could be stopping at every claim ’long this creek, searching high heaven for a sign of me.
“Wait!” I shout as the woman waddles outside. “It ain’t safe.”
It’s dark now, the best sun lost till morning.
The dog goes on yapping.
“Yer gonna need me!”
But she keeps walking and don’t look back.
Chapter Nineteen
* * *
Charlotte
I stand with my ear to the bedroom door Uncle has deemed my new cage. When I hear him enter the neighboring room and begin talking to Mother, I sneak out and pad for his office.
It’s locked, but that’s never stopped me from forcing my way into Father’s office when I desired to read his correspondences with Uncle Gerald regarding one of my pieces for the Courier. I fish a pin from my hair and go to work on the lock. It clicks open a second later.
I rush to the desk only to find that Uncle has taken the will and contract with him, or perhaps stored them in the safe. He is not that dimwitted to leave them in the open, but ledgers are spread across the desk in plain view. I can’t help but scan the earnings—those of the Gulf Mine in one ledger, then Uncle’s personal finances in another. The numbers seem off. I run through the columns again, certain I’ve read things incorrectly in my haste. But no, the amount of copper that came in each week at the Gulch Mine in December is higher than the amount he’s been shipping to Yuma, which in turn is sent to buyers by steamer. The difference is finding its way directly into Uncle’s personal bank account. And it is no small sum.