No more than two blocks from the house, I realize I haven’t the slightest idea what I’m doing. Where am I supposed to go? I don’t have the supplies to make a trip to Wickenburg, where I have an ally in Deputy Montgomery, or even to a neighboring mining community. And like Mother said, I can’t trust anyone in Prescott.
I glance to the north. There’s the Thompson girl’s residence, but a few miles off. She lost her father to criminals. Surely she understands what it’s like to be left powerless and alone, and she will not turn me in. And if she gives me the name of the man she hired . . .
That’s the solution, I realize.
I need a gunslinger. Not to kill Uncle, but to scare him honest. I need someone dark and dangerous enough to make him listen. Someone Uncle believes will come back and finish the deed, as only a gunslinger can, if he reneges on his word.
I turn the sorrel north and flick the reins.
Chapter Twenty
* * *
Reece
I wrestle ’gainst the ropes till I manage to kick off a boot. My bowie knife ain’t inside. The Colton woman musta found it before securing me.
Every curse I know comes tumbling from my mouth as I go on struggling. I kick off my other boot, hoping in vain that I remembered wrong, that maybe I stashed the blade in the other shoe after cutting all those bindings from the coach curtain. But nothing. I’m bound, weaponless, helpless. This must be how Vaughn felt in the coach. It’s goddamn awful.
I knock my boots aside in anger. Then pause.
The ropes ’round my ankles ain’t nearly as tight without footwear. I wriggle, flexing my feet till I can slip free, then grab my boots and stuff my feet back in. The bindings on my wrists I can deal with later. Snatching up the rope I just freed from my feet, I tear outta the barn.
As I close in on the farmhouse, I can see the horse I rode bareback from Prescott still waiting out front. Two additional horses stand beside it. The lighting’s too poor to make out their coats and identify them as belonging to the boys, so I creep closer, praying they belong to a pair of lawmen. That’s when I catch sight of a figure standing at the foot of the porch. His back’s to me, his focus keen on something in the house. His uneven hunch is immediately recognizable, one shoulder slouching more than the other. Hobbs.
He musta been on my tail, too, traveling with Crawford.
The Colton woman lets out a sharp cry from the house, and for a second, all I can envision is my ma pleading for mercy as well. The first and only time I tried to run from the gang, Boss sent Diaz to pay her a visit, and he took a finger from her like it were nothing but a coin. This is how Boss keeps me in line. It’s how the Rose Riders keep everyone in line—threats and violence and fear. It’s how they’ll get whatever they want outta the Colton woman, and there ain’t no denying that I’m the blasted reason these men are at her door.
I glance at the horses, the dark expanse of land to the north. If I run now, her blood will be on my hands.
I creep toward Hobbs, stealthy and painfully slow.
Inside, the dog’s still growling, but not so loud that I ain’t able to hear a second voice—Jones. “If he ain’t here, why you got a problem with us searching yer place?”
The woman says something I can’t make out, but the sound of him striking her—skin on skin—is clear.
Three more paces to Hobbs. Two more. One.
He hears the whoosh of my arms, but not soon enough to do nothing ’bout it. Hands still bound, I loop the rope from my ankles up and over his head, then pull back, dragging him away from the porch.
He grabs at the rope beneath his chin, choking and sputtering. I pull back harder, landing in the dirt and taking him down with me. With his back to my chest, I use the weight of my body to keep the rope taut. Hobbs’s boots kick and dig in the dirt, searching for purchase, trying to roll us over. He’s stronger than me on a good day, but we both been riding hard for a while, and I got the element of surprise. I can feel the fight leaving him, the kicks weaker, and then he finally goes still. His hands fall away from the rope.
I scramble from underneath his dead weight. When his head lolls to the side, his lifeless eyes bore into me, staring at the killer he never saw.
I bend and retrieve his six-shooter, check the chambers.
You best holster that, son, Boss growls in my ear. You kill one of my men, and I might be able to forgive you. He were dumb to drop his guard like that, anyway. But you go killing a second, and I ain’t gonna be able to turn a blind eye. You’ll pay for it with yer own blood.
I cock the hammer, step onto the porch.
A board creaks beneath my weight, and Jones freezes. “Thank God, Murphy,” he says, his face bright with relief. “We were getting worried. Where’s Hobbs?”
The Colton woman stares. She’s figured it out, I can tell. She knows what I aim to do.
Her rifle’s resting on the table—put there by Jones prol-ly—and she’s sitting in a chair little more than an arm’s length away, her dog tied to the table’s leg and growling. Her hands ain’t bound, nor is she secured to the chair, but I know plain as day why she didn’t put up a fight. Even now, her palms are on her belly, like they alone can keep that second heart beating if’n hers stops.
Her cheek’s bleeding. Jones is still holding the knife he used to slice her open.
I don’t say a word, but Jones senses a shift in the air.
“Murphy?” he says, cautious.
He’s standing a few paces from the Colton woman. I could get him without endangering her. I could shoot him dead right now.
And even still, I hesitate.
It’s Jones. He’s only three years older than me, the closest thing to a brother I ever had. We’ve watched each other’s backs during jobs, joked in the saddle, talked ’bout what we’ll do when we retire from robbing trains. He’s the only guy who ever talked ’bout an after. I thought that meant we had something in common, that maybe he also dreamed of being a better person, that this was all just temporary, not the people we’re destined to be. But he’s got that knife in his hand, and the woman’s just sitting there holding her belly as her cheek bleeds on his account, and I know I don’t wanna share this with him. I don’t wanna have a single thing in common. Not nothing. Ever.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
This is what betrayal looks like. He knows what’s coming. God, he knows. It’s written in his wide eyes and slack-jawed mouth. Then his lips harden into a line, his brows come down.
He stares at me and I stare back, and it lasts what feels like an hour.
Suddenly, quick as a rattler, he draws his pistol.
I fire mine.
Clark Jones don’t even get a shot off. His head snaps back and he drops to the floor, the knife and pistol clattering from his hands. The Colton woman gapes at me like I’m a stranger. It’s her expression—caught between gratitude and shock, admiration and horror—that causes it all to crash into me.
I shot him. Holy hell, I blew away Jones and I strangled Hobbs. I murdered them both. I’m not just the vile Rose Kid, I’m the coward that turned on his own.