My fear betrays me, and my lip trembles. I bite down on it, snuffing out the quiver. An expression flickers over the robber’s face, something that suggests he has no problem stealing, but doesn’t particularly like being reminded that his victims are human. That they fear and shake and cry.
But perhaps that can be used to my advantage.
There are only two robbers in this car, and if I’m able to surprise the man named Murphy—drop him with a bullet—surely someone else will spring to action. Certainly the lawman will wake from a gunshot fired in such an enclosed space.
A bullet goes off in the payload car, startling me so thoroughly, I nearly drop Father’s pistol.
“Hurry up, dammit,” the robber snarls.
“All right,” I say, cocking Father’s pistol beneath my jacket, intent on giving Murphy a pearl-shaped bit of lead.
But as I draw the weapon, the door to the cash car bursts open and several men tumble into ours. The one in the lead sees the barrel of my gun appearing from beneath my jacket, and he dives at Murphy, knocking him to the aisle floor. My shot goes into the man’s shoulder.
And that’s when the lawman finally wakes.
Dropping his kerchief and drawing his pistol, he shoves me toward the window and opens fire on the robbers. I flinch at each shot, grabbing my ears as the car explodes with thunderous noise. Around the lawman’s legs, I can see a bit of the aisle: Murphy struggling to free himself from beneath the man I hit—a man he’s now calling “Boss.”
The lawman lets out an oof and slumps into me. There’s shouting and more gunshots, then silence. My ears still ring, barely able to hear the pound of fleeing hooves.
I peer out the window and find the gang on the move, their steeds kicking up dust as they fly for the river.
“Sir?” I say, turning back to the lawman. He shifts his weight off me awkwardly and lets out a low wheeze. “Sir, are you all right?”
The pistol slides from his hand, landing on the floor of the car with a clatter. His eyelids flutter.
“See it through for me, miss,” he says. “Please?”
I grab at his front. He is slick, wet. The breast pocket of his vest is glistening with blood. “What?” I gasp out. “See what through?”
But his only response is a ragged, uneven breath as his blood seeps through my fingers.
Chapter Three
* * *
Reece
By the time we cross the Gila and kick the horses into a true sprint, flying north, the reality of the situation crashes into me.
That fair-skinned, wide-eyed, lip-trembling girl nearly sent me to meet my maker.
I know exactly where I went wrong, why I didn’t catch sooner that she were pulling an act. I’d been keeping my gaze down as I moved up the aisle, trying to avoid looking folk in the eye if I could manage it. In part ’cus it ain’t never worth being recognized, even with the bandanna up high and our hats down low, but also ’cus I hate the look I get during jobs. The fear and horror, the desperate anguish. I know what they’re feeling ’cus I lived it myself. When I’d finally fled my drunken father at thirteen and found work on the Lloyds’ farm near La Paz, I thought I were safe. The Colorado ran nearby. The earth were rich and fertile. It was heaven. For nearly two blessed years I wasn’t boy, or bastard, or son of a bitch, but Reece Murphy, a kid that just might be able to make something of himself. I vowed to be a farmhand for the Lloyds long as I could manage. But then Boss and his boys came galloping onto their claim the summer before I turned fifteen, and it all went to hell.
It were the hottest day I ever saw. Longest, too. They killed the whole family—Billy included, who were only seven—and they took their time doing it.
I don’t know what made ’em choose that claim. Maybe they were bored. Maybe they needed money and the Lloyds were the easiest, closest hit. Alls I know is I’d’ve been strung up also if it weren’t for the coin Diaz found while emptying my pockets.
“Boss, you seen this?” he said. “Ain’t this yer brother’s?”
He tossed the coin over, and Luther—who were in the process of carving that blasted rose into my forearm—paused to snatch it outta the air. He went dead still when he done saw it proper. A fury spread over his face, not unlike the look that crawls over my pa’s when he’s had too much whiskey.
“Where’d you get this?” Boss snarled, holding the coin an inch from my nose. It were a gold piece a touch smaller than a half-dollar, featuring a wreath on one side and Lady Liberty on the other. It looked a bit like a three-dollar piece, but there was no currency amount on either face. I reckon it coulda been worth a cent or a hundred times that, but I’d held on to it simply ’cus I’d never seen another like it.
“A cowboy gave it to me last week,” I answered.
“What cowboy?”
“I don’t know.”
Boss backhanded me ’cross the cheek.
“I swear, I don’t know,” I said again. “He were a stranger. I ain’t never seen him ’cept for that once.”
And it were the truth. The cowboy’d stopped at the Lloyds’ one afternoon, looking to repair his steed’s faulty shoe. Mr. Lloyd gave the man a drink from the pump and a bite to eat. I took care of his horse. The next day, he’d flicked the coin at me with a gruff “Thanks” and rode south. That was it. In our lives for a day, then gone forever.
But Boss still moved his knife to my neck like I were lying. My pulse pumped so hard I could feel the blade more firmly with each heartbeat.
“Think you’d recognize this cowboy if’n you saw him again?”
“Y-yes,” I stuttered, just wanting it to end—the pain in my forearm and the crackle of building fire and the women’s screams coming from somewhere behind me. “I could point him out,” I promised. “I’m s-sure of it.”
And just like that, Boss was sheathing his knife and I were being hauled onto Diaz’s horse.
I looked back only once as we rode out. Inside the corral, in the mouth of the Lloyds’ blazing barn, four dark shadows hung swinging.
I was a wanted criminal after that day, charged with the murder of the Lloyd family. I weren’t Reece Murphy no more. I was the Rose Kid. Infamous. Feared. I slaughtered that poor family, ran, and then joined up with the Rose Riders so I could continue doing evil. Least that’s the story that got printed, the tale folks chose to believe. Sometimes I wonder if Boss or his boys’ve let lies slip, too, planted yarns and encouraged the rumors. It sure don’t hurt the gang’s image. If nothing else, it makes ’em even more fearsome. Makes the kid they got riding in their ranks out to be a true villain, not a fool held hostage. Fear can be more persuasive than facts.
It’s why I bought that girl’s act, after all. By the time I had the nerve to look her in the eye, I only saw a scared girl trembling in her coat, not a spitfire opponent with a pistol hidden from view. I’d even been close to telling her not to cry, that I weren’t gonna hurt her, that if she just handed over the earrings, it’d all be over, but Boss had been nearly done in the cash car, and I didn’t want him to catch me being sympathetic.