“I can try.”
And this is why I find it so hard to buy the stories he’s telling. He runs and runs, not caring who he hurts in the process or how those around him are affected as he achieves his end. That does not strike me as someone innocent. It only strikes me as cowardice.
The dog—which Kate called Mutt—leaps into the back of the wagon and curls up beside the Kid. Kate climbs into the driver’s box next, which is no easy ascent with that belly. Truly, one of us should be driving, but she’s refused to say where we’re going or even in which direction we’ll head.
The bed of the wagon is filled with her gear, from the half-finished cradle to crates of chickens. Three pigs and one cow will follow on foot. She better hope the Rose Riders are nowhere nearby, because this caravan of ours will stick out like a sore thumb, and make poor time, too.
“Blindfold yerselves,” she says, tossing a pair of handkerchiefs at me and the Kid.
“You ain’t serious,” he says.
Kate cocks the hammer of her pistol and stares impatiently.
“All right, all right.” The Rose Kid holds up his hands. He must be used to being threatened, or perhaps this doesn’t feel like much of a threat to him at all, because he puts the blindfold on without any additional fuss.
Reluctantly, I do the same, tying the kerchief off behind my head.
“Good,” Kate grunts. “Take ’em off before I tell you, and you’ll find yerself dumped from the wagon and left to starve.”
The reins snap, and the hitched horses surge forward.
The Rose Kid falls asleep almost immediately. Or at least I think he does. His breathing seems to change—grow shallower—but the creaking of the wagon makes it difficult to be sure.
I wait a while longer and then lean toward Kate. “Is he asleep?”
There’s a creak from the driver’s box and then her response. “Looks like it.”
“He’s after the same name I am. You know that, right?”
She grunts. “I been waiting for this moment a whole decade. It were only a matter of time before a Rider finally stumbled onto my claim.”
I frown, confused.
“So you wanna know ’bout that gunslinger I hired, huh?”
“Please,” I say.
“Went by Nate.”
“Nate who?”
“Never caught a last name.”
“Where can I find him?”
“You can’t. Gunslinger died ’bout ten years ago, shortly after finishing my job.”
“So what am I supposed to do now?” The only light I can make out through the blindfold is that of the lantern Kate has in the driver’s box. The wagon was facing east when I climbed into it, but I haven’t felt anything that suggests we’ve crossed the rail, and if we’d gone south, into Prescott, there’d be more light and sounds. We must be headed north or west, where there is nothing but mountains, but even if I leapt from the wagon this instant, pulled off my blindfold, and mounted the sorrel, I’d have no idea how to get home.
“This was what you wanted,” I say, realizing far too late the con she’s pulled on me. “I’m nothing but a liability to you, and you didn’t want to leave me behind. What if I talked? I could put others on your trail. So you promised me a name, knowing it would do me no good, and then you gave it once you had me trapped.”
“Let me assure you, while I hate extra fleas on my hide, I didn’t try to trap you nowhere. I’m doing you a favor. We women have to look out for each other. No one else will.”
“But—”
“But those devils’ll return to my farmhouse, end of story. You couldn’t stay there, and you couldn’t go home ’cus of yer uncle neither, so I said what I needed to get you in this wagon. The least you could do is thank me, seeing as I’m saving yer life.”
“But not my mother’s. She’ll be dead as soon as my uncle marries her if I don’t do something.”
“So figure something out,” she says. “Get Reece to do the job, like I suggested earlier. He’s good with a pistol and sure don’t seem to care ’bout killing folk.”
“That’s the problem. I don’t want to kill Uncle if I don’t have to, and besides, the Rose Kid is the last person I’d ever trust for help.”
“If’n he’s so vile, just make sure the Law’s there to arrest him when it’s said and done.”
I frown. “I thought he helped you, that you’re bringing him along because he saved your life and now you’re paying him back.”
“I’m keeping him with me ’cus it’s best to have yer enemies under yer nose than frolicking ’round in valleys you can’t see. A Rose Rider is a Rose Rider is a Rose Rider. Soon as you drop yer guard, they tear yer damn throat out—and whistle while doing it.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
* * *
Reece
I hear every last word.
They think I’m sleeping, but I woke when the wagon bucked over a rut in the trail. I’d nearly grumbled ’bout it, too, only the words leaving Kate’s mouth made me pause.
Nate.
I sit there, still as a statue, eyes still closed behind my blindfold because I don’t dare move. In order to hear each other over the creak of the axles and the plod of the steeds, the women ain’t able to whisper, and I can just barely make out the rest of the conversation.
She never got a last name.
She’s heard the gunslinger’s dead.
Lies, all of it. She’s protecting her husband still, turning eyes away from her family. If I had any qualms ’bout the theory, they vanish as Kate keeps yammering.
She ain’t helping me, she’s using me. She reckons I should be Vaughn’s hired gun and suggests turning me in when the deed’s finished. ’Parently only her family and Vaughn deserve happiness and safety.
I told you ya can’t outrun this, Boss says. I told you yer stained black. You don’t deserve happiness. You don’t even deserve a quick and painless death.
Well, I know one thing for certain. If Kate and Vaughn don’t got no regard for my well-being, I sure don’t got none for theirs. Once we get to wherever we’re going, I’m cutting free, slipping off when Kate’s not watching. And I know she’ll be watching. Keep yer enemies near, and all that.
I’m used to double-crossing, backstabbing, dark-as-the-night bastards. This is my game the women are playing, the ploy I been training at for the past few years.
I’ll get my way when the time comes.
I settle back to sleep a bit more. I guess Kate’s right after all. A Rose Rider is a Rose Rider is a Rose Rider. I ain’t gonna lose at my own game.
She stops the wagon sometime in the night.