Kate glances between the two of us, her eyes glossy and on the verge of terrified tears. Somehow she don’t loosen a single one as Jesse goes on to spill what is surely their most valued secret: How Kate hired him, the son of an old family friend, to see to her father’s killer. How Jesse did just that and took all the money off Waylan Rose’s body when it was done, including a heap of gold and a mysterious three-dollar coin he didn’t even discover among all the gold till months later. He passed that blasted coin on to me, and it cursed me just as it’s now come back to curse him.
“This is why I need to make sure them Riders ain’t a threat no more,” Jesse says. “Luther ain’t gonna quit seeking vengeance. Not ever. And me and Kate ain’t gonna rest easy till he’s gone, and all his boys with him. Same could be said of the rails they terrorize and all the poor souls they strike down in the process.”
I thumb my lip. “I thought you didn’t trust me.”
“I trust that we got the same enemy, and that’s a mighty fine ground for a partnership. Plus Charlotte said Luther’s been using yer ma to keep you in line. I know you ain’t gonna go rogue with that hanging over yer head.”
“And when it’s all said and done, how do I know you ain’t gonna put a bullet in my back?”
“All any man’s got is his word, and that’s all I can offer, seeing as you don’t want the gold. So what do you say, Reece?” Jesse Colton holds out his hand, reaching ’cross this table that divides us like a river, two souls on opposite shores thinking maybe we can meet in the middle.
I reckon we can, maybe even have to.
Hiding forever ain’t an option for me, and finishing the gang ain’t a thing I can do on my own. But with the help of a retired gunslinger? With careful planning and the right approach?
I thrust my hand out and shake with Jesse Colton.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
* * *
Charlotte
The Rose Kid finds me in the stables, brushing down the sorrel to keep some warmth in my hands. I hadn’t realized how bitterly cold it was before storming outside, and then once I’d crossed the clearing, my pride kept me from returning to the house.
“Everyone’s getting ready for bed,” he says, his breath visible in the cold. “Now that Jesse’s back—”
“I’ll stay out here.”
“It’s freezing.”
“I don’t care.”
“Well, I do.” His brow wrinkles. “I’ll manage here fine. You should take the bed.”
It is not a large stable. The stalls are narrow, and the only one not housing a horse is full of farming gear—buckets and hoes, shovels and saddle stands. There’s a wind tonight, too, strong enough that it cuts through my jacket. It even chased off the owl that had been singing a sad song from somewhere among the pines earlier. An evening spent out here will be a harsh, uncomfortable one, even bundled under blankets.
I think of the Rose Kid’s effects sitting on the kitchen table these past nights while Kate and I slept with a weapon within reach. He has not acted suspiciously. He’s stayed in his room every evening and done no one harm. My treatment in the stagecoach has become the exception, his actions suggesting that the person I faced on those barren Arizona plains is not truly him.
“If it’s too cold for me,” I say finally, “I don’t see why you should have to suffer it either. One of us can take the mattress in the bedroom, the other the floor.”
“Fair enough.”
“What happened inside?”
“Dinner,” he says.
“You know damn well I’m talking about the conversation I wasn’t allowed to be present for.”
“Jesus, Vaughn,” he says, laughing. “Few days with the likes of me and yer already cursing like an outlaw.”
“We are nothing alike, and you’d do well to remember it. Now, what did they want to discuss?”
He shrugs. “Taking care of the Rose Riders. Jesse were the gunslinger Kate hired to avenge her father. He admitted it.”
So that tale Kate fed me about “Nate” was nothing but a lie. She never wanted to help me. She just wanted to protect her own hide.
“Jesse’s gonna help me see to the boys,” the Kid goes on. “None of us got much of a future till they’re in the ground, so we’ll come up with a plan and then go after ’em.”
“So that’s it?” I throw the coarse-bristled brush into a bucket in the corner. “I’m stuck a prisoner here while everyone sees after their own needs? Why the devil wasn’t I allowed to be present for that conversation?”
“Prolly ’cus they figured you’d react something like this.” He makes a flippant gesture at my person.
“They still should have had the decency to say it to my face, to admit that my dilemma means nothing to them.”
The Rose Kid frowns. “Jesse and Kate’ll be dead if the Riders find ’em. Same goes for me or my ma. But what’s the worse that happens if’n you don’t get a gunslinger? Yer ma holds on to her family fortune and marries a businessman! What an awful fate.”
My blood nearly boils. “You do know how one consummates a marriage, I presume? That she’d be forced to . . . She’d have to . . .”
The Rose Kid’s brow wrinkles uncomfortably, and I surmise he hadn’t considered how a man takes his bride to bed following a wedding, regardless of whether the bride desires to be there.
“And that’s assuming he doesn’t kill her following the marriage,” I go on. “He doesn’t want to share the wealth, my uncle. He wants to assume it and possess it fully in time. So pardon me for being concerned about an imminent threat in my life. My mother is already at risk, while you and the Coltons will only be in danger if you actively go looking for a fight and manage to get caught. But please, tell me again how I am overreacting. Tell me again that my troubles are meaningless!”
He stands there, quiet, the weak moonlight catching his swollen nose as he diverts his eyes.
I shove past him and head for the house.
After confronting Kate about the “Nate” lie (“I said what I had to”) and asking Jesse if he will serve as my gunslinger before tracking the Riders (“I ain’t a gunslinger no more, and never really was one to begin with”), I retire for the evening, livid and fuming.
Too worked up to sleep, I scribble in my journal by light of the lantern, and by the time the Rose Kid reappears, I’ve already claimed the bed.
“I’m sorry for what I said ’bout the marriage. I hadn’t thought of it that way.”
I glance up from my work, but that’s the only indication I give him that I’ve heard his apology. Perhaps it is petty of me, but emotionally, it’s all I can offer.
He grabs the pillow and spare blanket I left at the foot of the bed and goes about setting up his own bed on the floor. When he lies down, he disappears from view and is so blessedly quiet, it’s almost as if I’m alone again.
“So what’s yer story?” he asks suddenly from the floor. “You know, besides the horrid uncle and all.”
“I don’t have a story,” I say dryly, although perhaps I should have said I don’t want to talk.
“No story! Yer a writer, ain’t you? Yer type can pull a story outta a pile of cow chips.”
I roll my eyes—not that he can see it from his bed—and continue to draft in my journal. I’m summarizing what I witnessed of the P&AC gala, which is pointless, as the affair has surely been covered by now, but it’s keeping my mind busy and my anger somewhat quelled.