“What the devil does that mean?”
“Just that no matter what you do, that cloud’s prolly still gonna be there, hovering. You gotta learn to exist with it.” She brushes a section of dark hair over her shoulder, and for a moment it’s like she’s swatting her own cloud, ordering it to keep its distance.
“You got one too?” I ask. “A cloud?”
“Don’t we all?” She smiles, and it’s the same conflicted kinda smile I seen when she admitted to killing Waylan Rose.
The pigs grunt and squeal out by the tank, and I take a few rushed steps forward so I can see ’round the stable. It’s only Jesse, come out to fill a bucket.
“She’ll be back,” Kate says.
“You don’t know that.”
Suddenly the thought of not being able to properly part ways with Vaughn feels like a knife pressed to my skin. After the train job’s done, I ain’t dawdling. I’m riding for the sunset before the Law can show up and make my life hell all over again.
“I do know it,” Kate says, “’cus I reckon this is her story, too.”
I cringe, embarrassed. “You heard all that last night?”
“You were shouting something fierce. I think I coulda heard from much farther away than the kitchen.”
I lift my hat and wipe at my brow with my forearm.
Kate goes on. “This story started as mine and became Jesse’s and then yers, and now I think in a way it’s Charlotte’s, too. She got involved ’cus she needed a gunslinger and desired a feature for the paper, but it’s bigger than just that now. If’n she wants to stay, it’ll be up to you to allow it.”
“Is this some kinda religious sermon I ain’t fully getting?”
“I’m more spiritual than religious,” she says, “and no. It’s just . . . we ain’t nothing but human, Reece. Most folks are good, but even the good can be greedy and selfish and scheming. Our motives ain’t always virtuous, ’specially at first, but they can become so, if’n you give ’em time to change and grow.”
I exhale through my nose, shaking my head. “Vaughn and I don’t got nothing in common. We been at each other’s throats since the day we met, and that ain’t gonna grow into something more civil.”
“Sounds like me and Jesse ’bout ten years back, and look at us now.” She braces a hand ’gainst the saddle bench and pushes awkwardly to her feet. “Plus, you might try calling Vaughn by her name. There’s a lot of power in that. I know from being an ass on this subject myself.”
“I ain’t a poet, and all this cryptic, symbolic talk is confusing my simple ears.”
She laughs. “You know, I used to hate poetry, too. So much fluff and pomp. But it’s kinda been growing on me over the years. Ain’t that amazing—how a person can change?”
She shuffles for the house, her hands pressed to her lower back. I finish with the horses, grumbling to myself as Kate’s words echo in my head.
How a person can change.
And just like that, I know why I started looking at Vaughn—Charlotte—differently. She’d stopped calling me the Rose Kid and instead addressed me as Reece. We started talking—having real conversations ’bout the past and the future and the road we’re both walking now. She challenged me, and I challenged her right in return, and maybe we’ve both grown from that.
How a person can change.
Me. Her. Jesse. Kate.
I reckon she could be onto something. That this is all of our story.
Suddenly I want Charlotte to return more than ever. ’Cus it’s only gonna be her story if’n she’s here to play a part.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
* * *
Charlotte
They wed just yesterday afternoon, a quick ceremony while the snow fell outside. Mother tells me this as we’re ushered into the house. The only reason she is not dead is because the marriage is so recent. For her to die on their first evening as man and wife would have looked suspicious. Still, I can barely hold her gaze. I know what she endured last night in Uncle’s bed, and the guilt slams into me like a hammer spiking a rail tie.
I could have spared her this. If I’d returned sooner, if I’d never gone to Banghart’s for a gunslinger and instead come straight to Prescott. But now Uncle has the inheritance, and he will surely dispose of Mother at the earliest convenience. Perhaps both of us, if he can manage it.
My plan no longer seems so foolproof.
I clench the armrests of the chair Uncle has shoved me into. Outside his office, Mother is banging on the door, desperate to gain entrance, but Uncle locked it. Now he sets his pistol on the mahogany desk and angles the barrel my way. My heart pounds wildly. Uncle presses his palms to the desk, leaning forward, towering before me. He is trying to intimidate me.
I hate that it is working.
“Where have you been?”
“Away.”
“That’s no answer.”
I keep my gaze focused straight ahead, as though I am staring through him. If I look him in the eye, I fear I may lose all my nerve.
His arm sweeps out violently, knocking papers and books from the desk. A bottle of ink crashes. Black weeps onto the carpet.
“Where the hell have you been?” he screams.
“What should concern you,” I say slowly, “is where you will be tomorrow.”
He is around his desk so quickly, it is as if he walked through it. Fingers pinch my chin and jerk up hard, so that I’m forced to look at him.
“You don’t get to threaten me, Charlotte. I always told your father that he didn’t keep a tight enough rein on you. Let a woman dream too openly and she gets all types of wild notions, becomes unruly—as useless as an unbroken horse.” He shoves my chin to the side and folds his arms over his chest. “You ran only to come back. Why?”
“I’m sure you noticed your ledger has been compromised.”
He stills. Fear dances in his eyes. He hasn’t noticed.
“I took a few pages with me.”
He sifts through the mess of paper he pushed to the floor, finds the ledgers, flips them open. He rifles through them, pausing when his fingers find the rough, short edges of the year-old pages I tore out.
“Where are these sheets?”
“I gave them to Mr. Marion.”
Uncle Gerald shoots up. “What?”
“I reckon it will make an intriguing story, no? Local business owner commits fraud; lies about profits and pockets difference. Your miners will be up in arms. Anyone you’ve done business with will question if you’ve shortchanged them. Surely your word will not be held in the same esteem throughout all of Prescott.”
He grabs his pistol from the desk and races off, not even bothering to retrieve his jacket from where it is slung over his desk chair. Mother tumbles into the office as he yanks open the door. He drags her into the hall and slams the door aggressively. I hear a key turn, locking me inside.
Footsteps, another door slamming, then silence.
“Charlotte?” my mother ventures a moment later. “Charlotte, talk to me!”