Come midafternoon we get our first sight of Wickenburg. It rises outta the desert, several blocks wide and rarely over a story tall, most of the buildings as barren and plain as the dry stretch of earth they sit on.
Boss gives orders for a staggered arrival, which we do often in situations like this, entering town in small groups or even pairs. It distracts from prying eyes, and if word of our train job’s done traveled cross the Territory ’long with our description, we wanna look nothing like a band of eight on horseback.
Boss barks out orders from the saddle, voice gruff. “Crawford, Barrera, and DeSoto—y’all ride in together, but find a farrier. Replace a shoe or two if needed. Whatever makes you look like folk just passing through and needing some care for yer horses. Jones, you can ride in, but come dusk.” He turns to Diaz and Hobbs. “You two follow me, but hang back a half hour or so. Don’t be too on my tail. And Murphy?” Boss raises a hand. “You ready?”
I ain’t surprised to hear I’m riding with him. After yesterday, he ain’t gonna let me outta his sight, and if any of our gang’s to look unsuspicious, it’s the two of us together. Me, eighteen. Him, fortysomething. We could be father and son, stopping for a rest. We don’t got too much in common by way of features, but what do I know? I ain’t looked into a proper mirror in months. Could be the spattering of freckles that cover my nose have up and fled, that my hair’s gone suddenly streaked with gray and now I look like the bossman’s twin. My hands’ve done things I didn’t think ’em capable of these last three years. Maybe I won’t recognize the person who wields ’em no more.
I give Girl a nudge in the ribs. She’s a good horse, quiet and obedient. A day after I got dragged into the gang, Barrera stole her for me in the thick of the night. She came from a homestead not far outside La Paz and was prolly someone’s livelihood.
“What’s her name?” I asked Barrera.
“Hell if I know. She responded to Chica all right as I led her from the barn, though.”
It’s a sorry name for a horse, but most folk in the gang were only calling me “kid” back then, so I figured a label were better than nothing. I started calling the mare Girl, and while we rode, I mulled over better names and how I might try to make a run for it.
Three years later, she’s still Girl and I’m still riding with these bastards.
I tried running once. The results weren’t pretty.
The only way out is through the cowboy.
As we ride, I try to be like Boss: at ease in the saddle, confident, relaxed. We peel off the Hassayampa and cut west to enter the town. Both sides of Wickenburg’s main street boast adobe and frame buildings, homes and businesses full of people that got no notion of the kind of men riding into their world.
Boss tips his hat at a lady beating rugs outside a boarding house, smiles at a pair of kids waiting in a wagon hitched to a horse outside a general store. ETTER’S, it says on the front of the double-peaked roof. We’ll be stopping there before we leave, no doubt. Boss could use some new bandages for his bad arm, and our eating’s been meager the last two days. Barrera’s one hell of a cook, but he can’t make a feast outta nothing.
We trot a bit farther down the street, finally stopping outside a saloon. The dressing on Boss’s arm’s hidden from view beneath his long gray coat, and most folk would never guess he were shot yesterday, but I can see the signs. He flinches a touch as his leg swings over the saddle, grimaces as he ties his mare to the hitching post.
I secure Girl, too, aware of Boss’s intentions without asking after ’em. We’ll chat up the locals, ask ’round for news. If’n it appears folk are aware of the train job or too keen-eyed ’bout newcomers, we’ll stock up on what we need and leave quick as can do. But if the robbery news ain’t reached here, if the locals’re warm and welcoming . . . Well, a bed at that hotel we passed and a night with the working girls ain’t something Boss is gonna deny the crew.
I follow him outta the weak December sun. Inside, the saloon’s empty ’cept for a bartender cleaning glasses and a couple drunks playing cards. Light from the street seeps in, doing little to brighten the dingy space.
The bartender looks up from his work as the doors swing shut behind us.
“Whiskey for me and my boy,” Boss prompts.
He leans into the bar, easy, and as the man sets two glasses on the counter, I catch my reflection in the mirror behind him. I look tired and beat. My freckles are barely any darker than my tan skin these days, but I ain’t lucky enough to have lost most of my father’s Irish features. My Mexican mama—whose folks called this land home long before wars and shifting borders decided it were Arizona Territory—looks his opposite, but it’s so clear I’m his son. I got the same square jaw and hair just a few shades darker than his straw blond. The only bit of me that don’t look like him is my eyes. They’re darker, like my ma’s, but have gone all pinched these last few years. From squinting in the sun, likely, or from all I’ve seen and keep trying to blink away.
The bartender pours, then puts the stopper on the decanter. “You folk ain’t from around here,” he says as he slides the drinks over. It’s a fact, not a question.
Boss throws back the whiskey and nudges the glass forward for more. “Just passing through.”
“Hear ’bout that train robbery outside Gila Bend?”
“Can’t say we did. Been in the saddle this past week. Who done it?”
“No word on that yet. Not much word, in general. I only know some fellas on horseback made off with a hell of a fortune. And that a lawman’s dead on their account.”
I spin my glass a few times, finally take a sip. I ain’t never been able to down whiskey the way the boys do. It burns too much, and that ain’t a sting I wanna get used to. Not ever. I seen what it can do. The best men can go mad, and the wicked ones only fall farther. I ain’t got a memory of my father where he weren’t drunk, but I do remember a time when he at least apologized for lashing out at me, when he still saw a fault in his ways. By the time I ran, even that shadow of humanity had long since flown, leaving me with a demon who knew just three things: how to drink, how to insult, and how to beat.
“Shame,” Boss says. “First the coach lines, now the rails. Ain’t no way to travel safe no more.”
“Ain’t that the truth.” The bartender pours himself a glass and clinks with Boss. They both gulp down the poison.
The doors creak behind us.
I peer over my shoulder and spot Diaz and Hobbs entering the saloon. They nod at the bartender by way of a welcome but then move to a nearby table.