Having found a bit of money beneath Uncle’s mattress after dropping off the horse, I hurry to pay for a paper. There’s the photo of the open coffins propped up outside the sheriff’s office, and the lawmen stand around the deceased, gripping their suspenders proudly. Luther Rose is front and center, his arms folded over his chest. The coffin to his left reveals a man I do not recognize, but the third coffin—Reece’s—is sealed shut. His hat rests on the hitching post nearby.
According to the story, passengers aboard the train recognized Luther Rose when a fight erupted in the dining car. The Law surmised that there was a struggle among the Rose Riders, potentially one of the lower men—maybe even Reece—trying to take control of the gang. At the Prescott depot, one of the outlaws was found shot dead atop a passenger car, and Reece was discovered in a boxcar, his body mutilated almost beyond recognition. But being that his hat was one of a kind and found in the very same car, identifying the remains was easy. Meanwhile, a group of lawmen rode out along the tracks, following up on a passenger’s report that he saw someone jump from the train. It was along a barren stretch of Chino Valley where the Law engaged in a shootout with Luther Rose.
This story is a bald-faced lie. I stood there and watched Reece shoot Rose without a soul in sight, yet here is this falsified story, printed right in the Morning Courier—a story that lifts up the badge-wearing men who did nothing but collect dead outlaws. I cannot fault Mr. Marion too severely, as the posse likely gave him this tale, touting themselves as heroes and speaking of a thrilling gunfight. The editor took their word as fact, for who would expect a lawman to lie?
Even still, it makes no sense. The details don’t add up.
If the Law wanted to claim responsibility for killing Luther Rose, I could understand the doctored facts. But why not claim to have killed the “infamous Rose Kid,” too? Why not show his face for all the Territory to see? He wasn’t in the boxcar. He was just lying there on the plains, perfectly identifiable.
Unless . . .
The ground seems to shift beneath me.
There was no sign of a struggle when I returned to the site of the shootout. Reece said he couldn’t sit, but what if he’d found the strength? What if he’d managed not only to sit, but to stand? To mount the horse that had followed me from the clearing earlier and lingered near Rose? What if he’d managed to disappear?
The posse had stamped hooves all over that site. I could have easily missed a set of hooves riding in the opposite direction when I returned with Kate. If the Law was sloppy, overly excited at having found Luther Rose’s body, they might have missed them too. They could have assumed Rose died alone, succumbing to injuries sustained on the train, and misidentified Reece. A different Rose Rider could have met a grisly fate in that work car while Reece managed to slip away.
Of course, if he’d managed to mount a horse, there’s no explanation for why he wouldn’t have ridden directly for the Coltons’. Their residence was the closest bit of help for miles. Perhaps he’d gotten lost, too delirious to steer the horse. Or maybe he heard the posse coming and hid in a panic, only to find he didn’t have the strength to continue on after they rode out.
It is still quite likely that Reece is dead—that he died alone, just not in the place I first imagined—but if he’s alive . . .
If there’s even the slightest chance he’s out there . . .
I know what I have to do. I promised to do it, regardless.
I’ve a story to write.
I take a backbreaking stagecoach to Maricopa, then a westbound train to Yuma.
In the passenger car, I delay because the task seems impossible. I stare out the window. I read the rest of the paper. There’s a story on Uncle Gerald’s suicide and reports of his illegal bookkeeping. Mother and I are referred to as perfectly sane and the victims of “slanderous character attacks by the late businessman.” There it is, in black and white. It is printed, and so it will be believed to be true.
My pencil feels heavier than ever. Words have great power, unbelievable impact. I cannot abuse that.
I open my journal and begin writing. The words come slowly at first because they are heavy and burdensome, and I’m not sure how to string them together. But when I keep at the page long enough and write from the heart, they begin to flow. Soon I can’t seem to write quickly enough.
I try to capture the person I knew to be Reece Murphy. He was not a saint, but he was not evil. He was tortured by his past. He was forced to make difficult decisions, often between two equally poor choices, but when it mattered most, he made the right ones.
Reece Murphy was a boy who became a man while riding with the devil.
I write his story in a train car identical to the one in which our lives intersected, where the story, in many ways, began. And when I arrive in Yuma, the first thing I do after reconciling with my mother is visit the printing offices of the Inquirer.
Chapter Fifty-Two
* * *
Charlotte
“The True Story of the Rose Kid” prints only a week after the initial reports of Reece’s death.
Within days, the piece is all over the Territory, with reprinting requests coming to the Inquirer office by wire. Locals are abuzz. Many people reconsider what they know about the infamous Rose Kid. They question the validity of the Law’s identification of that mutilated body from the work car and speculate about Reece dying alone on the plains, ultimately redeemed. Some even whisper that he may still be alive.
But for every reader who has this hopeful, receptive reaction, another questions my sanity. I am called a liar and a sensationalist, a sympathizer of murderers and thieves. My motives are criticized. I receive threats, encouragements to quit, suggestions that I stick to writing fiction, not fact. But the story is bigger than I am, and after years of listening to Uncle Gerald tell me that a woman has no place in journalism, I am not persuaded to accept such nonsense because droves of men think just as he did.
The print requests keep coming, and barely two weeks later the story’s been available in more places than I ever imagined. Cousin Eliza even writes to tell me that she saw my work in the Pittsburg Dispatch, which makes me think of Nellie Bly and nearly causes me to burst with pride.
Then, about a month after the story is published, when the frenzy and fanfare surrounding the piece is finally dying down, an envelope arrives at the Inquirer office directed to me. I open it hesitantly, bracing for another hateful rant. On the sheet of paper within, there is just one line of writing.
I liked the story. Thank you. —RM
I drop the note and fly to the window, throwing it open. In the distance, a locomotive exhales at the depot. Passengers climb aboard. Carts and carriages rattle by on the street below as folk go about their business. But of course he’s nowhere to be seen. Of course.
I duck back inside, feeling foolish, hot.