“Pa worked at the mine too—this was before we got into the ranching business—and Ma were pregnant again, ’bout six months large. One day she started getting terrible pains—so crippling, she could barely move. She thought it might be the labor come early. Pa were down at the mine, and Jesse were smart enough to know Ma needed the doctor but couldn’t get there herself. So he put one of the horses to the cart, told Sarah to watch me, and rode Ma into town.
“The Apache raided that afternoon. Attacks were common in general back then, what with a war raging back east and so many of our soldiers off to fight. I think the tribes were starting to feel threatened by Wickenburg—how people were settling rather than moving through, digging round in their mountains. Or maybe they thought they were winning. We’d murdered and pillaged their kind plenty, and when the federal troops went east to repel the Confederates invading New Mexico, I bet it looked like a surrender. Like we’d given up and it were time for revenge. Whatever the reason, the Apache rode through town and destroyed everything they could that day.”
Will pauses to spit and I shift on my mat, knowing right well what comes next but still scared to hear it.
“The way Jesse tells it, the cart turned in the panic and he got pinned to the street. I think the only reason he didn’t die, or even break a bone, was ’cus he were so small. But he was trapped there, and he watched Ma get dragged off, watched her pull her derringer from her dress and shoot herself in the mouth.”
Will’s features go dark, his brows dipping. It’s like he’s reciting a story he’s memorized, rather than feeling his own words. I wonder if that’s the only way he can get them out.
“Even after it were all over with Ma, Jesse had to lie there and keep watching. Silent, afraid them Indians might hear him if he cried out. He watched ’em scour and kill. Watched ’em drag women off. Watched ’em disappear toward the horizon. Once they were gone, he still didn’t call out for help, not even when survivors started combing the streets. I think his voice got scared straight outta him that day. He just lay there under the cart, rigid, staring at the blazing sun.
“When Pa came north from the mine and rode through Wickenburg, he found the madness, and then he found Jesse. He’d pissed himself, and he was still squinting—from the sun, or what he’d seen. Maybe both.” Will’s gaze drifts to his brother. “Jesse weren’t the same after that. It took him a while to talk again, and he started practicing with one of Pa’s pistols till he could shoot the branch of a sapling in half from a proud distance. He was a shot I’d never want to cross by the time he were twelve. After that, he holstered the gun and it was like it never happened. He were a new person. He told jokes again. He smiled. I’m pretty sure half of it’s an act. He never forgave Pa for choosing the mine over the family. It didn’t matter that Pa eventually quit Vulture and converted our place to a ranch, started finding other means of income so he’d be near us kids; Jesse’s always blamed him for Ma’s death. He’s struggled to be the man of the house since that day, and I reckon pretending he’s made peace with the past helps him cope. But it still haunts him. I’m sure of it. Hell, he never really has quit squinting.”
Will spits again, and this time he nails the beetle so hard, it flips onto its back. The bug struggles, flailing, then scurries off once righted.
I glance at Jesse, asleep on the other side of the flames. I wonder what he saw earlier, looking at that overturned coach, if it reminded him of the cart, his ma’s death, the bloodshed.
“I’m sorry,” I says soft, though I ain’t sure to who.
“Life don’t care ’bout sorry’s,” Will says. “Bad things happen, and you can’t let ’em harden you. Whatever happened to yer pa, it ain’t yer fault, Nate, and you gotta let it go.”
“You sound like yer brother.”
“I ain’t nothing like him. I wear everything on my sleeve and he hides half it. I’s less of a pessimist too. Even after he lost Maggie last year, he still figured how to be some level of happy. He’s a perfect example that living’s what you make it. Or at least what you pretend to make it.”
“Maggie?” I says.
“Our closest neighbor. They woulda married if she hadn’t died, I swear it, and all from a bee sting. Unfair, ain’t it? That something so small can kill a person?”
“Life ain’t fair, Will. That’s one of the only things I know for certain. And that’s why I can’t stop chasing Rose. Maybe smiling and choosing peace and target shooting till he felt invincible worked for Jesse, but I ain’t him, and this is gonna destroy me if I don’t set things right.”
Will leans back, settling into his mat.
“Yer deaf all right,” he says. “But I like that. I’m deaf too. It’s one of the reasons Jesse and I get on so well. He can’t help but ride with stubborn asses who drive him crazy.”
Chapter Eight
The sky’s just beginning to lighten when I decide to abandon my watch. We’ll be moving soon, and I gotta take advantage while the boys are still sleeping. I ease to my feet and pull a clean set of underthings from my pack, ’long with the fresh shirt I bought in Wickenburg. Then, with my blanket still slung over my shoulder, I creep for the pool.
Testing, I dip in a toe. It ain’t very warm, but it could be worse.
I strip fast as possible, wade in, and drop to my knees. The water’s like silk on my limbs. Sand and dirt float free. Where it’s worked into the creases of my skin, I scrub at it with my knuckles. I lean back, dunking my head and running my fingers through my hair. Its shortness is still a shock, a length I ain’t used to.
Once clean, I feel so smooth, it’s like I’m a snake shed its skin. More than anything, though, my chest is singing with relief. I eye the wrap lying with my clothes. It were starting to chafe below my armpits after all the travel, and the thought of putting it back on sours everything.
’Cross camp, one of the boys’ snores sputters.
I dunk one last time and scramble outta the pool, drying myself fast with the blanket. Cringing and damn near whimpering, I wind the wrap back in place—over my chest, under my arms, cinching it down tight like I’m a horse being saddled. Then I cram my legs back into my pants and throw on the clean flannel.
I’m working on the buttons when I hear earth crunch behind me.
I yank the shirt tight and twist round. Jesse.
“You scared me half to death,” I says.
“I thought something happened. You were supposed to be on watch.”
“I’m fine,” I says, turning away and finishing with the buttons. That was close. Too close. “I wanted a clean and figured I could watch camp just as easy from here as my bedroll.”
Jesse yawns, and it makes me yawn too.
“You want coffee?” he says. “I’ll start a fire.”
“Jesse, wait. ’Bout yesterday—Sorry I was so . . .”
“Pigheaded?”
“I’s gonna said rude.”
He shrugs. “It weren’t my place, I suppose. Yer gonna track down Rose. The fact that I don’t think yer capable really ain’t no one’s business but mine.”
I frown at the insult and wrestle on my boots. Then I sling my pistol belt back round my hips and fasten it tight.
“Yer really eighteen?” Jesse says, squinting.
“Swear it on my father’s grave.”
He shakes his head. “You don’t look it.”