He glowers. “Pardon?”
“I told you not to mention the gold round her, or our deal, and you did. So don’t go cursing me or Lil for something that’s yer own error. And don’t you dare try to preach to me ’bout lying to her by omission, or how I’m the villain here. I’m just trying to avenge my father so his soul can rest. But you? Yous got this lust for gold, this burning desire to do whatever yer father couldn’t, and yer so damn drunk on the thought of success, you can’t even realize how selfish it is. And you lost me my scout.”
“Yer . . . I could . . .” Jesse takes a step toward me, away, back at me again. “Christ almighty!” he roars, and stomps off toward his bedroll.
Will’s still sitting there on the other side of the fire, watching with interest as he cleans his pistols.
“Thanks for backing me up,” I says to him.
He shrugs. “I ain’t the one who struck a deal that conflicts with another I already got going.”
I’m so mad, I could throw something. Lurching to my feet, I storm away from the fire and pace round a cactus till my blood ain’t boiling so hot.
I can’t change that the truth’s out there, that Jesse spilled everything and Lil’s prolly gonna walk at first light. Alls I can do now is focus on getting to the mine and them Rose Riders on my own.
My mind races back through Lil’s story. I remember Pa talking ’bout his first days in the Territory. He’d been in his early teens, heading west with his father and damn near half the country, hoping to get rich on gold in California. The land they traveled ’cross was all considered Yankee soil back then. I remember him saying so. But just a year prior, it had belonged to the Mexicans, and war had raged over borders. I reckon the treaty Lil mentioned is that of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the agreement that named much of the southwest American soil. In Arizona, everything north of the Gila River—the Superstitions included—was no longer part of Mexico.
A few years later and after gold were a bust, Pa and his father were back in Arizona, running cattle with a small crew. It were an even bigger Territory then. I remember Pa saying something ’bout a purchase that extended Arizona south in the hopes a transcontinental railroad could be built through the area. Well, that train still’s barely reached Yuma, let alone Tucson, where Pa’s pa took ill and never recovered, and Pa went on to meet and marry Ma.
I touch the journal, still tucked in the back of my pants, and silently curse Jesse. He’ll blame this on me somehow. Tomorrow it’ll be my fault Lil’s gone, I just know it.
When I make my way back to camp, Lil’s already asleep and the Coltons are getting ready to retire. I grab my bedroll, and as I’m unfurling it Jesse steps up behind me.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I lost my temper. It weren’t like me.”
I grunt and go on spreading out my bed.
“Want one?” he says, offering me a rolled cigarette.
I straighten. “Is it half as vile as dip?”
“Not even.”
Pa used to fancy a pipe, and it always left his shirts smelling like cedar and musk. Something ’bout the memory makes me want to smoke with Jesse now. Not ’cus I’m forgiving him but ’cus the thought of having those scents on my clothes is as close to Pa as I’m ever gonna get. I never got to smoke with him, and even though he told me it weren’t fitting behavior for a lady, I think he’d like the thought of me enjoying one now in his memory. ’Sides, I ain’t never been much of a lady to begin with.
I take the cigarette from Jesse and hold it between my lips. He strikes a match and steps close to light the smoke for me, using his spare hand to shield the flame from any wind. I puff on it like I seen him do. There’s the subtle taste of oak and spices, then I start coughing.
“Jesus,” I says, buckled over and nearly losing a lung.
“You’ll get the hang of it,” he says, smiling.
“Maybe I don’t want to.”
“Say, Kate.” His voice is real serious. I straighten, the cigarette forgotten in my grasp and dangling near my knee. When I meet Jesse’s gaze, his eyes are narrow like always, but there’s something pained there too. He’s gonna apologize and mean it. He’s gonna promise to stop being such an ass.
“You wouldn’t mind letting me look at that journal of yers, would you?”
I bring the smoke back to my lips, trying to mask my disappointment. I manage an inhale and exhale with only the slightest muffled cough.
“Look, it’s just . . .” Jesse gazes in the direction of the cottonwoods. “I never thought this trip were smart to begin with, but I couldn’t pass it up, and now we’re here at the very first landmark, only it don’t match the journal clues quite right. It ain’t a good sign. ’Specially if yer scout cuts and runs. Will thinks the mine might be a hoax, despite her story. He said Waltz spent summer after summer in here and didn’t find nothing, and we’re just gonna get ourselves lost or killed or hunted by Apache.”
“And what do you think, Jesse?”
“I think Will’s got a point.”
“Really?” I says, glaring. “You ain’t just siding with him ’cus it’s easier than standing on yer own two feet?”
“I don’t do what’s easiest, Kate, I do what’s right. That’s all I’s ever done, and it’s all I’m trying to do now. I wanna get gold for our family, the ranch, but I wanna be smart ’bout it.” He sighs heavy. “Look, I’m asking to see the journal ’cus I care ’bout you, and heck, I care ’bout myself quite a bit too and don’t feel like dying in these mountains. Just ’cus yer pa said the mine exists don’t make it law. I know how you can glorify a person after they’s passed. I done it before myself. But did it ever dawn on you that yer pa had an awful lot of secrets? That he lied to you constantly? That maybe he didn’t have everything exactly right upstairs?”
And there it is: that damn sermon. I flick my cigarette into the dirt.
“You wanna look?” I yank Pa’s journal out and shove it into Jesse’s chest. “Go right ahead! Be sure to let me know what you think ’bout my own sanity when yer finished.”
I turn and stalk off toward the cottonwoods, taking my bedroll with me.
“Kate, that came out wrong,” Jesse calls after me. “Hey, where are you going? Come on, Kate.”
I just walk faster.
I set up my bed beneath the sad trees and spit till the taste of tobacco’s outta my mouth. When I risk a glance back, Jesse’s already stretched out and reading with Will, looking anything but sorry as the fire glow plays over their features.
Chapter Twenty
That night, I dream ’bout my mother, which is to say my dreams are a tangled web of clouded, foggy memories.