Rose slides a hand ’long the opening of his coat, tucking it behind the grip of his six-shooter. A slight breeze snakes through the canyon, flirting with the coat’s hem. It sways at his knees.
He ain’t that far off. I could get him, right now. The breeze won’t persuade my bullet much. He’s a flower on a cactus, a bottle on a fence.
I lick my lips.
Rose wriggles his fingers.
No one moves.
No one breathes.
The air could get cut with a knife.
I picture it just like Jesse said—the draw and the aim and the shot and the bullet’s path. I picture it till my pulse is pounding in my ears, till my heart sounds like a drum beating out a war song.
Then I go for my Colt.
Reach, draw, cock, aim—
But Rose does it all faster. He fires, and my Stetson goes flying off my head. I flinch, thinking I must be dead, shot straight through the skull. But, no, he missed. Only, Waylan Rose don’t miss. He did that on purpose, took my hat clear off. For whatever reason—rose carving, torture, sick pleasure—he still wants me alive.
I straighten, ready to fire back, but Rose is already closing in. I aim and pull my trigger. No bullet flies. Before I can even curse my misfiring pistol, his knuckles sting ’cross my cheek. I crash to all fours, yelping. Rose kicks a handful of dust in my eyes, then backhands me. I lift my pistol blindly, eyes burning, only to feel his boot come crushing down on my wrist and a muzzle press into my forehead.
Everything hurts. My arm and wrist and eyes and cheek. I look up at him, eyes tearing.
“I knew it,” Rose snarls. “I knew there were no guns in them mountains.”
I catch Jesse outta the corner of my vision. There’s an overwhelming sadness to his expression. Though he don’t say nothing, I hear every word.
I’m so sorry. I never meant for this to happen. I’m sorry, I’m sorry. He’s dead. We’re doomed. Can you ever forgive me?
“There ain’t no reason for this,” I says. “You got the journal. You got everything you want.”
Rose smiles. “But not you.”
“Who cares ’bout the girl?” Fringed Jacket says.
“Step down, Hank. You don’t know what yer talking ’bout.”
“Just kill her.”
“Hank!”
“But we got the journal,” he shouts. “Like she says, we got everything we want. Goddamn it, the gold can be ours! We oughtta kill the lot of ’em, especially Tompkins! Hell, we shoulda killed Tompkins back when this all started!”
I see that glint up in the mountains again, and immediately following it a gunshot screams. Hank goes flying off his feet and hits the dirt, dead.
Another glint, another shot, and Rose’s hat is swiped clear off his person. He ducks and skirts for the shelter of a boulder. I do the same, but the blasts keep coming, screaming from the range. I ain’t got a clue who’s up there, but they’re a damn good shot, unnaturally good. Like a spirit. Like a ghost, shooting.
I peer round the boulder. The gang’s scrambling for cover and firing blindly toward the ridge, but Jesse’s bolt upright. He darts for the Riders’ camp and roots through the saddlebags on their burros.
“Jesse!” I shout.
He finds his pistol belt, slings it on. Then he turns on the still-scattering Riders and unleashes his bullets like a demon.
“Jesse!” I shout again. “It ain’t Lil in the mountains! It ain’t her shooting.”
It takes a second, but then the words register. His head whips toward the ghost shooter’s perch. There’s another glint, and he dives aside. Dust flies up where he was just paused.
A shadow falls over him, a Rose Rider aiming to slaughter. Jesse swivels, raising his Remingtons, but not before the Rider slashes with a knife. A mangled cry leaves Jesse’s lips and he crumples still. I curse my jammed Colt, but before I can so much as blink, a bullet from the ghost shooter tears through the Rider’s back. He staggers and falls. I scramble for Jesse, but additional shots battle me back to the safety of my boulder.
Leaning ’gainst the rock, I pant, ears ringing. Rose gives an order to fall back. When I peer next, it’s just him and one other Rider flying south down Needle Canyon on the burros. They shoot back at the ridge as they flee. The other Riders are dead, their bodies sprawled and lifeless in the canyon. Jesse ain’t moving neither.
I crane my neck over the boulder, looking up toward the ghost shooter. When I squint ’gainst the sun, I can see that flash of light, that glinting barrel. It’s moving south, following Rose. It thinks it got everyone in the camp.
Still, I wait a moment longer, then stand cautious. When no bullets come, I run to Jesse. The front of his shirt has been torn open by the knife, and there’s blood. A lot of blood. He’s breathing, but they’re more like gasps, and he seems to look through me when I hover over him.
“Jesse?” I says. He grunts in response. “Can you stand? Walk?”
He manages to sit.
“Yer cheek’s bleeding,” he says.
I touch the tender skin where Rose backhanded me, and my fingers come away wet.
“That don’t matter. We gotta move.”
But he’s fading already, his eyes going crossways and drifting. He ain’t in a state to walk. Ain’t in a state to do much of nothing. I don’t got the needle or thread to see to his chest. He’s gonna go unconscious soon, then bleed out.
I look the way the Riders fled. If I go after Rose now, Jesse won’t make it.
I need help. I need . . .
If I go left, I will find a spring and then a marsh and then a trail that leads up the ridge to a broad, flat mesa. Our stronghold is there.
I strip down to my undershirt and tie my flannel round Jesse’s chest in an attempt to slow his bleeding. Then I grab the reins of one of the Riders’ deserted burros. It takes a bunch of cursing and shouting and me calling Jesse a weak coward before he summons enough grit to stand with my help. He’s spent by the time I sling him over the donkey’s back.
I lead the creature to my camp and grab Waltz’s burro. Pulling both animals along, with Jesse still slumped over the Riders’, I hike fast as I can for the Apache stronghold.
It’s a long shot. And reckless. They’ll prolly shoot us on sight.
But the way I see it, I don’t got much choice.
Chapter Twenty-Three
I find the spring running at barely a trickle, and the marsh a bit farther north. I spot the trail only ’cus I know to look for it.
The going is slow, and a stubborn rattlesnake sunning on some rocks makes me have to circle wide round him. The burros don’t like it, and Jesse’s already unconscious, my flannel wrapped round him damp with blood, but I ain’t risking a bite. I can’t do neither of us much good poisoned and dying.
When I beat my way back to the trail, we spend another hour or so climbing. My bare arms are hot and aching, not used to getting so much sun. The tops of my shoulders sting. I’m dripping sweat by the time we get to the mesa, and desperate for water. I shoulda refilled my canteen at that spring. What if I ain’t even in the right place?
I glance round. The mesa stretches out, bare except for craggy shrubs and brambles. At its heel, the earth rises again—another climb to what might be a second mesa, or summit.