“Come on, Kate,” he says. “It’s time to kill us an outlaw.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The pickaxe sounds like a bell tolling.
When we look careful, we can spot their path—boot prints where the ground’s more dust than rock, snapped bits of sagebrush where they walked quickly through a patch. I wonder how long Rose let his last remaining man help him haul out gold before he decided it weren’t worth the extra labor, before he left him for dead back in that cache.
Ahead, and a bit to our left, I spot the palo verde tree Pa’d mentioned in the journal. You wouldn’t look twice at it if you didn’t know it were a marker. Half its bark is indeed missing and it’s grown at a crooked angle, buckling over a rock so its limbs seem to motion up the rocky bluff we’re already climbing.
I point it out to Jesse, but if he’s acknowledged me, it don’t show. He’s a man on fire, a fuse burned down to its last bit of wick.
We scramble-climb up the rocky ledge, working our way toward the pickaxe chant in silence. Sweat drips down my back and between my breasts. I can hear my pulse beating in my ears, but I push on. Even when the pickaxe stops chiming, we don’t slow.
After heaving ourselves over a wide, flat boulder, we find a somewhat level ledge. Looking back the way we came, I can see the foot trail winding through the ravine below and, in the distance, Weavers Needle looming proud.
But before us . . .
Before us and just beyond a wild bunch of mountain brush and a cluster of angry, jagged rock that piles ’bout waist high is the mine. We walk toward it together and peer in.
It’s a deep, funnel-shaped pit, its edges lined with planks of wood to serve as footholds and handholds. Jesse picks up a rock and tosses it down, but it must’ve hit the makeshift ladder ’long the way, ’cus it clanks several times before going silent, making it hard to tell how deep the mine goes.
We wait, silent, expecting a voice to come up from the depths. It never does. The pickaxe ain’t striking no more, but I know we’re in the right place. So where . . .
“Where is he?” I says to Jesse.
There’s the crunch of gravel back near the ledge, the sound of a hammer cocking. “Behind you,” says Waylan Rose.
We both cock our guns and spin round, ready to shoot together, but our barrels pull up at the same time.
He ain’t alone.
Waylan Rose has his left arm curled round a woman, pinning her to his chest. His other arm extends over her shoulder so the barrel of his six-shooter points our way.
His hostage ain’t much to look at. Streaks of gray mark the woman’s dark, matted hair, which hangs to where her faded trousers are belted with a piece of fraying rope. Her shirt is sweat stained and tattered, her skin darkened by the sun. Toughened, too. It looks too loose round her neck, too wrinkled at the corners of her eyes. Like a vulture’s. I can’t tell if she’s forty or closer to double that, though there’s something youthful ’bout her fearful expression.
“Toss those six-shooters,” Rose says, “or mama dearest gets it.”
“Sierra!” the woman gasps. “Sierra, do what he says. Please!” Her dark eyes are locked on me, desperate and wide.
“I ain’t messing,” Rose growls, and brings his pistol to the woman’s temple. She seems to dissolve in his grasp, knees buckling. It’s only his grip that keeps her upright as her hands claw at the forearm trapping her.
“Sierra, I’m sorry I left. I’m so sorry. But you don’t want me dead for that, do you? We can start over. We can fix everything.”
“Who in the hell is Sierra?” I snap.
Her expression pales. “You, darling. Yer Sierra.”
“I’m Kate.”
“No,” she says, shaking her head. “We named you after the mountains where we found gold. We named you after the place that changed our lives.”
And just like that, the moments surge before me, flashing in a spark of truth. The bed, always still. The door, always pulled. That memory of a kitchen that weren’t ours was, only in Tucson. Those bright colors were her heritage, Mexican roots Pa stamped out after we moved north.
I were young. I wouldn’t remember it in time—all those childhood memories. ’Specially how he buried her when I weren’t home.
’Cus there was nothing to see.
She was never in that bed, or that grave.
She was never, ever sick.
She left us. She left, and Pa moved me north, and he tried to protect me from the hurt. Maybe he thought she’d eventually come back to us, choose family. Maybe he kept the act going as long as possible, till a faked death were the only way to keep my memory of her pure and clean and something worth loving.
I stare at the woman before me, trying to see past the dirt caked in her skin, the wrinkles brought out by sun. I erase ’em with my mind, turn her graying hair dark, picture her in the same dress she’s wearing in our family portrait. Suddenly alls I can see is features I recognize: those proud cheekbones, her bronzed skin, eyes that pierce right through to my soul, awakening something that’s been sleeping a long, long time.
“Ma?” I says.
“Yes, darling.” A tear breaks over her cheek.
“But . . . you left us. Why would you leave us?”
“It’s complicated.”
“No it ain’t! You don’t leave. You got family, you stick by ’em. Plain and simple.”
“If you just let me explain . . .”
“There ain’t gonna be any explaining if you two don’t toss those damn six-shooters!” Rose screams.
Jesse only aims his surer, but I drop my arm.
“Kate . . .” he says.
“She’s my mother, Jesse. Lower yer damn pistol.”
“Kate, it ain’t right. Where’d she come from? How’d she get out here? We ain’t seen nobody for days.”
Which I can’t deny, but I also can’t have her death on my conscience, and I certainly won’t have Waylan Rose murder the last bit of family I got left.
He kicks her in the back of the legs and she falls to her knees, sobbing. Rose presses his gun to her skull.
“Jesse, toss yer damn pistols!” I scream.
His gaze stays forward, and I know he’s considering the shot. Rose ain’t fully shielded no more, but the bastard’s weapon is already aimed, his hammer cocked, his trigger finger faster than the both of us.
“Please,” I says to Jesse. “Please.”
He bites his bottom lip and lets out a small growl but lowers his arm. I toss my Colt in the dirt between us and Rose, then nod at Jesse. It takes a painfully long moment, but he surrenders his twins.
“Finally,” Rose says, shoving my mother forward. “Maria, if you wouldn’t mind?”
She crawls toward the weapons, retrieves them, and stands. Only, she don’t turn round and shoot Rose in the face.
She walks back to him calm as ever and shakes his hand.
“Thank you kindly,” he says, accepting my Colt from her.
She twirls Jesse’s twins round her forefingers, smiling. “Pleasure’s mine.”