“The next couple of days will be touch and go. She needs to eat. Red meat especially, as much as we can give her. We need to keep her bandages clean. I don’t have anything to help her if it gets infected,” Will said, shifting his weight back and forth.
“Thanks,” I said, tipping my head toward him. I respected him for how he took care of Bonnie. We both loved her. I couldn’t hate him for that. I grabbed one of the oversized t-shirts we’d picked up somewhere along the line and a fresh pair of underclothes for Bonnie. I walked back to the wagon and sat quietly beside her.
“Those for me?” she asked. I hadn’t realized she was awake. I nodded, once again helping her sit up. I eased off the ruined dress and put the dry clothes on her as carefully as possible. I started to climb from the wagon to let her rest, but she reached out, grabbing my wrist.
“Please don’t go,” she said, her voice barely a whisper.
With a nod, I moved behind her, sitting with my back against the stolen crates. She leaned between my legs, resting her head against my chest. I brushed some of her matted hair away, pressing my lips to her temple. I held her, not tight enough to hurt her, but enough to let her know I was there.
“We can’t stay here,” she said after a while. Her voice startled me into alertness. “Coyotes are gonna come when they catch the scent of that horse.” Suddenly, I had an idea about what to do with the horse.
“I know,” I said. “But you need to rest.”
“We need to keep going,” she said. Neither of us moved as I sat there, holding her, lips pressed against her hair.
“Just let me hold you,” I whispered. “Just a little while longer.”
What I’d wanted to say was that I thought I’d lost her. That I couldn’t live without her. That even if it meant I was a dumb farm boy, I’d do anything for her. Had done anything for her. The words fell short on my tongue.
“It’s gone,” Bonnie said after a long moment.
“What is?” I asked, lifting my head up from hers.
“Her comb,” Bonnie said. Her mother’s comb. The one she’d held onto for all these years. “It’s somewhere at the bottom of that river now.”
I frowned. “I’m sorry, Bon,” I said.
“I thought I’d be upset if I ever lost it,” she said quietly. “Instead, I feel lighter somehow.” She shifted slightly, snuggling further into my embrace. Within minutes, her breathing evened out. I buried my face in her hair, thankful she was alive in my arms.
The eastern horizon began to lighten a while later. I hadn’t slept, but Bonnie did, and that was well worth the exhaustion. I managed to pull away and guide her down into the bed of the wagon without waking her. Then I went about the camp waking everyone else up. We had work to do.
Over the next couple of hours, we went through the stolen goods, repacking the food into our saddlebags. We found a couple of spare lengths of rope as well as a good knife. Since we couldn’t take the wagon, we’d have to load down the three horses. The Kid and I made good work of the dead horse, teaching Will how to properly slaughter an animal. Luckily, one of the barrels from the warehouse was full of salt, so we were able to preserve the meat. Bonnie needed red meat, Will said.
When she woke up a while later and offered to help, I insisted that she rest. I wasn’t sure if that made her mad, but I didn’t care. She didn’t need to overextend herself.
“Kid, you’re on Eagle. Clara, with Will. He’ll need the extra hand,” I said once we’d finally packed the horses down with our supplies. There was something like respect in Will’s eyes as he nodded back at me. “I’ve got Bonnie.” I looked at her. She wore a pair of my sleep pants.
Three horses for five people weren’t nearly enough, but we’d have to make do until I could come up with another arrangement. We set out, leaving the wagon behind with the supplies that we couldn’t carry. I led the way on No Name, silent, keeping one hand on the reins and my other arm securely around Bonnie on the saddle in front of me.
It was slow going. Each time I tried to push faster, it put more stress on Bonnie. The Kid tried to keep spirits up, but after a while, he was quiet, too. I tried not to fuss about her each time she moved. I had a feeling she didn’t want somebody making such a scene over her. I kept my arm steady around her, not caring whether it annoyed her.
“What was it like?” The Kid asked. “Jumping off the cliff?”
“It was fun,” I said, not sure that I could quite capture the rush of adrenaline and the things that followed right after. We’d gotten lucky.
“Except for the whole getting shot part,” Bonnie said, a smile breaking across her face. It was good to see her humor return.
We rode until Bonnie told me she couldn’t keep going. We’d have to stop every couple of hours. When we’d get back up, exhaustion lined her face. She didn’t complain once, but she needed rest. We all did.
By Bonnie’s quiet estimation, we had less than three days to Fort Hood. The desert stretched on around us. It felt like we may never get there.
Then, around midafternoon, buildings appeared. A town. We could stop and Bonnie could get some rest before we made the last leg of the trip.
“Hey,” I said, gentle in her ear. I motioned with my chin ahead of us. She saw it, too. I glanced over at Will, who had Clara latched onto him in the saddle. I couldn’t tell if he minded or not. Bonnie nodded, and I steered our group toward the town. In less than an hour, we came across more modern buildings. It reminded me of Roswell: eerily quiet and abandoned. Broken glass littered the street in front of stores. There were charred ruins of what might have been a school.
We climbed down at the end of town. I helped Bonnie off of No Name, taking extra care to be mindful of her stitches. I was pretty sure I annoyed her with all of my fussing. When I turned back to No Name to get something out of my saddlebag, I saw it. Pop had a picture of one pinned up in the barn back home. There might have been paint in some fancy color on it once, but now it was faded away to a gray frame, hints of red rusting around its edges.
An old truck, more beautiful than I could have imagined.
I dropped No Name’s reins and wandered over. It was a sturdy truck; the frame was all steel. Older than the car Pop had kept from before the Culling. I knew everyone was watching me, but I didn’t care. This was something my father had only dreamed of.
I walked around to the driver’s door and opened it. The keys were in the ignition. I tried to crank it, but it wouldn’t start. After popping the hood and bracing it up with an old metal pipe, I began to poke around inside.
I barked a laugh. A broken belt. That was an easy fix.
Once I did, we’d make it to Fort Hood in no time.
Chapter Twenty-Five - Bonnie
Pain became me. My entire body throbbed in time with my pulse, driving me to madness. My stomach thrashed, threatening to spill its contents every few minutes between spells of cold sweats in the midst of the sweltering desert heat. I sat on the crumbling asphalt and tried to keep my vision focused as Jesse tinkered with the crumbling metal horse. I knew they were once called cars, but honestly it was how I remembered what they did before sitting in the middle of roadways like the skeletons of great beasts.
The heat worsened everything, but I kept my face impassive. Jesse was already so worried about me. It was a sight to behold how easily he fit into the role of leader. Even managing to wrangle Will’s unruly personality into usefulness.
Cold sweat broke out on my temples, and the ground beneath me felt as if it were moving, rising and falling like rolling hills beneath me. Everything was hard. Sitting, riding, walking, but it was harder to sit here and watch as Clara doted on Jesse. Her eyes slid to mine as she crossed to hand Jesse a canteen. Bitch.
Will sat next to me, long legs splayed in front of him as cigarette smoke curled on the stagnant, wind-less air. The heavy smell of tobacco made my stomach thrash harder.
“Is there anything else I can get you, Jesse?” Clara asked in her too-sweet voice. It made me sicke
r than my blood loss, and I stood, clenching my jaw tight as my stitches pulled taut with the movement.
“No,” Jesse said, reaching for his belt. “I’m about done.”
The sound of his buckle clinking reminded me of last night, of how desperate we’d been on that embankment. Of how it’d felt so good to have his hands and mouth on my body. I didn’t even realize I was bleeding out. My head swam.
Will was at my side instantly, his hand steadying me. I hadn’t realized I’d wavered on my feet. I shook him off with a surly glare and started down the main road away from everyone else.
“Where are you going?” The Kid asked, and Jesse’s protective gaze froze me to the spot.
“Exploring,” I said, worried that if I said too much, my voice would wobble and give my weakness away. Jesse moved, crossing the space between us. As much as I longed to lean into the strength of his embrace, I also needed space.
“I’ve got her, Montana,” Will said, crushing his cigarette beneath his boot and gripping my arm tight. “Just keep tinkering with your machine.”
“Can I go with them?” The Kid asked. I smiled, motioning him over with a flick of my head.
“Maybe you should help your brother instead,” Clara said, bitchily.
“Nah, he’s good,” Jesse replied.
The Kid made a vulgar hand gesture he’d no doubt learned from Will. Anger flared to life inside of me, exacerbated by the pain in my side. I’d honestly tried to be understanding. I knew she’d been taken from Montana and her cushy apple-pie life, where women were delicate feminine examples of virtuousness like she tried to be. I also knew that she and Jesse had made promises to each other that he’d broken. She was hurt, jealous, and probably felt alone.
But no one came between me and The Kid.
“I said he could come,” I snapped, my voice cracking through the air like a lightning strike. Clara’s face reddened and her knuckles bleached white as she clutched her skirt. I shouldn’t have enjoyed the stricken look in her eyes as much as I did. The Kid was unfazed, sticking his tongue out at her as he ran over exuberantly.
“Y’all can gouge each other’s eyes out later. C’mon,” Will said, pressing a hand to my back to guide me forward. We walked in silence for a while, not acknowledging how heavily I had to lean on him as soon as we were out of Jesse’s sight. The Kid pulled his harmonica from his back pocket and blew an off-pitch tune.
“Why’d you have to do that?” Will asked after a minute.
“Do what?” I asked, not sure what he was talking about.
“Antagonize Blondie. I mean, the way you and Jesse are together, it can’t be easy for her to see. She thought she lost him, you know. All this time, she thought he was dead,” Will said, his voice more serious than I’d heard it in a long time.
“What is it with you and her? She’s not the kind of girl you normally go after,” I said. He stifled a grin that I saw anyway. He shrugged, but his dark eyes warmed at the mention of her.
“The modest thing is hot,” he said. “It’s like she’s a present you have to work hard to unwrap.”
I rolled my eyes. After another few moments, biting my thumbnail down to the quick, I stopped to catch my breath and take a long look at Will.
“What did you mean? The way you and Jesse are together?” I asked, my mind reeling. Will laughed, a breathy, incredulous sound. He stared at me as if he didn’t recognize me before pushing some of his midnight hair from falling into his eyes.
“Mi cielo, you look at that man like you’re dying of thirst and he’s a full canteen. It’s obvious you’re in love with him,” he said. My mouth dropped open, ready to deny it, my heart thudding hard against my ribs. Only I couldn’t. I’d known for a while now the way I felt about Jesse wasn’t something one night of passion would ever be able to satiate. It wasn’t about his body. It was about his character. He’d stood tall beside me, held me together when I threatened to fall apart, and last night...
Last night he’d saved my life. Again.
“Is it that obvious?” I asked in a horrified whisper. Will kissed the top of my head and urged me forward. “Do you think Jesse knows?”
Will gave a long-suffering sigh.
“I think being around the two of you is nauseating,” he said. “But, you know, in a good way. It’s nice seeing you happy.”
The Kid called out to us, ducking below a half-crumbled wall into a building nearby. Will and I had been through so much together. Unspeakable things endured only because we had each other to lean on, to break in front of, to put each other back together. I thought he’d betrayed me, turning me over to Jones and his father. But, if that was the case, why was he here now? Why had he left the crew and put a target on his back for me?
“Why’d you do it?” I asked. “I have to know, Will. Why did you turn me over to Jones?” He ducked, hiding his eyes with the brim of his cowboy hat. His breath hitched, and I gripped his arm tight. Tipping his hat up revealed the glassiness in his dark eyes that he fought to control. “Please.”
“I wasn’t the only one who saw you help Beck.” He gulped, swallowing his emotions down hard. “I knew if Jones found out, he’d kill you.”
“He almost did kill me,” I argued.
“I went to my dad. I told him to convince Jones to let him do the punishing,” Will admitted, blinking hard. Realization crashed through me. He hadn’t betrayed me at all. He’d risked everything to keep me alive. My breath stilled.
“Will, I hated you. I thought... I thought when I told you I didn’t want us to be together that you—"
“You should hate me,” he said, his words hard. “I gave you to him. Fuck, I let him carve you.”
I knew better than anyone the toll Sixgun’s brand of cruelty had taken on Will. Years of torment, physical and psychological, instilling a guilt rooted so deep that trying to remove it would kill him.
“I forgive you,” I said, my words soft.
“You can’t. You can’t just—"
“Why not?” I asked, cutting him off.
“Because you got hurt and it was my fault. You can’t just forgive me. It can’t be that easy,” he said, incredulous.
“I’ve learned the right thing is rarely easy. But I forgive you anyway,” I said, hugging him tight. His hat fell to the dust as he squeezed me back, careful of my wound. His shoulders shook with silent sobs.
“Bonnie! Are you kissin’ Will now, too? Quit it!” The Kid teased. A brilliant grin crossed his mouth, reminiscent of Jesse’s.
“We’re not!” Will and I both shouted, giggling tearfully. The Kid bounded over as Will retrieved his hat, holding a book out to me. The cover was cracked and faded, the pages warped from exposure to the elements.
“It’s about Bonnie Parker; will you read it with me?” The Kid asked. I wavered on my feet, and Will wrapped an arm around my waist.
“I can’t, Kid,” I said, ruffling his hair as we headed back. It took longer than I wanted to admit to get back. I’d overdone it. By the time Jesse and the truck were in sight, my side throbbed so bad it was the only thing I could think about.
Then a rumble tore through the air, like a crater beast roaring to life, and suddenly I forgot about the ache in my side. Shuffling toward the metal beast, my eyes fell to the tangle of gears and whirring pieces inside of it. Jesse smiled at me, and I leaned against the hood too heavily.
“I’ve never seen a machine from before the Culling working,” I said in awe. He smiled wider at the expression on my face.
“Wanna go for a ride?” he asked. I wrapped my arms around his broad shoulders to steady myself. I nodded swiftly, and he helped me slide onto the seat. Then he slammed the hood down and climbed into the snarling machine beside me. The inside was hot, even with the windows rolled down, but the heat didn’t bother me as badly as before. The dashboard displayed gauges of colored lines and numbers that meant nothing to me.
“How the hell did you do this?” I asked, watching him pull roughly on a lever, and the whole frame
lurched forward. I let out a short yelp that forced a rumbling chuckle from Jesse.
“Pop taught me everything he knew about cars,” Jesse said, shifting the gear as we picked up speed. His hand rested on my knee, and the contact distracted me from the ache in my side. The excitement in his voice was familiar. He ran away with his words the same way The Kid did, his mind moving faster than his mouth. It was endearing to see how similar they could be. “He had this old car in the barn, said it was the one they used to move everything after the Culling. By the time I was fifteen, he taught me how to take apart the engine and put it back together. I’ll show you when we go—"
Jesse stopped abruptly, his brows furrowing deep. I stared at him expectantly.
“To Montana,” he finished. I shouldn’t indulge him, I knew that. It would only hurt us both later. After nearly dying in his arms, though, I needed the dream as much as he did.
“What’s it like in Montana? I haven’t really been anywhere but the desert,” I asked, thinking my heart might burst. The corners of his eyes folded deep with his smile, and he stared at me for a long moment before turning his eyes forward.
“Well, it’s colder,” Jesse said. “The trees are taller than the tallest building you’ve ever seen.” He turned the wheel as we made our way to the other edge of town and just drove. “In the summer, we swim in ice-cold creeks fed by the snowcaps on the mountains.”
“What’s a snowcap?” I asked. He wrapped his arm around me.
“It’s when the snow piles high on the mountains,” he said but noticed my confused expression. “Frozen rain. It’s beautiful. You’ll love it.” I motioned to the abandoned building The Kid had ducked into earlier. It’d be a good place to camp for the night. Jesse turned the wheel again in the direction I indicated. My eyes strayed to the buttons on the dash, wondering what they were all for. Instead of asking, I pressed them. Most of them did nothing. Until suddenly music blasted around us. I jumped, hissing as the jerking motion forced pain all the way down my leg.
“Maybe we should get you settled so I can go back for the others,” Jesse shouted over the loud music. I nodded but wasn’t really paying attention. I laughed, staring incredulously at the dash of the truck where music appeared from thin air, like magic. Like in the fairy stories my mom used to tell me.
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