Retribution Rails

by Erin Bowman

  A bullet goes off in the payload car, startling me so thoroughly, I nearly drop Father’s pistol.

  “Hurry up, dammit,” the robber snarls.

  “All right,” I say, cocking Father’s pistol beneath my jacket, intent on giving Murphy a pearl-shaped bit of lead.

  But as I draw the weapon, the door to the cash car bursts open and several men tumble into ours. The one in the lead sees the barrel of my gun appearing from beneath my jacket, and he dives at Murphy, knocking him to the aisle floor. My shot goes into the man’s shoulder.

  And that’s when the lawman finally wakes.

  Dropping his kerchief and drawing his pistol, he shoves me toward the window and opens fire on the robbers. I flinch at each shot, grabbing my ears as the car explodes with thunderous noise. Around the lawman’s legs, I can see a bit of the aisle: Murphy struggling to free himself from beneath the man I hit—​a man he’s now calling “Boss.”

  The lawman lets out an oof and slumps into me. There’s shouting and more gunshots, then silence. My ears still ring, barely able to hear the pound of fleeing hooves.

  I peer out the window and find the gang on the move, their steeds kicking up dust as they fly for the river.

  “Sir?” I say, turning back to the lawman. He shifts his weight off me awkwardly and lets out a low wheeze. “Sir, are you all right?”

  The pistol slides from his hand, landing on the floor of the car with a clatter. His eyelids flutter.

  “See it through for me, miss,” he says. “Please?”

  I grab at his front. He is slick, wet. The breast pocket of his vest is glistening with blood. “What?” I gasp out. “See what through?”

  But his only response is a ragged, uneven breath as his blood seeps through my fingers.

  Chapter Three

  * * *

  Reece

  By the time we cross the Gila and kick the horses into a true sprint, flying north, the reality of the situation crashes into me.

  That fair-skinned, wide-eyed, lip-trembling girl nearly sent me to meet my maker.

  I know exactly where I went wrong, why I didn’t catch sooner that she were pulling an act. I’d been keeping my gaze down as I moved up the aisle, trying to avoid looking folk in the eye if I could manage it. In part ’cus it ain’t never worth being recognized, even with the bandanna up high and our hats down low, but also ’cus I hate the look I get during jobs. The fear and horror, the desperate anguish. I know what they’re feeling ’cus I lived it myself. When I’d finally fled my drunken father at thirteen and found work on the Lloyds’ farm near La Paz, I thought I were safe. The Colorado ran nearby. The earth were rich and fertile. It was heaven. For nearly two blessed years I wasn’t boy, or bastard, or son of a bitch, but Reece Murphy, a kid that just might be able to make something of himself. I vowed to be a farmhand for the Lloyds long as I could manage. But then Boss and his boys came galloping onto their claim the summer before I turned fifteen, and it all went to hell.

  It were the hottest day I ever saw. Longest, too. They killed the whole family—​Billy included, who were only seven—​and they took their time doing it.

  I don’t know what made ’em choose that claim. Maybe they were bored. Maybe they needed money and the Lloyds were the easiest, closest hit. Alls I know is I’d’ve been strung up also if it weren’t for the coin Diaz found while emptying my pockets.

  “Boss, you seen this?” he said. “Ain’t this yer brother’s?”

  He tossed the coin over, and Luther—​who were in the process of carving that blasted rose into my forearm—​paused to snatch it outta the air. He went dead still when he done saw it proper. A fury spread over his face, not unlike the look that crawls over my pa’s when he’s had too much whiskey.

  “Where’d you get this?” Boss snarled, holding the coin an inch from my nose. It were a gold piece a touch smaller than a half-dollar, featuring a wreath on one side and Lady Liberty on the other. It looked a bit like a three-dollar piece, but there was no currency amount on either face. I reckon it coulda been worth a cent or a hundred times that, but I’d held on to it simply ’cus I’d never seen another like it.

  “A cowboy gave it to me last week,” I answered.

  “What cowboy?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Boss backhanded me ’cross the cheek.

  “I swear, I don’t know,” I said again. “He were a stranger. I ain’t never seen him ’cept for that once.”

  And it were the truth. The cowboy’d stopped at the Lloyds’ one afternoon, looking to repair his steed’s faulty shoe. Mr. Lloyd gave the man a drink from the pump and a bite to eat. I took care of his horse. The next day, he’d flicked the coin at me with a gruff “Thanks” and rode south. That was it. In our lives for a day, then gone forever.

  But Boss still moved his knife to my neck like I were lying. My pulse pumped so hard I could feel the blade more firmly with each heartbeat.

  “Think you’d recognize this cowboy if’n you saw him again?”

  “Y-yes,” I stuttered, just wanting it to end—​the pain in my forearm and the crackle of building fire and the women’s screams coming from somewhere behind me. “I could point him out,” I promised. “I’m s-sure of it.”

  And just like that, Boss was sheathing his knife and I were being hauled onto Diaz’s horse.

  I looked back only once as we rode out. Inside the corral, in the mouth of the Lloyds’ blazing barn, four dark shadows hung swinging.

  I was a wanted criminal after that day, charged with the murder of the Lloyd family. I weren’t Reece Murphy no more. I was the Rose Kid. Infamous. Feared. I slaughtered that poor family, ran, and then joined up with the Rose Riders so I could continue doing evil. Least that’s the story that got printed, the tale folks chose to believe. Sometimes I wonder if Boss or his boys’ve let lies slip, too, planted yarns and encouraged the rumors. It sure don’t hurt the gang’s image. If nothing else, it makes ’em even more fearsome. Makes the kid they got riding in their ranks out to be a true villain, not a fool held hostage. Fear can be more persuasive than facts.

  It’s why I bought that girl’s act, after all. By the time I had the nerve to look her in the eye, I only saw a scared girl trembling in her coat, not a spitfire opponent with a pistol hidden from view. I’d even been close to telling her not to cry, that I weren’t gonna hurt her, that if she just handed over the earrings, it’d all be over, but Boss had been nearly done in the cash car, and I didn’t want him to catch me being sympathetic.

  It all went to hell after the girl’s pistol discharged. Boss toppling into me. Hobbs just behind him, firing like mad with the cash slung over his shoulder. Jones shouting for us to get a move on from the front of the train.

  It’s moments like this—​fleeing a train job gone wrong, with my cheeks chapped from the cold and every bone in my body bracing for Boss’s rage when we stop—​that I wonder what in tarnation I’m doing.

  I truly believe he’ll let me go if’n I find that cowboy for him. He’s vicious, but he’s still a man of his word. A handshake means something among men, even outlaws, and over the years the small promises Boss’s made me, he’s kept. Like getting me new boots when I outgrew mine, and other small decencies. It ain’t him keeping his promise that worries me. It’s the cowboy. He’s starting to feel like a ghost, an impossible whisper of a man.

  I ain’t never gonna find him. I’m gonna be stuck riding with these boys forever.

  I almost wish that girl’d managed to shoot me.

  We ride hard all day, and when we stop at dusk, Boss damn near falls from his saddle. He’s lost a good amount of blood, but he don’t check the wound or even if we got the payload out safe. (We did.) He just stumbles straight for me and delivers a blow to my chin that sends me sprawling.

  “Goddammit, Murphy! You got air between those ears? You don’t let no one reach into their jacket like that, not even some shaken, near-blubbering lady. Yer gonna get us all killed, kid!”

  He
kicks me in the side, and I don’t even bother trying to shield myself from the blow. He took a bullet for me.

  Boss turns toward Hobbs. “The damage?”

  “None. We got all the cash out.”

  “And the lawman?”

  “Got him taken care of, too.”

  It’s good news for us, but Boss don’t look none the more relieved.

  “Rest while you can,” he announces. “Word of that robbery’ll be telegraphed ’cross the Territory. With luck, there’ll be reports of unidentified men attacking, nothing more, but we’re riding hard for a while. The farther we get from the Southern Pacific, the better.”

  As the others start seeing to their bedrolls, Boss crouches down beside me. The tang of sweat and blood drips off him. If fury’s got a scent, he’s wearing that too.

  “You do something that dumb again, and I’ll finish that rose on yer forearm, Murphy. I swear it on my brother’s grave.”

  The little I know ’bout Waylan’s death suggests he died in the Superstition Mountains east of Phoenix and were left there to rot, not buried. There ain’t no grave to swear on. But I keep quiet.

  “It ain’t like I want to,” Boss adds as he straightens. “It’s just I can’t have you dying on me, son. You got that?”

  I know it’s less ’bout me meaning something to him and all ’bout him wanting answers—’bout tracking down who killed his brother, which starts with questioning the cowboy only I can identify. But when he leaves to tend to his shoulder, I say a prayer that the cowboy wanders ’cross my path soon. I’ll gladly give up one more soul to cut free. I can deal with that last bit of blood on my hands.

  Since running from home, I’ve spent more time in this gang than not, and while I know everything we do is wrong and wretched and cursed, it’s starting to feel normal. It’s starting to be all I know. I barely trust my own two hands these days, so I gotta find that cowboy before I start feeling like this is where I belong. I gotta walk away from the Rose Riders before I start liking the way it sounds to hear Boss call me “son.”

  Chapter Four

  * * *

  Charlotte

  “Is there a doctor onboard?”

  The passengers are in an uproar, some sobbing while others rant about stolen purses and lost jewelry.

  “Dammit, is there a doctor onboard?” I shout.

  An elderly woman twists around to face me. She’s pinching a set of rosary beads, her lips still curled around a prayer. I think she might scold me for such foul language, but then she notices my bloody hands gripping her headrest. I’ve stained the wood, left red smears on the velvet upholstery.

  “Leonard,” she says, turning to the man with her. “Leonard, I do think your assistance is needed.”

  Leonard leans on a cane as he moves up the aisle, a medical bag hanging heavy from his free hand. He kneels beside our seat, observing the lawman over the rim of thin wire spectacles.

  I didn’t even know his name. He’d made a bit of small talk, shining the badge on his vest when I sat down beside him. I told him I was a journalist with the Prescott Morning Courier. A half-truth. I don’t write for the paper in any official capacity, but the lie made me appear older than my sixteen years, and the last thing I desired was for him to question why I was traveling without a chaperone and insist on escorting me home.

  The doctor feels for the man’s pulse. I don’t need to watch more than a minute to know there’s nothing he can do for the lawman. I see the verdict on his face. One side of his mouth pulls down; then he licks his lips and swallows, glances at me quickly. He hasn’t even opened his medical bag.

  “Are you traveling with anyone else, miss?”

  My bloody hands are resting on the skirt of my dress, its fabric wet in places.

  “Miss?”

  I glance up. “No, sir.”

  “A young lady like yourself shouldn’t be traveling alone,” his wife says. Then, almost in afterthought, her gaze jerks back to the deceased man and she adds, “God rest his soul.”

  “I’m sorry to say there wasn’t much I—​or anyone—​could have done,” the doctor says. “He passed on almost immediately.”

  My head bobs in a bit of a trance.

  He’s dead. Those outlaws killed him.

  The car lurches. I hear someone mutter, “There was a disengaged beam, but the crew fixed it.” The engine starts chugging, the wheels and rods rolling faster and faster until the scenery outside begins to blur.

  I glance at the lawman.

  His eyes are closed—​the doctor’s doing—​and if it weren’t for the blood all over his front, he almost appears to be sleeping again.

  See it through for me. Please.

  I flip open my journal and began scribbling down everything I can remember about the gang. Murphy’s hat and blue bandanna. His companion’s stockier build. The boss’s graying hair and sunken eyes.

  I’ll see it through. I’ll see the Law gets the cleanest description possible and that the hounds are sent after those devils.

  When the locomotive chugs into Gila Bend, a flurry of activity awaits us. Word of the robbery was sent ahead by telegraph, and a posse is being rounded up to go after the gang.

  The train is held at the depot while a deputy sheriff asks to speak with anyone who might be able to give a description of the robbers. I provide all I can remember, and the man taking down my description startles at the details of Murphy’s hat. He moves on to another passenger before I can ask him if they’ve had trouble with these characters before. It’s only after they’ve departed and the train is moving east again that I overhear Leonard and his wife conspiring; the young man named Murphy is actually Reece Murphy. The Rose Kid.

  My stomach twists, and I slump in my seat.

  I’d assumed Murphy was his first name, not last, and this new possibility laces my limbs with goose flesh. The Rose Kid rides beneath the equally heartless Luther Rose, and the men who make up the Rose Riders are among the Territory’s most vile and bloodthirsty lowlifes. Thieves, murderers, rapists, devils. There is not a tale I’ve heard of their crimes that does not make me shudder. What happened during the robbery now seems jovial. Things could have gone much, much worse.

  I’m still quite shaken when I reach Maricopa, where a stagecoach can take me north to Prescott. The doctor is continuing east to Tucson, and his wife makes sure to chastise me on the dangers of traveling alone and my “sinful, improper ways.”

  I assure her I will most certainly be fine, that family is waiting for me in Prescott, and besides, Nellie Bly travels without a chaperone. In fact, she’s currently down in Mexico, reporting for the Pittsburg Dispatch. Leonard’s wife has either never heard of the young female reporter or simply doesn’t care enough to change her opinion of me, for she watches with a scrutinizing gaze as I step onto the depot.

  I’m not sure why I’m surprised.

  Father told me long ago that I could do anything I set my mind to, but it would behoove me to be prepared for resistance at many turns. My journalism career began by summarizing the proceedings of the P&AC rail—​or, rather, the particulars Father was privy to. He’d mark up my words and I’d redraft them, and if he approved of the result, he’d send them on to Uncle Gerald, who would in turn send them along to an acquaintance, John Marion, editor and founder of the Prescott Morning Courier. On the occasions that my pieces were printed, they were always credited to Uncle.

  When I confronted him by post, he simply replied that it is not a lady’s place to report on issues lest they pertain to ladies themselves—​fashion and gardening and all else oft found in the “women’s pages.” He was doing me a favor by submitting the work to Mr. Marion as his own. No one would even read my stories if they saw my name on the byline.

  Well, I beg to disagree. I will write one darn impressive story about the completion of the Prescott and Arizona Central line, and while Uncle Gerald is busy trying to pressure Mother into an unwanted marriage, I will march into Mr. John Marion’s office, smack my
piece down on his desk where he can’t ignore the words before him or the person who wrote them, and demand credit.

  If I’m lucky, I’ll get a job, too.

  I find my way to the stage stop, only to be told I’ve missed the day’s lone coach to Prescott. It’s rotten luck on an already horrid day, but moaning about it will change nothing. This is a lesson Mother has hammered into me, and I exhale hard—​just as she taught me—​and follow it with a smile. Things always look better when you smile, she says. I can admit that forcing my lips upward brightens my spirits, even if only minimally.

  I purchase fare for a coach that will depart the following morning, then go about locating a boarding house for the night, which all but drains my purse.

  I exhale again, but it’s harder to produce a smile a second time.

  When I collapse on the bed, still wearing my jacket and bloodstained dress, I can’t help but worry about Mother. Has she spoken with Uncle yet? How did he take the news that Father left the Gulch Mine to Mother and me, not him? Lord knows he’ll feel entitled to it. He’s overseen operations this past decade while Father pursued additional business opportunities—​mainly buying up lumberyards along the Colorado and selling cheap fuel to steamboat companies that agreed to ship his copper at discounted prices in return. The P&AC will help with those freighting costs also, which was why Father invested so heavily in the project when construction finally began.

  I’m struck again by the sudden sting of reality. He’s gone. He spent years slowly leaving us, but I still wasn’t prepared for his absence.

  It is such a shame that he passed before the rail’s completion. I will have to write one heck of a story about the celebratory gala. Perhaps there are newspapers in heaven.

  Chapter Five

  * * *

  Reece