Retribution Rails

by Erin Bowman

  “What’d I miss?” he asks.

  “Only me preaching on deaf ears,” Kate says. “Come on. It’s time for dinner.”

  Vaughn spends the meal fuming, her eyes latched on to her plate, chewing ’bout as gracefully as a bull.

  “Did I tell you I picked up the post in Prescott on my way through the other day?” Jesse says to Kate. “Sarah wrote. ’Parently our guest”—​his eyes flick my way—​“and his friends stormed her place when fleeing Wickenburg. They nearly got Jake. He took a shot to the right side, just above his heart.”

  Vaughn’s gaze snaps up for the first time since we started eating. “But he’s all right? The boy?”

  “Yeah, he’ll be outta work awhile, but he’s healing fine. How do you know Jake?”

  “I stayed at the boarding house a night. He showed me to my room. He’s your . . .”

  “Nephew. My sister’s son. After I got married, I left the family ranch to her. Her drunk of a husband ran it into the ground a few years later, and she left him. Took Jake and moved to the city proper. They been running the boarding house ever since.”

  “I’m glad he’ll heal,” I say. “Boss took an unfair shot. The boy weren’t even armed.”

  “That sincere?” Jesse says, angling toward me. “’Cus I can’t figure why yer still calling Rose ‘Boss’ if you ain’t riding with him no more.”

  I swallow a bite of food, the truth too painful to utter. ’Cus I’m scared of Boss still. ’Cus calling him anything else would mean I’ve broken ties and moved on. ’Cus declaring my independence would as good as damn my mother were Boss to ever get his hands on me again.

  “Jesse, please,” Kate says.

  “I can’t be mad?” he continues. “Jake wouldn’t be hurt right now if it weren’t for the Rose Riders.”

  “Same could be said if you never sold the ranch. Or our lives never crossed.”

  “That’s different.”

  “I know. But Jake’s gonna be fine, and it ain’t worth getting all riled over something already done happened. We gotta think ahead.”

  “Ahead,” Vaughn says. “I like that. Since the Kid refuses to accept my offer, I’d like to discuss when I can go to town to find a gunslinger.”

  Kate wipes her mouth with a napkin, sets it down on the table. “I reckon you won’t mind giving us a moment of privacy first? Me and Jesse and Reece?”

  Vaughn’s frown is back quicker than a snake oil salesman whipping out his wares. She glances ’round the table, pausing on me. I shrug. She overheard the Coltons’ talk earlier, and she’s gotta know that anything they propose ain’t something I had a hand in. Still, this ain’t the response she’s looking for, ’cus she gives a mountainous sigh, tosses down her napkin, and stands up so quickly her chair skids back. Then she grabs a jacket from the hooks by the door and stomps outside.

  The door slaps ’gainst the frame.

  “She didn’t have to vacate the damn house,” Jesse says.

  “Let her cool off,” Kate says, then turns toward me. “I’m just gonna cut right to it: Jesse and I been talking, and we’re willing to pay you five hundred if you see to the rest of yer buddies. Double that if’n you bring us proof the job’s done. Payment’ll be made in solid gold ore.”

  “Gold ore?” I laugh. “Why’re you living in some drafty, isolated home if you got that much gold to yer name?”

  “We don’t like to touch it if we don’t have to. It ain’t worth the trouble.”

  “Yer lying,” I say. “You don’t got that money.”

  “What folk you know that got two residences fully stocked at all times if’n they don’t got at least a little extra coin?” Jesse questions.

  All right, then. I reckon he’s got a point. How they financed this home were one of the first things to cross my mind when we entered the clearing.

  “Fine, you got some money. But running cattle?” I glance at Jesse. “Fetching eggs from a coop and eating flapjacks every morning?” A nod at Kate. “This ain’t how a couple with a thousand dollars to spare passes their days.”

  “Will you do it or won’t ya?” Kate asks.

  “And remember,” Jesse says, staring me down, “if’n you wanna make things right, you gotta face yer demons.”

  And I do, I do. It’s like what Vaughn was hinting at the other day—​it ain’t just about what I think or feel, it’s how I show that in actions. But money is what drives men like Boss, and I can’t let it drive me. ’Specially not when Ma’s life’ll be on the line if’n I mess up.

  “If I do it,” I say after a moment, “it’s gotta be ’cus I want to, not ’cus I’m being paid.”

  “Fine, do it for no money at all,” Jesse says. “Hell, I’ll help ya, even. I gotta face my own demons, too.”

  “And what demons do you got?”

  Jesse sets down his utensils, then looks me dead in the eye and says, “I killed yer boss’s brother.”

  Well, there it is. The confession I been waiting for.

  “Jesse!” Kate lurches upright.

  “Nah, it’s all right, Kate,” he says, waving a hand to settle her. “The Kid’s figured it out already. He’s suspected it since he first wandered onto our Prescott claim.”

  Kate glances between the two of us, her eyes glossy and on the verge of terrified tears. Somehow she don’t loosen a single one as Jesse goes on to spill what is surely their most valued secret: How Kate hired him, the son of an old family friend, to see to her father’s killer. How Jesse did just that and took all the money off Waylan Rose’s body when it was done, including a heap of gold and a mysterious three-dollar coin he didn’t even discover among all the gold till months later. He passed that blasted coin on to me, and it cursed me just as it’s now come back to curse him.

  “This is why I need to make sure them Riders ain’t a threat no more,” Jesse says. “Luther ain’t gonna quit seeking vengeance. Not ever. And me and Kate ain’t gonna rest easy till he’s gone, and all his boys with him. Same could be said of the rails they terrorize and all the poor souls they strike down in the process.”

  I thumb my lip. “I thought you didn’t trust me.”

  “I trust that we got the same enemy, and that’s a mighty fine ground for a partnership. Plus Charlotte said Luther’s been using yer ma to keep you in line. I know you ain’t gonna go rogue with that hanging over yer head.”

  “And when it’s all said and done, how do I know you ain’t gonna put a bullet in my back?”

  “All any man’s got is his word, and that’s all I can offer, seeing as you don’t want the gold. So what do you say, Reece?” Jesse Colton holds out his hand, reaching ’cross this table that divides us like a river, two souls on opposite shores thinking maybe we can meet in the middle.

  I reckon we can, maybe even have to.

  Hiding forever ain’t an option for me, and finishing the gang ain’t a thing I can do on my own. But with the help of a retired gunslinger? With careful planning and the right approach?

  I thrust my hand out and shake with Jesse Colton.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  * * *

  Charlotte

  The Rose Kid finds me in the stables, brushing down the sorrel to keep some warmth in my hands. I hadn’t realized how bitterly cold it was before storming outside, and then once I’d crossed the clearing, my pride kept me from returning to the house.

  “Everyone’s getting ready for bed,” he says, his breath visible in the cold. “Now that Jesse’s back—”

  “I’ll stay out here.”

  “It’s freezing.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Well, I do.” His brow wrinkles. “I’ll manage here fine. You should take the bed.”

  It is not a large stable. The stalls are narrow, and the only one not housing a horse is full of farming gear—​buckets and hoes, shovels and saddle stands. There’s a wind tonight, too, strong enough that it cuts through my jacket. It even chased off the owl that had been singing a sad song from somewhere among t
he pines earlier. An evening spent out here will be a harsh, uncomfortable one, even bundled under blankets.

  I think of the Rose Kid’s effects sitting on the kitchen table these past nights while Kate and I slept with a weapon within reach. He has not acted suspiciously. He’s stayed in his room every evening and done no one harm. My treatment in the stagecoach has become the exception, his actions suggesting that the person I faced on those barren Arizona plains is not truly him.

  “If it’s too cold for me,” I say finally, “I don’t see why you should have to suffer it either. One of us can take the mattress in the bedroom, the other the floor.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “What happened inside?”

  “Dinner,” he says.

  “You know damn well I’m talking about the conversation I wasn’t allowed to be present for.”

  “Jesus, Vaughn,” he says, laughing. “Few days with the likes of me and yer already cursing like an outlaw.”

  “We are nothing alike, and you’d do well to remember it. Now, what did they want to discuss?”

  He shrugs. “Taking care of the Rose Riders. Jesse were the gunslinger Kate hired to avenge her father. He admitted it.”

  So that tale Kate fed me about “Nate” was nothing but a lie. She never wanted to help me. She just wanted to protect her own hide.

  “Jesse’s gonna help me see to the boys,” the Kid goes on. “None of us got much of a future till they’re in the ground, so we’ll come up with a plan and then go after ’em.”

  “So that’s it?” I throw the coarse-bristled brush into a bucket in the corner. “I’m stuck a prisoner here while everyone sees after their own needs? Why the devil wasn’t I allowed to be present for that conversation?”

  “Prolly ’cus they figured you’d react something like this.” He makes a flippant gesture at my person.

  “They still should have had the decency to say it to my face, to admit that my dilemma means nothing to them.”

  The Rose Kid frowns. “Jesse and Kate’ll be dead if the Riders find ’em. Same goes for me or my ma. But what’s the worse that happens if’n you don’t get a gunslinger? Yer ma holds on to her family fortune and marries a businessman! What an awful fate.”

  My blood nearly boils. “You do know how one consummates a marriage, I presume? That she’d be forced to . . . She’d have to . . .”

  The Rose Kid’s brow wrinkles uncomfortably, and I surmise he hadn’t considered how a man takes his bride to bed following a wedding, regardless of whether the bride desires to be there.

  “And that’s assuming he doesn’t kill her following the marriage,” I go on. “He doesn’t want to share the wealth, my uncle. He wants to assume it and possess it fully in time. So pardon me for being concerned about an imminent threat in my life. My mother is already at risk, while you and the Coltons will only be in danger if you actively go looking for a fight and manage to get caught. But please, tell me again how I am overreacting. Tell me again that my troubles are meaningless!”

  He stands there, quiet, the weak moonlight catching his swollen nose as he diverts his eyes.

  I shove past him and head for the house.

  After confronting Kate about the “Nate” lie (“I said what I had to”) and asking Jesse if he will serve as my gunslinger before tracking the Riders (“I ain’t a gunslinger no more, and never really was one to begin with”), I retire for the evening, livid and fuming.

  Too worked up to sleep, I scribble in my journal by light of the lantern, and by the time the Rose Kid reappears, I’ve already claimed the bed.

  “I’m sorry for what I said ’bout the marriage. I hadn’t thought of it that way.”

  I glance up from my work, but that’s the only indication I give him that I’ve heard his apology. Perhaps it is petty of me, but emotionally, it’s all I can offer.

  He grabs the pillow and spare blanket I left at the foot of the bed and goes about setting up his own bed on the floor. When he lies down, he disappears from view and is so blessedly quiet, it’s almost as if I’m alone again.

  “So what’s yer story?” he asks suddenly from the floor. “You know, besides the horrid uncle and all.”

  “I don’t have a story,” I say dryly, although perhaps I should have said I don’t want to talk.

  “No story! Yer a writer, ain’t you? Yer type can pull a story outta a pile of cow chips.”

  I roll my eyes—​not that he can see it from his bed—​and continue to draft in my journal. I’m summarizing what I witnessed of the P&AC gala, which is pointless, as the affair has surely been covered by now, but it’s keeping my mind busy and my anger somewhat quelled.

  He pushes up onto his elbows, bringing his face into view. “Why you wanna be a journalist, Vaughn? They don’t even print the facts, them reporters. You might as well just write novels.”

  That does it. I snap my journal closed around my pencil, marking my place. “That folks can print lies in the paper, and those words are then read as fact, is precisely what makes responsible journalism so important! One could argue it is the most important form of writing, and I’d have thought you’d agree. If all you say about your history is true, the papers have misrepresented you countless times.”

  “That a family trade, reporting? I got your relatives to thank for it?”

  “No. My mother is a midwife and my father was a businessman.”

  “Was?”

  “He passed last week.”

  The color drains from his face. “Oh.”

  “I don’t want to talk about this. Honestly, I don’t want to talk at all.” I place my journal on the nightstand and my sleeve pulls up with the motion, revealing the still-chafed skin from when I’d been bound in the stagecoach.

  “I’m sorry ’bout that,” the Rose Kid says, his eyes lingering on my wrist.

  “Sorry enough to help me with my uncle?”

  He blows out a sigh. “It’s possible yer uncle ain’t gonna fold from a simple threat,” he says. “It could take more—​possibly a bullet—​and I ain’t the one to do it. I got a few killings left in me, only they’re already saved for Boss and his boys. That’s it. I gotta draw my line in the sand. You get that—​right, Vaughn? You understand?”

  He meets my gaze and holds it. There is sincerity in his eyes. I myself have preached about the necessity of change, insisted that he couldn’t run from his past forever, yet this answer infuriates, because I do understand. I see his argument, and even still, I’m left confused. The Rose Kid was supposed to have no morals. He was supposed to be easy to hate.

  I roll away, putting my back to him.

  The room is swallowed in darkness a moment later when he douses the lantern.

  There is no denying it: I am on my own. I cannot count on him or Kate or Jesse, so I will find my own gunslinger. Tomorrow at dawn, before anyone wakes, I’m leaving.

  Chapter Thirty

  * * *

  Charlotte

  I wind out of the mountains come early morning. The trail did not diverge, and for that I am grateful, because it was rather faded and difficult to follow to begin with and the weak light of early dawn certainly didn’t help. As I nudge the sorrel out of the tree cover, the land bucks and heaves, unfolding toward a valley. It is a clear day, with good visibility, and I can see the railway in the distance, like a line of charcoal drawn across the dust-colored earth. The P&AC runs north to south, and based on the position of the sun, I’m well aware of my location. This must be Chino Valley before me. I’ll find Prescott to the south.

  Even on the horse, it takes a little while to pick my way down the shrub- and cacti-strewn slope, and when I finally reach the tracks, I gaze back up the hill. The trail to the Coltons’ is just barely visible, a faint white scratch among the trees. It could be nothing but washout from rain or snowmelt. No one would expect a homestead here. There is nothing to be seen for miles.

  I pause to make a small marker of stones beside one of the rail ties. If all goes well in town,
I will not be returning to the Coltons’, but nothing has unfolded as I’ve imagined thus far, and it seems prudent to take precautions.

  A wind sweeps across the valley, tugging at my jacket, urging me on.

  I turn the sorrel north and heel her. As we fly, I picture the P&AC rails plans I’ve seen spread over Father’s desk. Seventy-three miles of standard gauge line, starting up north at the Seligman depot along the Atlantic Pacific and cutting south into Prescott. If I’ve determined my position correctly, it will not be a short ride to Banghart’s, but it remains too risky to search for a gunslinger in the capital.

  The tracks blur to my right.

  The valley stretches out ahead.

  And I fly like a bullet out of a barrel, following the rails straight and true.

  Banghart’s is smaller than I expected. The depot and hotel are easily the most prominent buildings, and the street is eerily quiet despite it being around noontime. The town—​if it can even be called that—​barely appears populated.

  I visit the small general store and approach the clerk. “I’m looking for a hired gun,” I say, cutting straight to the point. “Are there any men in town looking for work?”

  The clerk squints at me, then glances outside, past my sorrel at the hitching post and toward the building across the way.

  “You could try Parker at the hotel. He’s always looking to take on odd jobs. Tell him Norman sent you.”

  The hotel is not a grand establishment, but for the likes of the town, I’m rather impressed. The construction is well kept up and the carpet in the foyer is vibrant and clean, putting the one in the Wickenburg boarding house to shame.

  “I’m looking for Parker,” I announce to an elderly woman reading the paper behind the front desk.

  “’Bout?”

  “A job. Norman sent me.”

  She looks up from her reading, and her eyes crinkle at the corners as she finds the pistol belt slung at my hips. It’s cinched down to the tightest buckle hole and still sags a bit, but I’d borrowed it from the Coltons nonetheless. It was hanging with their coats—​perhaps the very belt Kate said she can no longer easily wear while pregnant—​and it seemed a more convenient way to carry Father’s Colt than the bedsheet sack I’d fashioned before leaving Prescott.