“If you’re our only hope for the future, the human race was finished a long time ago,” Jane says. Her tone is rife with malice. “And as for my conscience, well, if we’re all done for, what’s one more killing on my soul?”
“Jane!” I shout through the bars of the cell, over the pounding in my head. “You do not have to do this. We can take him with us. We can make him face justice. You and Mr. Redfern and I, we all know what he has done.”
“It’s too much of a risk, Kate, and it’s more than he deserves,” Jane says, turning slightly back toward me.
In the moment she takes her eyes off Gideon he picks up a glass container from where it sits upon the table and swings for her head. Jane deflects his attempted blow, and the container sails toward another that sits over an open flame. The glass smashes, the liquid inside splashes, and flame licks across the counter, shattering more glass as it goes. Jane was right. Some of the things on the counter were flammable.
All of them, to be exact.
Gideon shoves Jane toward the burning counter and runs back the way he came, out the door and toward the woods. Mr. Redfern jumps over the dead man on the ground to follow.
Jane waits only long enough to skim her pistol from its holster before she makes to give chase.
“Wait!” I shout, and she whips around to face me.
“Kate,” she says, as if just remembering I am here.
“Gideon is cornered, and Mr. Redfern is giving chase. Let him go, Jane. Let God deal with him and his sins. All of this violence has gotten you nowhere, just the same dead end over and over again. Please, let it go.” Already the smoke grows thick, and I cough as I pull myself out of the cage, barely able to move, and crawl on hands and knees across the floor toward the door. The stink of blood has set off a flurry of activity in the back room as the dead, heard but not seen, begin to react to the disaster.
A burning beam crashes to the ground a little ways off, sending out a hail of sparks. She glances at it and then at me, and my heart shrivels at the hard expression on her face.
“I can’t let him get away,” she says, before dashing out of the door. It is just that easy for her. She had a choice and she has made it.
Jane has left me behind to die.
Even the deadliest, savviest bounty hunter will eventually make a mistake. And that will be the last one he ever makes.
—Bounty Hunter Rufus Green, 1875
—JANE—
Chapter 47
In Which My Fight Ends
Gideon Carr is yellow, just as I’d always suspected. He takes off running down the path to the woods, yelling all the way. Redfern is hot on his heels, and I am right behind him when a bullet nicks the brim of my hat.
I duck behind the nearest building, the one that lists to the side, and take stock of the situation. Tom and his boys run toward me full tilt, without the common sense God gave a flea. Just running out in the open, begging to be shot.
I lean around a rotting timber and oblige Tom and his boys. Moving targets, but I’m a better shot than I used to be. I hit Tom in the chest, and each of his boys in the gut. They go down, screaming from the pain. Something about their anguish grabs at me, and I feel remorse like I ain’t felt in a long while. Those poor men can’t help that they were dumb enough to get wrapped up in Gideon Carr’s machinations, and I pity that they met their end out of nothing more than stupidity.
But then I remember Irish Tom killed ten men to get his nickname, and I push the remorse aside, hard. I doubt his compatriots were any kind of saints, not as itchy as their trigger fingers were. And I have three bullets left, all of them bearing Gideon’s name.
I run down the path toward where Redfern and Gideon dashed, but I don’t see a damn thing. My heart is pounding, and despair fills my mouth with ashes. Angry tears prick my eyes and I scream out my frustration.
Gideon Carr is once more in the wind.
The chance I finally had after a year to end the man has dissipated like smoke in the breeze. I have given up everything and let myself travel down a road of violence and pain, and for what? I have nothing, nothing to show for it.
That’s when it sinks in that I have left Katherine to her doom.
Greasy black smoke billows from the building that housed Gideon’s lab. I look down the path where Daniel and Gideon disappeared, and I hesitate a second before sprinting back toward the lab as fast as I can. Gideon Carr deserves to die, but Katherine doesn’t.
The door to the lab hangs off its hinges, and the smoke is thick. I try to run inside, and the flames are so high that I am pressed back by the heat. Only a madwoman would enter such a scene.
I holster my pistol, crouch down, and run inside anyway.
I cannot stand, because the air is thick with smoke, so I crawl along on hand and knees toward the cage. It’s an awkward and slow business with only one hand, but I make do. My eyes water and I cough, the smoke a damnable curse, but I cannot leave without Katherine.
“Kate!” I call, but there’s no answer.
I find the body of Gideon’s assistant and right next to him is Katherine, her dress soaked with his blood. I sob in relief when I see her. Her breathing is shallow. I have to get her out of the building before the whole damn thing comes down around us.
I sit on my rump and use my right arm to hitch her up into my lap. And then I dig my heels into the floor and push both of us back toward the door. The air is too smoky to stand and this is the best I can do. It’s hard work, and my middle burns from the awkward effort. The backs of my legs are not much better, but I just grit my teeth and keep going.
I ain’t got any other choice.
“Jane?” comes a shout. Redfern? I cannot tell with the roar of the flames.
“In here!” I manage to yell back, despite my coughing.
“You’re gonna die if you don’t get it together,” Jackson says, his ghost standing amongst the flames. He wears white head to toe, fairly gleaming against the smoky backdrop of the lab. I grunt and push-pull back another couple of feet.
“You ain’t real,” I say. Toward the back of the building timbers fall, and as they do the air leaves the room in a whoosh. I gasp. The fire is stealing all the breathable air, and I realize that I will be smothered long before the flames reach me.
“No, I ain’t,” Jackson says. “But if you don’t move faster, you’re gonna be just as dead as I am.”
“I loved you and you broke my heart again and again,” I say. “But I love Kate as well, and I ain’t letting her die.”
He grins at me and tips his hat. “Finally. Be happy, Jane McKeene. Whatever that looks like.”
And maybe it’s my imagination, maybe it’s the way the fire is burning, but the smoke around me clears enough so that I can see the door just a few feet away.
I grab the back of Katherine’s dress and stand as much as I can, pulling her toward the door. The air begins to cool and continues to clear, and then we are out in the lovely spring air.
I cough, my lungs aflame. Katherine is still unconscious, even though she breathes, her chest barely rising up and down. I keep pulling her until were are safely clear of the building, my eyes watering and coughing fitfully as I do. Once we are a good distance away, I collapse next to Katherine, spread eagle, and take deep, clean breaths.
“Jane.”
I sit up, and Gideon Carr looks down at me, his pistol pointed right at me. Defeat crushes me, and I lift my chin as I peer up at him.
“I liked you, you know,” I say, a coughing fit overtaking me for a moment before I can continue. “In Summerland. I thought for a moment I could let myself fall in love with you. That maybe, just maybe, you were different.”
Gideon’s grip relaxes. “I know.”
“Can’t you see that all you bring is pain and misery everywhere you go?”
He tilts his head. “Then I guess we are more alike than I ever supposed. I liked you, too, Jane.”
I nod and give myself a moment to mourn what might have been. “I su
ppose you’re going to kill me now.”
He nods. “You know I have no choice. Neither of us ever did. Good-bye, Jane McKeene.”
A shot rings out, loud and incredibly close, and I have a moment of weightlessness. But then Gideon’s eyes widen and he drops his revolver as a crimson rose blossoms on his chest. His lips part, but no sound comes out as he falls to his knees and then collapses to the ground.
“Well, I for one always thought he was a bore,” Katherine says, her voice little more than a whisper.
I turn. Katherine still lies on her back, but she holds my pistol, and her hand relaxes as she coughs, the gun falling to the ground while her body arches with the effort.
“You . . . killed him,” I say, stupidly.
Katherine gives me a look that screams, Well, that’s obvious.
“It was a good shot,” I say.
“Best at Miss Preston’s,” she rasps out.
And then, for no good reason I can think of, I begin to cry.
Katherine is in no good kind of way. Her skin is clammy and there’s a terrifying blue tint to her lips. I struggle to lift her to her feet, and she groans.
“We’ve got to find you a cot or something,” I say, just as she begins to heave. I hold her as best I can while she vomits, and Redfern chooses that moment to come running back to camp. He skids to a stop, looks at Gideon Carr’s body and then Katherine.
“He injected her,” he says.
“Yes,” I say. “Is there any place we can take her?” Behind me, Gideon’s lab continues to burn.
Redfern nods, takes Katherine’s other arm, and together we walk her toward the back of camp, away from the burning lab and toward the creek. There’s a small cabin complete with a dusty cot, and we set her down gingerly. She immediately passes out.
“You stay here, I’m going to go and make sure those boys you killed don’t return.”
I nod and do what I can to make Katherine comfortable. I gently untie her boots and loosen her dress a bit. I hover over her like a mother hen until Redfern returns and tells me, “Two days. If she hasn’t died by then, she’ll be fine. All you can do now is make her as comfortable as possible.”
So that’s what I do. While Redfern burns the dead I fetch water, an awkward task with only the one arm, but I make do. The lab collapses on itself, and the fire has burned so fast and so hot that it smolders, no longer a real threat, by the time I decide to try a bit of foraging. I find a henhouse out behind the decrepit building, and although the chickens are in a bit of a tizzy I find a few eggs for a nice broth. Killing one of the chickens would be better. But there will be time for that later.
On my way back I take a little detour, out into the woods, away from the camp proper. And there, where no one can see me, I fall to my knees and pray.
Now, let me be clear that I do not hold truck with a lot of that Bible nonsense, and I ain’t sure why any kind of benevolent God would let mankind carry on the way it’s wont to do. But Katherine believes, and so I pray for her because she cannot do it for herself.
And then I cry. I sob for Katherine and Gideon, and the lost chances in a world that doesn’t give a whole bunch of opportunities to girls like me. And once I have carried on a bit, I scrub my sleeve over my face and go back to living.
There’s a cook set in the cabin and a wood stove that’s cold, and by the time Redfern returns, sooty and smelling of smoke and the stink of cooking meat, I’ve got a pot of water boiling, an egg and salt added to give it something worthwhile. He takes one look at the stove, walks outside, and comes back with a handful of wild onions. I find my Bowie knife in my pile of weapons next to the door, not sure where they came from but I’m willing to bet Redfern bears some responsibility, and he slices the onions up with my knife and adds them to the pot while I check on Katherine. She’s sleeping, her breathing a little wheezy but that is only to be expected. Redfern and I sit on the floor next to the cot and pass the eggy soup back and forth, eating straight from the hot pan since there ain’t a dish to be found. It’s disgusting but filling, and I ain’t of a mind to complain.
No one would care if I did, anyway.
After the soup is gone, with the stove chasing the chill from the room, I turn to Redfern. “Why’d you give us over to Gideon like that?”
“Every time I got within a day of Gideon he’d spook and take off. So I figured it would be better to approach him as a friend than an adversary,” Redfern says. “I offered to bring you to him for a price.”
“Were you planning on killing me?”
“No,” Redfern says. “Everything I told you at the campsite was true. I just left out that you were my ticket to winning his trust. It turned out okay in the end, but if you’re upset, I understand.”
I shrug. I ain’t quite sure what I feel. I’m about to say I would’ve done the same, but that ain’t true. Not anymore. I look over at Katherine and think about how close I came to being someone like that and feel a little ill.
Of course, that could be the soup.
“Daniel, I’ve always appreciated you saving my neck back in Baltimore,” I say, “but I promise you, if Kate dies, I will put one of the two bullets I have left in your brain.”
He doesn’t move, doesn’t react in any kind of way. And then, after a while he gives me a slow nod. “That’s fair, Jane, that’s fair. I suppose I should get to hoping that Katherine doesn’t die.”
I give him a toothy grin, but he doesn’t return it.
And so our vigil begins.
California might be everything that folks say about it—hot, dusty, treacherous—but I quite find that I love it, from its murderous mountains to its desolate deserts. California is just one more place on the globe, and ain’t naught but what folks make of it.
—Harold Payne, 1879
—KATHERINE—
Chapter 48
Notes on a Happily Ever After
Despite feeling like the handmaiden to death I do not die.
I wake to Jane puttering at a stove, singing some bawdy tune under her breath, the scent of onions and meat filling the room. As I cough and sit up she spins around, and a sly smile blooms across her face.
“Daniel is going to be so relieved,” she says, filling a glass of water and bringing it over to me.
“Why is that?” I scrape out, once I have managed to drink a bit. I feel like a hollowed-out shell of a person, weak and listless. I lie on a cot in a room I do not recognize, but after a few long moments I realize I am in a cabin. Gideon Carr’s, who I shot over Jane’s shoulder while lying on my back.
Still the best shot at Miss Preston’s.
I am never going to forget that moment.
“Because I told him if you died I was going to kill him.”
I blink, Jane’s declaration dragging me away from the memory. “You cannot go around threatening murder whenever someone annoys you.” I begin coughing again, and she refills the water, offering me a fresh glass.
“I don’t see why not, it’s been working for me thus far,” she says, but there is mirth in her eyes. The shadowed look is not completely gone, but it has been beaten back enough that something of the old Jane shines through.
While I drink a delicious chicken broth, and marvel at the fact that Jane McKeene is a fabulous cook, she updates me on what has happened. It seems that I was indeed laid low by Gideon Carr’s serum, and that I have lost nigh on three days’ worth of time. We have been gone from the wagon train longer than planned, and if they have managed to complete their travel unmolested they should be in Haven by now.
“Where is Mr. Redfern?”
“He’s been scavenging around the camp for whatever might be useful. So far we found a wagon, no oxen or horses, though, and eight chickens. Well, seven now,” she says, looking meaningfully at the pot. “I found some of Gideon’s notebooks, although most of them burned in the fire. There’s some useful stuff in there, things like diagrams for that water-heating contraption we saw back in Summerland.” Her expression shutters
for a moment, turning back to whatever horror she discovered in her digging. “He was busy,” she says, finally, and I can only imagine the magnitude of the savagery he wrought.
“Well, then, I guess this chapter is finished. That means we should think about making our way to Haven.” I start to stand, and Jane pushes me back onto the cot.
“We, me and Redfern, have been doing just that for the past three days. You need to spend another day getting back to good. It’s at least three days’ walk over rough terrain, and you’ve had a shock.”
“I am fine,” I say, but Jane is correct. Just trying to stand has left me feeling shaky and woozy.
Jane grabs the bowl and refills it. “You’re lucky Redfern and I found bowls the other day, otherwise you’d have to eat out of the pot like a farmhand.” At my look of horror Jane laughs and hands me more soup.
I drink the salty broth, it really is the most delicious thing I have ever had, and Jane sits on the floor next to the cot, sprawled in a way that makes her seem larger than she is. When I have almost finished the soup she clears her throat.
“Kate, I want to thank you,” she says finally, and I raise an eyebrow in her direction.
“For nearly dying?”
“No,” she says, laughing. “For trying to save me from myself. I’ve never had a friend as loyal and as true-blue as you, and that means a lot to me.”
I grin at her, but before I can say anything she continues.
“Of course, you’re also vexing as hell, bossy, and a know-it-all to boot.”
“Jane! Language,” I say on impulse, and we look at each other and laugh until Mr. Redfern walks in, his expression full of questions.
“Miss Deveraux, I see you are awake. Welcome back to the world of the living.”
“Yes, Mr. Redfern, thank you. I suppose you must be relieved.”
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