Rebecca bit her lip and dashed her trembling fingers over her wet cheeks. Somehow a ruffian had slipped past the guards who’d been riding in a circle around camp since early yesterday. Even more horrible, all the men had been so frantic to save the child that the killer had slipped away before anyone thought to go look for him.
Now here they were…gathered at a grave in this endless expanse of nothingness, their faces haggard, their eyes rimmed with red, either from exhaustion, or from the endless grit blowing around, or from tears they’d secretly shed. Broken promises and broken hearts. A bright-eyed, full-of-life boy struck down before he’d even had a chance to experience life. And it seemed to Rebecca that the nightmare would never end.
She wished she could speak to Race Spencer, perhaps console him as he had her. Inside, where no one could see, she ached to tell him how very, very sorry she was. But most of all, she wished she could assure him he wasn’t to blame for any of this.
It was her fault. All her fault. Only hers. Her mind stuttered over the pain. And the guilt. If only Race would shout at her. Or treat her with the scorn she deserved.
It amazed her that none of these men had pointed a finger at her yet. Were they all blind? They still watched over her, still treated her courteously. Even Race Spencer, who looked ravaged and hollowed out, whose eyes had become burning orbs of pain in his dark face, still guarded her safety, assigning another man to stay near her if he couldn’t remain with her himself.
All of them…poor, ignorant fools that they were…guarding and protecting the evil that had come among them.
Since Tag’s death, Rebecca had been able to think of little else. Last night after everything had quieted down, she’d sat by the fire for hours, agonizing over what she should do.
Death was all around her. The air itself seemed thick with it. So thick she could scarcely breathe. On her skin. Clinging to her hair. The taste of it on the back of her tongue. Death. Nearly a hundred and fifty steers, dead. Seventeen human beings, counting the ruffians, dead. Possibly more. She had no idea how many other ruffians might have died in the arroyo. Then there was poor old Blue, who might die yet.
Death…all around her. Hovering, stalking, like a ravening beast.
At some point during the night, the truth had finally come to her. It was so clear to her now—so horribly clear. This wasn’t going to stop. Death could not be cheated, and it had come here to collect its due.
She could scarcely believe that none of these men had figured it out. Rebecca Morgan, the sniveling coward. She had fled and hidden in the brush, covering her ears, closing her eyes, ignoring the screams of everyone she loved, her one concern to save herself. She should have died in the arroyo with everyone else. If not for her unforgivable cowardice, she would have died with everyone else. It was obvious. Wasn’t it? Why would one person out of so many be spared? One lone survivor? She had lived, and everyone else had died.
She was marked. That was the truth of it. She had escaped death, slipped out of its clutches. And now it was following her. A skeletal specter like she’d seen in picture books Elder Ames had shown her once, trying to claim its own, determined to claim its own. And she was still hiding, managing to slip from its clutches, letting others be sacrificed in her place. This wouldn’t stop until she surrendered. It was as simple and terrifying as that, the most horrible part being that she was such a coward, she couldn’t bring herself to do it.
Every time the shovel rasped as it was plunged into the dirt, she felt as if it cut through her chest. The blade driving in. The fall of dirt. Then the rasp again. The sounds whispered in her mind. Rebecca. Then the fall of dirt. Rebecca. And another fall of dirt. She stared down into the grave, her vision blurred with tears, glad she couldn’t see clearly, for to see was to feel shame that ran so deep she could scarcely bear it.
She wanted to throw herself on the ground and beg that boy for his forgiveness.
Vaguely aware of sudden movement around her, Rebecca blinked and tried to focus. The grave had been filled in and the men were gathering closer. She struggled to concentrate on what they were saying and realized they were attempting to pray in their clumsy, illiterate way. The echo of their voices penetrated the blur of unreality, and an hysterical urge to laugh struck her. They knew not a single prayer in its entirety.
“Our Father who art in heaven.” That voice trailed away. Another chimed in with, “Give us our daily bread.” Someone else said, “Jesus, McNaught, ask for more’n just bread. Beans, maybe.”
Rebecca blinked and rubbed her eyes. Blinked again. As the figures around her came into focus, she gaped at them. Beans? A joke, surely. Only none of them was smiling. Drawn faces, haunted eyes. All of them were staring helplessly at the mound of dirt.
She looked at Race Spencer, who seemed unaware of what was being said around him. He stood at the opposite side of the grave, his legs braced wide apart, and for the first time since she’d known him, his arms hung limply at his sides, his hands nowhere near his guns.
The wind sucked his black shirt to his torso and whipped his midnight hair across his face, the strands catching on his lips, drifting into his eyes. He stared down at the grave almost sightlessly, a man alone, cast against a backdrop of parched green and sun-baked yellow, his grief stark in his expression.
“My ma used to say the Hell Mary,” Johnny offered. “I can recollect some of it.”
Mr. Grigsley sniffed. “That’s a good’un.”
The only man present, aside from Race, who had removed his hat, Johnny stepped up to the foot of the grave, his mouth quivering and tears filling his eyes. He made what Rebecca surmised was supposed to be a sign of the cross, his fingertips touching his forehead, bypassing his shoulders, and dropping directly to his chest. Then he stood, turning his hat in his hands, his throat muscles convulsing. “Hell Mary,” he said in a taut voice. “Filled with grace and better than all other women. And blessed is your baby, Jesus. Pray for us sinners. Amen.”
“That’s a good’un,” Mr. Grigsley said again. One eye still swollen shut, his face a mass of purple and blue bruises above his gray beard, he brushed a tear from his battered cheek. “I don’t recollect no prayers, and I feel right bad that I don’t, Lord, ’cause this here boy was a good’un and oughta be sent off right.” He sniffed. “But I reckon you know that. About how good he was, and all. So I don’t need to be tellin’ you. I’d just ask that you treat him real fine up there, and don’t let no highfalutin folks be holdin’ the poor sendoff ag’in him. It ain’t his fault he rubbed elbows with such dumb son’bucks. Amen.”
Corey pushed his white-blond hair from his eyes. “I know a supper blessing. I could take out the food part.”
Rebecca’s eyes filled with tears again, only this time not from dirt. She had resolutely refused to pray these last two days. Just the thought of trying made her feel nauseated. If there was a God, He had betrayed her and everyone she loved. Her parents had entrusted their lives to Him, had counted on Him to protect them. Every time she remembered how her father had held his Bible up before him as if it were a shield, she burned with anger.
But that was her. These men wanted to pray, needed to pray. It was important to them to say the right words over this boy whom they had loved. If she could give them that, it seemed the least she could do, even if she had to force out every word.
“Would you like me to say the Lord’s Prayer?” she offered.
Johnny turned aching blue eyes on her. After staring at her for several seconds, he said, “Would you do that for us, ma’am? We’d all be right appreciative.”
Rebecca folded her hands, her gaze fixed on the mound of dirt. “Let us pray.”
She flicked a glance at her companions. Everyone except Race Spencer, who seemed off in a world of his own, was staring at her. Not a bowed head in the bunch. Rebecca nearly commenced, convinced the outward postures weren’t really important. But then it occurred to her that what these poor souls craved was some ceremony.
She felt sure
her legs would refuse to bend. But she would kneel. For them. What she felt in her heart didn’t matter. All that counted were the words, the pretense.
She dropped clumsily to her knees. Johnny, who stood closest to her right, made a grab for her, as if he thought she were falling. At the last second, he jerked his hand back and muttered, “Oh, yeah.”
Coughs. Throat clearing. Boots shuffling. Joints cracking. She scanned the group. Everyone but Race Spencer had gone to his knees.
“Don’t pay no mind to the boss,” Mr. Grigsley told her in a half-whisper. “He’s doin’ his own prayin’.”
For a moment, Rebecca gazed at the man at the opposite side of the grave, searching his expression. All she could see was pain—the kind that went too deep for prayers or tears. She wondered if he was going to be all right.
She gulped, then drew her gaze back to her audience. “Your hats, gentlemen.”
Blank gazes. The insides of her cheeks were stuck to her teeth.
“You need to remove your hats.” Bewilderment. “As a sign of respect,” she expounded. “Much as you might remove your hat in the presence of a lady.” Judging by the looks they gave her, none of them had ever done that, either. “It’s customary,” she assured them.
Mr. Grigsley jerked his hat off and shot Johnny a glare. “How come you didn’t remind me! I don’t know how we coulda forgot that part.”
Hats came off. Grimy fingers combed through sweat-dampened hair, stirring up cowlicks of every conceivable color. Rebecca made a show of bowing her head. “Shall we pray?”
“Yes’m,” chorused several deep voices.
Rebecca stared down at her folded hands. Clenched her fingers, then relaxed them. “Holy Father, we gather here this morning to say our final farewells to Tag—” She glanced up.
“Jones,” Mr. Grigsley inserted.
“To say our final farewells to Tag Jones,” Rebecca continued, “a young boy who was friend to most of us, a stranger to me, but whose passing greatly grieves us all.” A lump rose in her throat. She had to gulp it down to go on. “To lose a loved one is never easy, Lord.”
“It sure as hell ain’t,” someone muttered in a choked voice.
She could do this. Rebecca swallowed then grabbed for breath. “It’s especially difficult when it’s someone so young.”
Mr. Grigsley said, “I’d switch places with him in a blink. Ain’t fair. It just ain’t fair.”
It wasn’t fair, Rebecca thought. Why this boy, when it should have been her?
“As sometimes happens,” she went on shakily, “Tag Jones was struck down by a violent hand, an innocent who fell prey to the vagaries of Fate. Human as we are and of limited”—she skimmed the down-turned faces all around her—“and of limited knowledge, it is so very difficult to accept that which we cannot understand and to find peace with that beyond our comprehension. So it is, heavenly Father, that we come to you as little children ourselves to commend the soul of this child, Tag Jones, into your gentle and loving hands.
“In keeping with the teachings of your son, Jesus Christ, our prayer to you in behalf of our dearly departed, Tag Jones, shall be expressed with the words He taught us.” Rebecca then began to recite the words of the Lord’s Prayer. When she came to, “Give us this day, our daily bread,” she looked up to find expectant gazes fixed on her. For the sake of easing hearts, she ad-libbed, tacking on, “plenty of beans, fresh lean meat, and all manner of other good things to eat.”
“He truly loved his peppermint sticks,” Corey informed her helpfully.
“And an unending supply of peppermint sticks,” she added before finishing the prayer. “Amen.”
Mr. McNaught grasped Rebecca’s arm to assist her to her feet. She rubbed her palms on her skirt.
“That was right fine,” Mr. Grigsley said. “Ain’t nobody ever gonna get a nicer sendoff than that.”
Rebecca couldn’t speak. It was as if the prayer had sucked her empty. She touched McNaught’s sleeve to thank him for his gentlemanly assistance, then turned and struck off for camp, too tormented to care that she would be alone and defenseless once she got there. Indeed, she wished the ruffians would be there, that all of this could simply end, saving her the agony of having to bring an end to it herself.
“I’ve heard of some lowdown, rotten things,” Pete cried as he approached the grave. “But this beats all!”
Jerked from his misery by the fury in Pete’s voice, Race looked up to see who the foreman was angry with. He was surprised to find that Pete’s glinting, pale blue eyes were fixed, not on any of the other men, but directly on him. “For God’s sake, Pete, whatever’s eatin’ you, now ain’t the time. I’m not finished here.”
Pete jabbed a finger in Race’s direction, fairly sputtering, he was so mad. “It ain’t like she meant to bring this to our door, goddamn it! I know it ain’t easy on you, losin’ the boy like this, and I can see you feelin’ sorta grizzly bearish. But, by God, sendin’ her off like that is just plain lowdown.”
“Sendin’ her off?”
Pete doubled his hand into a fist. Race half expected the wiry little man to come over the grave after him. “They’ll kill her, sure as I breathe, you stupid son of a bitch!”
“Rebecca, you mean?”
Pete jammed his hands on his hips. “Who’n hell you think? Of course, Rebecca! I tried to talk sense to her. But she ain’t hearin’ a word of it. Got her orders from the head man, she said, and off she went! If you don’t step fancy, we’ll be diggin’ another grave this day, mark my words! And her blood’ll be on your hands!”
Race’s stomach dropped. “Went?” he said hoarsely. He cast a frightened glance toward camp. “Went where?”
“God knows! She’s just goin’. I don’t think she knows where herself. Not talkin’ good sense! But who can blame her. Losin’ everybody like that, and then bein’ sent off by the only folks she’s got left. I wouldn’t be thinkin’ clear, either.”
Race took off at a run, Pete trailing behind him and yelling every step of the way. “It’s a damned good thing I followed her when she left the grave.” Huff, huff. “Knowed as soon as I got to camp that her deck was all shuffled. Talkin’ loco.” Huff, huff. “Tearin’ hell outta the chuck wagon. Emptied the salt bag and writ somethin’ on it with a burnt stick! Me tryin’ to talk sense to her the whole time.” Pant, pant. “I just plain can’t believe you sent her off thataway!”
Race staggered to a stop when he reached the center of camp, his gaze darting in all directions. “I didn’t send her off!”
Pete planted his hands on his knees and struggled to catch his breath. “You sure as shit must’ve! Got her sendoff from the head man, she said.”
“That’s not true. She actually said that?”
“Well, not in them exact words. Goin’ on about that money too. Yours to do with whichever way you want, she said. Writ it all down for ya on the salt sack.”
“Which way?” Race demanded. “Which direction did she go, Pete?”
Pete pointed, and Race took off running again.
It took Race twenty minutes to find her, and when he finally did, he wasn’t sure whether he wanted to hug the breath out of her or tan her backside. Of all the times for her to get a maggot in her brain and go wandering off. Tag not cold in his grave. Killers possibly behind every bush.
She sat at the top of a slope, the brisk morning wind whipping the hem of her skirt and tossing the curls that had escaped her braid. As Race approached her from behind, he said, “What in hell do you think you’re doin’!”
He expected her to jump out of her skin, which would have at least given him some sense of satisfaction. Instead she glanced calmly over her shoulder, scanned him with a flick of her blue eyes, and resumed staring out over the grasslands. “Oh, hello, Mr. Spencer.”
She sounded almost bored. Pain exploded behind his eyes. His heart had crawled damned near up to his mouth, and she said, “Hello,” as if she were on the brink of yawning. He no longer had any doubt. He wanted to
blister her fanny. Hand to bare ass, blister her until she couldn’t sit down for a month.
Swallowing back curses, he bore down on her. “What in the world do you think you’re doin’?” he yelled, grabbing hold of her arm. “If there’s one thing I don’t need it’s to be standin’ over another grave today, feelin’ like my guts is bein’ tore out.”
He jerked her to her feet, intending to jar her teeth. He was a bit more successful in the attempt than he set out to be. She didn’t weigh much and parted company with the ground more easily than he expected, slamming against his chest, bouncing off, and staggering backward. He caught her by the shoulders to keep her from sprawling, his anger losing its steam. As soon as he determined that he hadn’t hurt her, he started rebuilding pressure.
“You crazy little fool! You gotta death wish, or somethin’? Them plug-uglies would kill you without turnin’ a hair!”
She gazed up at him with a calm, completely unruffled expression that sent a chill down his spine. “I hope they do it quickly. Do you suppose there’s any chance of that?”
The icy feeling that danced up his spine radiated outward as if he’d been caught squarely in the back with five gallons of cold water, dousing his anger, blanking his mind for an instant. He stood there, hands clamped on her limp arms, staring down at her white face in stunned disbelief. In that moment, Race couldn’t remember the last time he’d really looked at her and registered what he saw. At some point yesterday, he guessed. Last night, the light hadn’t been that good for the most part, and later in the wagon, he’d been preoccupied with getting her settled.
What he saw now scared the ever-loving hell right out of him. Her small face was so white that a corpse would have had better color. The dark smudges he’d noticed yesterday under her eyes had turned bluish-gray. With the bruise along her cheek from where the ruffian had struck her, she looked as if she’d been beaten.
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