Vengeance Road (26 page)

There were something awful cold in his expression that day. I remember it being the first time I ever wondered if he regretted me being born a girl, if he'd rather've had a son.

“Show me,” I said, reaching for the rifle.

He passed it over, smiling. “That's my girl.”

When I finish cleaning, I make sure the weapons are fully loaded.

What I'm saying is, rifles are big and require room.

I double-check my Colt and make sure all the cartridge slots on my pistol belt are stocked. I'll need a quick draw tomorrow, an easily maneuvered barrel, plus a fair amount of luck to best a man like Waylan Rose.

You gotta be quicker than quick, ace high, the best.

I sleep, but not well. Every noise in the night is a threat. Every moment of dozing, restless.

Far too soon, the sun begins to rise.

I approach their camp
with my blood tingling. My fingers dance near my holster. My heart beats frantic.

Rose sees me coming first. His head snaps up from where he's sitting, a smile curling over his lips.

“Tompkins,” he says, my true name sounding like a whip. He stands slow and walks round their small fire till we ain't more than a hundred paces apart.

Behind him, the Rose Riders are on their feet, hands on their pistol grips. The man from the Agua Fria, the one wearing the fringed leather jacket, jerks Jesse upright by a rope. No, a noose. It's pulled tight beneath Jesse's chin.

Jesse barely looks at me, but it ain't outta shame or regret. He's drowning in despair, crippled by guilt. I know as sure as if he'd said it. He watched Will hang, and there ain't a spark of life left in his eyes.

“I can't believe it,” Fringed Jacket says. “She came anyway.”

“Course she did,” Rose says.

“Even without the journal.”

“I's got the journal,” I says.

“This journal?” Rose draws it from his jacket and my blood thins. He has it. He's had it all this while.

Fringed Jacket starts laughing, a blistering cackle. Behind him, the other Riders join in.

“I want Jesse,” I says stern, looking Rose dead in those ice­-blue eyes.

One side of his mouth lifts into a smirk. “If'n you want him to walk free, to not face the same fate as dear old Pa, then you come stand in his place.”

It don't make no sense. He's got what he wants: the journal and the way to the gold. What good will I do him? Fringed Jacket is staring at me with a wicked hunger, his tongue running over his front teeth. It's some sick game now. Maybe Rose's men want a woman. Maybe Rose just likes to finish off complete families when he starts killing. He didn't spare no one in that coach, after all. Not even the young child.

“I ain't a bargaining chip,” I says.

“Then the boy'll hang.”

“You string him up and you'll bring yerself a world of trouble.”

“That so?” Rose's eyes spark with amusement.

“I had an Apache with me earlier—my scout. She ain't here now 'cus she's tucked away safe.” I point up at the ridge where I saw the glint of light yesterday. “Tucked away with half her tribe and their arrows. I think they got a few long rifles between 'em, but I can't quite remember.”

“Yer bluffing,” Rose says.

“Seems we're playing poker all over again.”

Rose slides a hand 'long the opening of his coat, tucking it behind the grip of his six-shooter. A slight breeze snakes through the canyon, flirting with the coat's hem. It sways at his knees.

He ain't that far off. I could get him, right now. The breeze won't persuade my bullet much. He's a flower on a cactus, a bottle on a fence.

I lick my lips.

Rose wriggles his fingers.

No one moves.

No one breathes.

The air could get cut with a knife.

I picture it just like Jesse said—the draw and the aim and the shot and the bullet's path. I picture it till my pulse is pounding in my ears, till my heart sounds like a drum beating out a war song.

Then I go for my Colt.

Reach, draw, cock, aim—

But Rose does it all faster. He fires, and my Stetson goes flying off my head. I flinch, thinking I must be dead, shot straight through the skull. But, no, he missed. Only, Waylan Rose don't miss. He did that on purpose, took my hat clear off. For whatever reason—rose carving, torture, sick pleasure—he still wants me alive.

I straighten, ready to fire back, but Rose is already closing in. I aim and pull my trigger. No bullet flies. Before I can even curse my misfiring pistol, his knuckles sting 'cross my cheek. I crash to all fours, yelping. Rose kicks a handful of dust in my eyes, then backhands me. I lift my pistol blindly, eyes burning, only to feel his boot come crushing down on my wrist and a muzzle press into my forehead.

Everything hurts. My arm and wrist and eyes and cheek. I look up at him, eyes tearing.

“I knew it,” Rose snarls. “I knew there were no guns in them mountains.”

I catch Jesse outta the corner of my vision. There's an overwhelming sadness to his expression. Though he don't say nothing, I hear every word.

I'm so sorry. I never meant for this to happen. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. He's dead. We're doomed. Can you ever forgive me?

“There ain't no reason for this,” I says. “You got the journal. You got everything you want.”

Rose smiles. “But not you.”

“Who cares 'bout the girl?” Fringed Jacket says.

“Step down, Hank. You don't know what yer talking 'bout.”

“Just kill her.”

“Hank!”

“But we got the journal,” he shouts. “Like she says, we got everything we want. Goddamn it, the gold can be ours! We oughtta kill the lot of 'em, especially Tompkins! Hell, we shoulda killed Tompkins back when this all started!”

I see that glint up in the mountains again, and immediately following it a gunshot screams. Hank goes flying off his feet and hits the dirt, dead.

Another glint, another shot, and Rose's hat is swiped clear off his person. He ducks and skirts for the shelter of a boulder. I do the same, but the blasts keep coming, screaming from the range. I ain't got a clue who's up there, but they're a damn good shot, unnaturally good. Like a spirit. Like a ghost, shooting.

I peer round the boulder. The gang's scrambling for cover and firing blindly toward the ridge, but Jesse's bolt upright. He darts for the Riders' camp and roots through the saddlebags on their burros.

“Jesse!” I shout.

He finds his pistol belt, slings it on. Then he turns on the still-scattering Riders and unleashes his bullets like a demon.

“Jesse!” I shout again. “It ain't Lil in the mountains! It ain't her shooting.”

It takes a second, but then the words register. His head whips toward the ghost shooter's perch. There's another glint, and he dives aside. Dust flies up where he was just paused.

A shadow falls over him, a Rose Rider aiming to slaughter. Jesse swivels, raising his Remingtons, but not before the Rider slashes with a knife. A mangled cry leaves Jesse's lips and he crumples still. I curse my jammed Colt, but before I can so much as blink, a bullet from the ghost shooter tears through the Rider's back. He staggers and falls. I scramble for Jesse, but additional shots battle me back to the safety of my boulder.

Leaning 'gainst the rock, I pant, ears ringing. Rose gives an order to fall back. When I peer next, it's just him and one other Rider flying south down Needle Canyon on the burros. They shoot back at the ridge as they flee. The other Riders are dead, their bodies sprawled and lifeless in the canyon. Jesse ain't moving neither.

I crane my neck over the boulder, looking up toward the ghost shooter. When I squint 'gainst the sun, I can see that flash of light, that glinting barrel. It's moving south, following Rose. It thinks it got everyone in the camp.

Still, I wait a moment longer, then stand cautious. When no bullets come, I run to Jesse. The front of his shirt has been torn open by the knife, and there's blood. A lot of blood. He's breathing, but they're more like gasps, and he seems to look through me when I hover over him.

“Jesse?” I says. He grunts in response. “Can you stand? Walk?”

He manages to sit.

“Yer cheek's bleeding,” he says.

I touch the tender skin where Rose backhanded me, and my fingers come away wet.

“That don't matter. We gotta move.”

But he's fading already, his eyes going crossways and drifting. He ain't in a state to walk. Ain't in a state to do much of nothing. I don't got the needle or thread to see to his chest. He's gonna go unconscious soon, then bleed out.

I look the way the Riders fled. If I go after Rose now, Jesse won't make it.

I need help. I need . . .

If I go left, I will find a spring and then a marsh and then a trail that leads up the ridge to a broad, flat mesa. Our stronghold is there.

I strip down to my undershirt and tie my flannel round Jesse's chest in an attempt to slow his bleeding. Then I grab the reins of one of the Riders' deserted burros. It takes a bunch of cursing and shouting and me calling Jesse a weak coward before he summons enough grit to stand with my help. He's spent by the time I sling him over the donkey's back.

I lead the creature to my camp and grab Waltz's burro. Pulling both animals along, with Jesse still slumped over the Riders', I hike fast as I can for the Apache stronghold.

It's a long shot. And reckless. They'll prolly shoot us on sight.

But the way I see it, I don't got much choice.

I find the spring
running at barely a trickle, and the marsh a bit farther north. I spot the trail only 'cus I know to look for it.

The going is slow, and a stubborn rattlesnake sunning on some rocks makes me have to circle wide round him. The burros don't like it, and Jesse's already unconscious, my flannel wrapped round him damp with blood, but I ain't risking a bite. I can't do neither of us much good poisoned and dying.

When I beat my way back to the trail, we spend another hour or so climbing. My bare arms are hot and aching, not used to getting so much sun. The tops of my shoulders sting. I'm dripping sweat by the time we get to the mesa, and desperate for water. I shoulda refilled my canteen at that spring. What if I ain't even in the right place?

I glance round. The mesa stretches out, bare except for craggy shrubs and brambles. At its heel, the earth rises again—another climb to what might be a second mesa, or summit.

A trail that leads up the ridge to a broad, flat mesa. Our stronghold is there.

But there ain't no stronghold here. Maybe there once was and they moved on. Maybe Lil's already come here and left.

“Lil?” I shout. My voice echoes off the surrounding mountains. “Lil, where are you? I need you!”

I spot movement 'cross the mesa. Two men step into view, silent like deer. They got Lil's dark hair and stern features. Bows slung over their shoulders. Skin darkened by the sun.

One draws an arrow from his quiver.

I go bone still.

He sets the arrow 'gainst his bow, takes hold of the string.

“Please,” I says, showing my palms. “I'm looking for Lil. Liluye.” I wish I'd listened to her way back when, tried to learn her name proper. I ain't even sure I'm saying it right. “I rode with her earlier and I need her help. My friend—he's hurt.”

The Apache pause. Both sets of eyes drift to the burros, Jesse's slouched form. Then back to me.

Slow, steady, I unhook my pistol belt and let it fall to the earth. “Please. He'll die otherwise.”

“Liluye?” the one Apache says, releasing the tension on the bowstring. He pronounces it different from me, the
e
drawn out and long.

“Liluye,” I says back, proper this time.

They look at each other, at me, at Jesse again.

“Come,” one says finally. They sling their bows over their shoulders. I grab my pistol belt and follow.

“You ask us to help him?” Lil says. She looks different from when I last saw her. An animal-hide overshirt 'stead of her dress smock. Stone earrings hang from her ears, and a rope of beads lies round her neck. “
Him,
who has shown me nothing but hate?”

We stand on the outskirts of their camp. I followed the two Apache men another half hour before arriving, curving up the steep mountain till coming upon its broad peak. It's rougher than the mesa—uneven, rocky ground—but where it levels out a little, brush-built huts sit scattered, their entrances all facing east. Wikiups, I think I's heard 'em called. Another wall of red earth rises behind 'em to provide some shelter. Curious Apache wait there—women and young children—eyeing me as I speak with Lil.

“I know, Lil. I know he ain't been fair. But he'll die without aid, and I can't do nothing. Yer people are good with injuries and healing, ain't they?”