“Last chance.”
“I don’t know, I don’t know. Please, I don’t know anything.”
His head cocks to the side, his eyes shining with amusement. “I remember you from the Jail Tree,” he says, and my blood goes cold. “Look who’s bound and jailed now. Look who’s begging for mercy.”
I flail wildly, searching for the rifle I know I won’t find, praying I might discover a rock in the dirt instead. My fingers graze something so hot, I recoil. A horseshoe, baking in the heat of the fire. He wrestles with my skirt, fingers scraping my thighs, and I grab the blistering steel. Swinging it up, I shove it into his face.
He screams, leaps back.
And then I’m on my feet, running, my burned palm throbbing in pain. Just beyond the stable, I find my only chance of a weapon—a pitchfork stuck in a bale of hay that’s set to go ablaze any moment.
The man is screaming threats at me, his footsteps pounding nearer.
I grab the pitchfork and spin. He doesn’t have time to stop. He was running too hard, intent on tackling me. I grip the handle with all my strength as he collides with the fork. My burned skin screaming in protest, I shove harder.
His eyes bulge, and his gaze drops to his chest, where his jacket is turning a deeper shade of red around each prong of the fork.
He grabs at the handle, tries to pull it out.
I stagger back, watching as he falls to his knees and then flops to the side, unmoving. I step nearer and nudge him with my boot. His body rocks from my prodding, but his eyes do not blink.
I stumble away. Fight the urge to be sick.
But I had to check, had to be sure. I couldn’t make the same mistake twice, not like with the first man.
The first man!
My gaze snaps up just in time to see the back of a gray jacket limping into the house.
I sprint for the rifle. It’s hot from sitting so near the fire, and the palm of my hand is blistering from the horseshoe. My thighs feel hot, too, in the places where the dead man’s fingers crawled at my underthings.
Winchester in hand, I run for the house.
A trail of blood leads the way onto the stoop and through the door. I crank the rifle’s lever, ejecting a shell. Step onto the stoop. Take aim.
The man is hobbling for Kate’s doorway, oblivious of me.
I will not miss this time. Even if the bullet goes straight through him, the bed is offset. Kate and the baby will be fine. The shot will find a home in the wall.
I take a deep breath.
Steady my aim.
And just before I can squeeze the trigger—a gunshot.
My head snaps up from the barrel. The Rose Rider is still standing there.
No.
But then a blot of blood appears on his back. It blossoms and blooms, spreading across the fabric of his jacket, and he topples forward, not moving once he hits the floorboards.
I race inside, burst into the bedroom.
Kate’s arm is still extended, one of her twin Colts smoking while William cries in the crook of her other arm.
Chapter Forty-Five
* * *
Reece
For what seems like ages, Jesse is airborne, floating like a feather. Then time slams back to speed and he’s tucking, rolling as he crashes to the ground, tumbling and flailing through the brush and thorns and hard earth, shrinking as the train races on.
Rose leaps down to the flatcar. Instinctively I throw my forearm up to deflect the blow, but the punch never comes. Instead, he grabs the front of my shirt.
I barely have the sense to holster my pistol before the world turns upside down.
There’s an instant of weightlessness, the roar of the train speeding off, and then impact. The air goes outta my lungs. I try to do what Jesse did and roll up, but the worst of the crash has already happened, and it’s easier to be limp. Stones cut at my shirt and slice into my skin. Dirt stings my eyes. Prickers and shrub claw and scrape, the book in my pocket jabbing at my flesh all the while.
Then, as quickly as it started, it stops.
I sag into the cold winter earth.
Up, Luther Rose tells me. Get up, you worthless excuse of a man!
I lift my head.
He’s struggling to his feet, drawing his gun. I follow his aim. Jesse. He’s running for Rebel, still tethered to a mesquite in the distance where we left her at the start of the trail. His bad shoulder hangs, the arm limp and dark with his blood.
Get up, Reece.
It’s so startling to hear my name—not Murphy, or son, or kid—that it takes me a second to realize it ain’t Rose’s voice in my head, but my own.
Get up, get up, get up.
I push onto my hands and knees, sit back on my heels.
Rose starts shooting. The bullets cut through cacti and shrub, each one biting closer to Jesse’s heels.
I draw my pistol. Take aim. Fire.
Luther Rose drops his weapon and falls to one knee, my bullet having found a home in his thigh.
“Get up!” I shout at him. “Get up, you worthless excuse of a man!”
Jesse’s on the horse now, riding into the woods. The shrub and trees swallow him. He’s safe.
Rose shoves to his feet, his weight planted firmly through the uninjured leg. “Murphy,” he says, “I know why you think I wronged you. And I’m sorry.”
“No, you ain’t.”
“I failed you. Lemme make it right.”
He’s giving me that look I’ve seen so many times, the one that always comes when he calls me son. He don’t even appear shocked that I’ve betrayed him. He just seems sad.
“You can’t right this,” I tell him. “It’s too far gone to save.”
A corner of his mouth quirks. “Don’t preach to me ’bout evils, son. Not when you done struck down yer own brothers.”
“They ain’t my family, and I ain’t never been yer son.”
He nods, like he believes he can understand my position. “Family’s the most powerful witchcraft, ain’t it? I been doing this all for my brother, and he ain’t even here no more. But I’ll let it go for you, Murphy. I’ll let that Jesse fella live if you come with me right now. We can leave, just the two of us. Go start again somewhere else, lead the quiet life we both always wanted.”
“You know nothing ’bout what I want!” I scream. I’m aiming my revolver at him now, the weapon quivering in my grasp. “I never wanted any of this. You forced it on me. You made me into the Rose Kid.”
“And so what?” he asks, throwing his palms at the heavens. “The Rose Kid dies today?”
“Maybe.”
I never intended to face off with him like this, but if this is how it’s gotta be, then I’m ready. Only one person’s gonna walk away from this section of rail.
He understands what I mean, and just like that, the world seems to narrow.
Chapter Forty-Six
* * *
Charlotte
I take Silver and ride.