Reece died alone.
I promised him I’d return, and then I was too late. It’s bad enough that he had to take his last breath with no one there to comfort him, but to be lugged off by the Law, too? To be made a spectacle of, even in death? He’ll end up a photo in the paper now, the subject of sensational headlines and stories that recount all his wretched misdeeds and wax lyrical about his demise. And he’ll share all that coverage with Luther Rose, the shadow he spent the last few years trying to escape.
I should have been there to retrieve his body. He deserved a quiet burial. At least that much—that little—he’d earned.
Not knowing what else to do, I go to Uncle Gerald’s house. Mother must have returned to Yuma at some point today, and Paul is either still at the mine or staying with a friend, because the house is silent. Too silent. I keep hearing my final words to Reece—I’ll return with help, just hold on till I get back—followed by his weak reply. All right, Charlotte Vaughn. If you say so.
It’s getting late. The light is all but lost, and the ride will not be easy. But I can’t stay here tonight—not alone—and I’ve traveled this way after sunset before.
Kate is up feeding the baby when I enter the clearing, and she rushes out to meet me. “Reece?” she asks from the front stoop.
I shake my head.
“I’m so sorry,” she says.
“For what? You didn’t kill him.”
“No, but it still hurts when we lose folk we care ’bout. For yer loss, I’m sorry.”
I didn’t care for him in the way she’s implying. This gaping hole in my chest cannot possibly be for that reason. It’s simply that I envisioned a different ending. This is the wrong outcome, and yet it’s reality. The powerlessness that overwhelms me is frighteningly vast and seemingly endless, so much so that even tears seem pointless. I wonder if perhaps it was this very feeling that made Reece’s eyes appear so hollow.
Kate says to come inside.
Kate says it’s cold and very late and I should sleep.
Kate says, “Charlotte, do you hear me, Charlotte? Please come in the house.”
“All right,” I mutter. But I stand there a moment longer, staring at the trail, imagining I can see all the way to that desolate stretch of rail where Reece Murphy faced his demons.
Maybe I cared for him after all. Maybe, with more time, I could have cared for him quite deeply. I guess I’ll never know.
The evening is long and restless.
The stable has more or less burned to the ground, so I secure Rebel to a shrub for the night, as Kate has done with Silver. I brought a second horse from Uncle’s, so I have the means of returning home tomorrow, and I tie her out for the night as well. Then I join the Coltons inside, where we’re all stuck in the second bedroom because no one’s had time to see to the soiled sheets in the first. The Coltons have the bed, and I have some blankets on the floor beside William’s cradle.
Each time the baby wakes—hollering and wailing—Kate feeds him, and I check on Jesse, changing his bandages as necessary. I get little sleep, but being busy distracts me from all the things I’d rather not think about. It’s the quiet moments between interruptions from William when the nightmares creep in . . .
Parker. Uncle Gerald. That Rose Rider in the red jacket. His fingers scraping my thighs. The throbbing of my burnt palm. How my shoulder still feels exposed.
And then Reece.
Reece speaking through the pain.
Reece telling me to leave.
Reece squeezing my hand before I left him there to die.
I cry for the first time, my back to the Coltons’ bed. They are not loud tears, nor many, but I thought unleashing them might lift a sense of burden from my shoulders. Instead, I just feel weaker.
Come morning, Jesse manages to surface from his ebbing state of oblivion and ask after Reece. Kate tells him the unfortunate news, and his mouth pulls into a conflicted grimace. But then she lifts William from the cradle and sets the baby in his arms, and any ache Jesse was feeling immediately vanishes. His face lights up. He holds the baby as if the child is made of glass. He stares while the baby gapes back, and Kate watches both of them, glowing. Everything about the image is warm and bright and promising.
Kate lifts the covers and slides into the bed. Jesse presses a kiss to her temple. From the doorway, I feel as if I am witnessing a private affair, a moment made only for the three of them. I have overstayed my welcome.
I am saddling the borrowed horse when Kate catches up to me.
“Say, Charlotte? Yer gonna be some bigtime journalist, right?”
“One can only hope.”
“If’n you ever write ’bout the gang or Reece, can you do us a favor and not never mention me or Jesse by name? And don’t bring up our fortune neither, or how Rose was after it. Gold makes monsters of men, and folk’ll stop at nothing to get their hands on it. Weave a few false yarns, if you can. Print the truth, but not every last drop. Fair?”
Just two weeks earlier I would have rejected this plea, turned my nose up at the entire argument. I would have rebutted that a journalist aims to report fact and that nothing is more sacred than the truth. In some instances I still believe this. But in others . . . Well, the truth people want and the truth they need to hear can be two different things.
“I’ll leave you out of any story,” I tell her. “You have my word.”
“We owe you, Charlotte. I mean that. We ain’t got much to offer, but if you ever need a favor in return, you just write.”
“Write even if you don’t need a favor!” Jesse calls. He’s appeared in the doorway, leaning on the jamb for support with William tucked into the crook of his uninjured arm. “Kate likes letters nearly as much as her books.”
“Will you return to Prescott?” I ask.
“I ain’t so fond of people,” Kate says, “but this clearing ain’t no place to raise a child. Too isolated. Isolation breeds ignorance. I reckon we’ll head home once Jesse’s healed up.”
“Then I’ll send any letters there.”
“Safe travels,” Kate says as I step into the saddle.
I give the Coltons a parting wave and ride from the clearing for the final time.
Heading for the stage stop around noon, I pass the Courier office. A boy on the street holds a stack of newspapers, shouting, “Luther Rose, killed by the Law! The infamous Rose Kid, dead!”