’Cus it sure changed me.
Somehow I got on one of the horses that day. I knew it were only matter of time before the train chugged into Prescott and the Law came crawling over the plains. Charlotte were taking too long, and fearing help wouldn’t return for me in time, I found the strength to get in the saddle. Problem was, I promptly blacked out. The horse traveled for home without my guidance, and by the time I came to and realized home for the steed was wherever the Rose Riders had been holed up in Chino Valley—not the Coltons’—we were practically to Banghart’s. Fading in and out of consciousness, I managed to get myself to the nearest claim, where a puzzled old man stepped from his home to greet me. I mighta been sick on his boots as he helped me inside.
He said it were the book in my pocket that saved me, and he placed Around the World in Eighty Days in my hands. I’d forgotten I’d been carrying it, which were ironic, really, seeing as the whole time on the train I were cursing it for jabbing my ribs. There were a hole clear through one cover and out the other, but ’parently the bullet slowed enough that it only lodged in my flesh, didn’t dig deep enough to hit nothing vital. The man kept saying I were lucky as he dug out the lead and stitched up my skin, and I kept saying that even with luck, it still hurt like hell.
Little more than a week after the shootout, he set a paper clipping on my bedside table. “The True Story of the Rose Kid,” the headline declared. I drafted a note to Charlotte immediately, but I weren’t able to mail it to the printing office till a few days later, after sneaking off in the night. Prolly the old man suspected my identity by then, and though it seemed like he bought Charlotte’s word in the paper, I weren’t ’bout to linger and find out otherwise. I left him a note with directions to one of the gang’s old hideouts, where he could find a bit of money for his troubles.
I headed to another hideout of Rose’s and stayed there till late March, when I were healed real strong. I even considered staying permanently, but it were too quiet and so damn lonely. I took just enough of the coin to get by, then wandered.
I thought ’bout visiting the Coltons, to thank ’em, but I’d brought ’em enough trouble already. I went west instead, thinking ’bout Charlotte. She was a tune I couldn’t get outta my head, but instead of turning to Yuma, I kept on till I hit the Colorado River.
Using a fake name, I went into La Paz and asked after my folks, only to learn my father were in a grave and my ma done eloped with a banker from California. That was all the closure I shoulda needed—Ma were safe, Pa were gone—but still I couldn’t sit tight, couldn’t settle down.
I kept wandering, kept running.
I read Charlotte’s articles, read every paper I could get my hands on, read Around the World in Eighty Days, too.
I bought a plain hat and dragged a blade over my skull.
First time I glanced in a mirror following that shaving were the first time I didn’t see my father staring back. Or any piece of Rose or the Kid or them Riders. It was like I were a new man.
I wrote her again that very moment, though I couldn’t pinpoint why ’till a few days later. It were simple, really. I wanted to see her again, had to. Not ’cus I expected nothing, but ’cus she were the only soul who knew me as both people—who met me as the Rose Kid and saw me teetering on death’s doorstep as Reece Murphy. Moving forward—truly living—only felt possible if I owned up to that.
By the time I made it to Yuma and stopped by the Inquirer office, she’d already resigned. A typesetter told me she were headed east, that the train were due to leave sometime that afternoon. I couldn’t bring myself to search out her home, go opening up old wounds if it weren’t something she wanted or were prepared for. So I went to the depot and waited.
I’ll leave it up to her.
I might be able to make do as an invisible man if I keep working at it. I been doing it these past eleven months, and it gets a little easier each day. The rest of the world can think I’m dead or nothing but a legend, but I gotta know if she sees me.
She watches the train chug into the depot.
The passenger car doors slide open. Folks start stepping on, and I hang back, letting her board with the others.
It’s familiar, this Southern Pacific railcar, full of dark memories and bad deeds. I ain’t that person no more, but ugly pasts make for permanent scars.
I board last.
She’s seated near the rear of the car, glancing out the window like she ain’t certain she’s made the right choice, like maybe she’s leaving something important behind.
I walk forward. Her gaze drifts up the aisle. It floats over me, through me, beyond . . . But then it snaps back. She catches something beneath the brim of my new hat—something she recognizes—and her eyes lock firm with mine.
She lurches upright, fingers pressed ’gainst her lips. Behind ’em, a smile blooms. Ever so slowly, she nods at the cushion beside her, as if to say Sit.
And I reply, “All right, Charlotte Vaughn. If you say so.”
Author’s Note
* * *
The events of Retribution Rails unfold ten years after the events of its companion novel, Vengeance Road, and in that single decade, the landscape of Arizona changed greatly, with trains crisscrossing much of the Territory, connecting towns and altering the way of life.