By midday there’s a wind picking up, but it ain’t doing nothing to battle the heat. We cross the Hassayampa beds at high noon, the sun beating down on us angry. The plains here are open and endless, sloping low only where the dry creek bed cuts south. Somewhere under all that dust, the river carves the same course. Due east, a small mountain range appears on the horizon, dark purple in the hazy heat.
Jesse’s on edge, which ain’t doing much but making Rebel anxious and Silver flighty by default. I urge her ahead, not wanting to stay too close. I don’t know what’s got Jesse wound so tight. Way to the north there’s a small cropping of dust—a stagecoach or freighting wagon—but their dust’s getting smaller, so they ain’t heading our way. Otherwise, there ain’t a soul to be seen and the land’s flat enough that we’d be able to spot someone coming.
Course, there’s nowhere to hide if we sensed trouble.
Maybe that’s what’s got him riled.
Behind us, clouds are starting to pocket the sky. A storm, maybe. It would explain the strengthening winds, though I’m still stumped by the odds. June don’t bring much rain in Prescott, and if we don’t get much there, I doubt these desert plains do neither.
We carry on, Jesse scouting through his binoculars every few minutes. A few hours later the mountain range’s not looking so tiny as it had. But it ain’t what’s caught my focus.
There’s a dark lump not more than a mile ahead. At first I figure it’s a boulder sitting proud amid the flat earth, but it’s smoking. Like campfire coals.
“You see that?” Jesse says, lowering the binoculars.
Me and Will nod.
We kick the horses into a faster clip and close in on the strange shape. Soon, it ain’t much of a mystery.
The body of the carriage is black and smoking, its door facing the heavens as the charred wheels spin in the breeze. The scent of burnt leather mingles with wood; thorough braces running ’cross the exposed belly of the coach are cracked and split, the heavy leather curtains used to keep out dust in a similar condition. A set of reins hangs limp from the driver box, but there ain’t a horse in sight.
Meaning someone cut ’em free. Someone walked away.
The wind shifts and a new scent reaches me. Flesh. Singed hair. As sure as I am that someone walked away from this inferno, I’m sure another soul—or more—didn’t.
And that’s when I spot the body, sprawled out round the back of the carriage: a man round Pa’s age, shot clear through the skull. The driver, I’d wager, only he ain’t burned like I expect. That fate musta been reserved for the unlucky bastards inside the carriage. A knife’s been taken to the driver’s forehead, carving out a shallow coiling shape, like an onion bloom. Or flower petals.
There ain’t even a rose burned into these saddles. Ain’t that their mark?
I know who did this. Like the roses on their saddles, like the very same carving they left on Pa—it’s their symbol.
This is the Rose Riders’ work.
I draw rein and swing off Silver. The coach dumped its luggage when it tipped, and trunks lay scattered near the roof, clothing, books, and other worldly possessions spilling free. One of the smaller trunks is empty, and I’d bet it were filled with money before the Riders got their hands on it. A hunt for gold, the trek that comes with it . . . that ain’t cheap. I doubt Rose went out of his way to rob this coach, but if’n he crossed it while traveling, he likely regarded it a lucky find.
The heat coming off the still-smoking carriage becomes too much. I stagger away. My eyes catch something pale and small among the disheveled clothes. A child’s dress. Then I spot a rag doll.
I gag on the singed hair filling my nostrils, the smell of burned flesh.
This weren’t a freighter running goods, or a Pinkerton moving money. This was a family. I hold my breath and move closer, cringing ’gainst the heat. The drawn leather curtains are parched from the fire, ’bout ready to crack, so I use the barrel of my Colt to punch through the weak material.
There ain’t nothing but charred corpses inside the coach, so black and flame eaten, they look more skeleton than flesh. One of ’em’s small. No bigger than Jake.
I stumble away and vomit on the dust-caked earth.
“We gotta bury the driver,” I says. I take another swig from my canteen and spit the bile from my mouth.
“It’ll take all day to dig a grave here.” Will stomps his heel into the desert.
“We gotta do something.”
Jesse just keeps squinting at the carnage, like if he stares hard enough, the coach might right itself and the people walk out.
“This is what they do!” I says, practically screeching. “The Rose Riders don’t care for nothing but money and riches. They burned a family alive, prolly right after shooting the driver.” I point at the man spread-eagled near the luggage. “And I reckon they’re wretched enough to have carved that symbol in his forehead long before he took his last breath. They did the same to my pa.”
Jesse’s face snaps toward mine. His lips are pressed in a thin line, but he don’t say nothing.
Growling, I stride to the driver. Maybe I can’t bury the man, but he deserves more than being food for vultures. I can add him to the still-smoldering carriage, set him free by flame.
When I grab the fella by his wrists and tug, his weight suddenly gets lighter. I glance up. Jesse’s got the man by the ankles. He don’t say nothing as we move the driver. Not even after he’s kicked in the carriage door or helped haul the body inside and light it by match.
As the flames begin to devour the poor soul, Jesse looks east. “We been still too long,” he says.
Like the rage brewing in my core, the wind roars as we ride out. The sky is angry with clouds. Nobody talks. We don’t look back. We keep our gaze set on the horizon and the mountain range ahead.
The silence gives my mind too much time to wander. My thoughts keep drifting back to the coach, even as we put distance between us and it. I bet there weren’t even much money to be earned from that robbery. It was prolly an honest, hardworking family, and still it hadn’t mattered to the Rose Riders. Same as weary a homesteader like Pa hadn’t mattered neither. I reckon nothing’s too low for Waylan Rose.
Another strong wind whips, nearly lifting my Stetson off. I turn my head to avoid losing it, and catch something back the way we came that makes my stomach drop.
“Jesse?”
To the west, and crawling over the plains like it’s chasing us, is dust. And not a plume caused by riders or coaches, but a whole rotten wall. It stretches wider than it is tall—nearly as wide as the mountains ahead—and it’s moving unnaturally fast.
“Stay on my tail!” Jesse shouts, kicking Rebel into a gallop.