Vengeance Road (25 page)

“Say, Lil . . .”

“Liluye,” she corrects.

“Who told you that tale 'bout the coyote?”

“I do not remember. It is old. When I think of my childhood, I have always known it.” She pauses briefly. “It was Tarak's favorite.”

“Did you like him?”

She nods. “He made me angry. All those riddles. I hated him.”

“But you just said—”

“It is funny how the things we hate are the things we miss most when they are gone.” She holds her chin higher and looks into the sun. “He'd have made a good husband. He was stubborn, but fair. And honest.”

She gives me a sideways glance at that last word. How many exchanges today is she gonna try to wrangle into a jab 'bout Jesse? I know she don't like him. It ain't like she needs to keep reminding me. Hell, I ain't too fond of him neither at the moment.

“Weren't you furious when he were killed?” I says, trying to take the focus offa me. “Didn't you want revenge?”

“Tarak died a warrior's death. If Ussen meant for him to live, it would have been so, but instead he is in the Happy Place. There is nothing to be done. Revenge will not bring him back, and my Spirit Guide agrees.”

I reckon the Happy Place is heaven and a Spirit Guide is a guardian of some sort, but I don't ask, 'cus something's caught my attention. We's come upon the mouth of a small valley, and a dead ironwood tree looms just ahead, knobby and twisted and bare. Prickly pear and saguaro cactuses crop up in abundance beyond it, and given the amount of wild shrubs and small trees, I reckon there's water nearby. But I can't tear my eyes away from that ironwood, 'cus there's something hanging from it. Swinging slightly. Its shape so familiar.

I drop the burro's reins and force my legs into a run. When I come upon the tree, I sink to my knees. Bile claws at my throat.

Hanging from a noose, eyes wide like he's seen the devil, is Will.

I pull my knife
from my boot and cut him down.

He crumples like Pa did. Scratches mark Will's neck, gouges made by his own nails as he clawed at the rope beneath his chin. The rose emblem is carved shallow in his forehead. Enough blood trails into his eyes and down his cheeks for me to know it were done while he were still breathing.

I turn away and lose what little there is in my stomach.

That bastard. That goddamn heartless bastard.

Rose shouldn't even be here. He were supposed to be coming from the opposite direction, taking the Peralta Trail. Unless he followed the Salt just like us. Unless those hooves Waltz claimed to hear during the night belonged to the gang riding by, and them screams I been hearing in the canyons were actually the Coltons falling into Rose's hands, Jesse yelling himself hoarse as they strung up Will.

I see the note next, pinned to the ironwood with a meaty knife. I yank it free. It's a page torn from a Bible. With trembling hands, I read the words written atop a psalm.

Stay right at the fork. Bring the journal or the other dies too. You have till dawn.

The only signature is a hastily sketched rose.

I take a step backwards, the world seeming to tilt on its side.

He's here and he's got Jesse. And the journal . . . He wants the journal, which means the boys musta had time to stash it or throw it away. Before they were ambushed and taken hostage, the Coltons got rid of it. But Rose still thinks it's in my care and now Jesse's gonna hang if I don't turn it over. They're gonna string him up. Just like Will, like Pa.

I turn away and heave again, only my stomach's good and empty now. I stay buckled over, an arm clutched to my middle as I cough and hack.

“Water.”

I glance up and see Lil standing there, my canteen held in offering. I take it and down a few gulps. My throat is raw and ragged. Dust cakes my lips.

“Lil, you gotta help me.”

“Liluye,” she corrects.

“He's got Jesse and he's gonna kill him.”

“I do not care about Jesse. See there?” She points ahead to the far end of the valley, where it goes slender, then divides into two new canyon passes. “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'm leaving.”

“No, please, Lil.
Please.
I got till dawn. Maybe yer people can help. Maybe we can do something together.”

“My people do not help White Eyes looking to rape Mother Earth,” she snaps, eyes flashing. It's the first thing she's ever said with ferocity, and it chills my blood.

“Please, Lil. I'm begging here.”

“He stole from you.”

“To help his family, to try to gain a better life for Will and his sister and her son.” I see it now, know exactly why Jesse's done what he did. “You gotta understand. Gold don't mean nothing to yer people, I get that, but it means a heck of a lot in our world. It means a future and a bit of security and not having to look over yer shoulder every other minute. He stole the journal to try to do good more than he stole it to hurt me.”

“You
do
like him,” she says, mounting her pony and looking down on me like I'm a child. “You are lost, Kate, and I cannot help you.”

She rides past the ironwood and into the valley.

“Lil!” I shout at her back. “Goddamn it, don't leave me here!”

But she keeps on riding, beyond shrubs and between cactuses, till she stays left at the fork and disappears from view.

I stare at the burro and Will and the note in my hands.

Then, 'cus I don't know what else to do, I cry.

I give myself till the count of ten and stop. Wipe my cheeks dry. Push to my feet.

I unfasten Will's pistol belt, wrestle it off his limp frame, and secure it to the burro. Then I check his pockets and find 'em empty 'cept for a packet of dip. The kerchief at his neck is damp with blood, the pale paisley pattern stained dark. I ain't sure why, but I save it, 'long with the dip.

The ground is rock hard, and I don't got the tools for digging, so I start a fire. Close Will's eyes. Roll him into the flames.

I read aloud what I can of the psalm beneath Rose's handwriting.

“‘Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly. . . . He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth its fruit in season.'”

I toss the paper into the fire and swallow hard. “I liked you, Will,” I says. “I'm sorry our last few exchanges were unpleasant. You deserved better than this.”

I don't stay to watch him burn. I can't bear it.

I walk into the valley, the scent of singed hair filling my nostrils.

Before the trail splits again, I work my way up the valley's modest hillside. Dusk is closing in, shadows spilling over the ridges.

Needle Canyon forks at the far end of the valley, rocky earth rising up between the two new paths. The canyon to the left—the way Lil went—looks narrow and vexed. Angry spires and spitting blades and roughly rounded tombstones climb from its ridge. They reach for the sky like the jagged edge of a knife, but one of those teeth, farther to the south . . . it's unmistakably animal. The two perky ears, the crest of a neck, the slope of a muzzle. It's a horse's head. Come dawn, the sun'll rise and shine right over that rock steed's neck, lighting up where the mine's at, and I don't even care.

I can't.

Not with Will's swinging body burned into my eyes, with those words Rose scrawled on that Bible page. Maybe for Lil, life really is that black and white. Maybe Jesse's lying and stealing are unforgivable to her. But I ain't letting him boil.

I look to the right fork, where Needle Canyon continues south. In the fading daylight, I catch something flickering 'long the ridge. It glints like a shiny rock, or light playing off the barrel of a weapon. Could be a Rose Rider, keeping watch. Or Apache keeping watch over the Rose Riders. Either way, it'd mean the posse's camp is near. That's when I see another flicker, different this time. More of a glow than a glint, coming from down on the canyon floor maybe a half mile south of where I stand. I dig through the gear loaded onto the burro and pull out a pair of binoculars.

It's them all right; the Rose Riders. Seven dark shadows huddle round a fire. There were seven of 'em when we holed up in that abandoned house 'long the Salt, but Rose shot one of his own men that evening, which means one of their current group is Jesse. And also that it ain't a Rider's rifle glinting up 'long the ridge.

I sit back, thinking.

I can't go in at this hour. I ain't thick enough to walk into a gang's camp at night and be ambushed, though maybe they're thick enough to think I am. Regardless, I don't got the journal to trade, but maybe I can pretend I do.

And that flash 'long the ridge . . .

I scan again and see it after watching a moment or two. Even with the binoculars I can't make out who's up there.

But it gives me an idea.

Rose ain't foolish enough to believe in the ghost shooter, but I
were
traveling with an Apache scout. He don't gotta know that she left. As far as he's concerned she's still helping me. Maybe all her people, too.

I just gotta walk in there tomorrow, chin held high, and pretend like I got the journal. Then, before we make a trade, I'll change the terms. Jesse's life for the safety of Rose and his men. If'n he gives me Jesse, I won't tell my scout to shoot.

It might work.

It's gotta.

'Bout a quarter mile from their camp, I quit for the day. It's as close as I'm willing to go without risking being heard.

I don't make a fire, 'cus it ain't worth being seen.

I eat stale biscuits and drink a little from what's left in my canteen. I'll need more water soon, but that can wait till after I got Jesse back. There's that creek Lil mentioned. Hell, there's prolly even water just back the way I came, snaking through that shrub-strewn valley. But I ain't 'bout to go digging round in the dark, wasting energy and tiring myself out when I need to be sharp and keen come dawn. Plus, my ankle's finally feeling right, and I don't wanna roll it again with a poor step.

By the light of the moon, I clean my weapons. I know the feel of 'em like a blind man, 'specially my Winchester. I could load and fire it with my eyes shut.

I grip the weapon tight, thinking 'bout Pa and the day I turned eight, when he gifted me the rifle and insisted on teaching me to shoot it immediately after. When I asked why, he just said, “I ain't always gonna be around, Kate. You gotta know how to fend for yerself.”

“But you put a horse down up close,” I argued. “You kill a chicken dinner with the axe. Why's I gotta shoot a bottle from halfway 'cross the farm?”

Pa nudged my nose with his knuckle. “There are good people and there are bad people. Most folk are good. They mean well and will help a friend in need. I really do believe that. But there might come a day when you need help and the only folk round are bad ones.” He lowered his eyes to meet mine. “You gotta be yer own help in those situations. You gotta know how to fire this rifle and not miss. You hear me?”