Vengeance Road (30 page)

“No matter what happens tomorrow,” I tell Jesse, “I'm with you till the end on this. If we go in blazing and never come out, that's fine by me. I got nothing to go home to anyway.”

“You got me,” he says. His face is pained and serious, brows drawn down as he squints at me in the darkness. He reaches out and brushes the pad of his thumb 'gainst

my cheek. Then he draws me into another kiss.

When Jesse's mouth opens to mine, I lose all sense of what's decent. I forget that I'm sweaty and I smell and we both need a bath. My hands move on their own—exploring the shape of his jaw, his collarbone, his shoulders. I push his hat off so I can thread my fingers through his hair. Somehow I end up in his lap, and the tiny groan he breathes into my mouth is like a blow to the heart. He gathers me up and twists, bringing me back to his bedroll. His lips move to my neck and his hands to my waist. He pulls my flannel till it's untucked, starts undoing the buttons.

I want him to go faster. I want him to never stop. I want my shirt off and my skin bared to him and us closer, and
—God almighty, what is wrong with me?
We're in the middle of the Arizona wilderness. A coyote could be creeping into our camp. A Rose Rider could be taking aim from the mountains. Every potential danger has gone and flown my mind 'cus Jesse Colton's hands are on my body and I can't think straight with him towering over me like this. Can't think at all.

“Jesse?”

He pauses, lifts his head to look me in the eyes.

“I think we should stop.”

“All right.” He sits up slow and watches as I start fastening my shirt. Even though he ain't asked, I feel like I owe him a reason.

“I gotta have my head straight, Jesse. And you make it so my head's . . . not.”

He just nods.

“Yer mad.”

“No,” he says, sincere. “We should prolly sleep anyway. Tomorrow's gonna be a trial.”

A trial we might not make it through. Suddenly I realize this mighta been my only chance. This is a thing I ain't done, and for the first time in my life I think I might want it, only I pushed it away 'stead of grabbing it by the horns.

Jesse plucks his hat from where it fell and smacks dust off the brim. He catches me watching and his brow scrunches. “What?” he says.

“Did I ruin this? Whatever
this
is?”

That makes him smile.

“No. Don't ever think that. You didn't ruin nothing.” He draws one of his pistols and starts cleaning it. “Sleep well, Kate. I'll take first watch.”

By midday, Jesse and I's
found the rough foot trail we spotted from our mesa the previous morning. Cutting north, we follow it toward the hillside that supposedly holds the mine.

It don't take long to realize that our perch yesterday made the trail look far less rugged and potholed than it is, and that it cuts into more of a ravine than a hill.

I remember a note in Pa's journal claiming that afternoon light shines into the mouth of the mine, so I tell Jesse to focus on the eastern edge of the ravine. But as we walk the footpath, trying not to roll our ankles, my hope shrivels and prunes. The ridge is overgrown with shrubs and cactuses. Rock pillars rise up like fence posts, and where they ain't towering, they congregate in loose piles. We could prolly walk within ten feet of the mine and not even see it. Unless we take to crawling every inch of this land, I don't see how we'll get lucky.

I grab Jesse's binoculars, looking ahead for any sign of Rose's burros. There ain't nothing but rugged wilderness for as far as I can see.

“Didn't the journal say something 'bout marked cactuses?” Jesse says.

“Someone hacked limbs off a few saguaros so they only pointed you in the right direction.” I glance round, but nothing in a stone's throw looks remotely tampered with. “That were years ago, though, long before we were born. The saguaros coulda sprouted new limbs by now.”

“And the tree—weren't there a clue with a tree?”

“A palo verde not far from the mine. It's got no bark, according to Pa's notes, and a distinctly odd shape pointing toward the entrance.”

We scan the land before us. The palo verdes crop up by the thousands, speckling the rocky landscape like vibrant flowers.

“I'm an idiot,” I says. “It all sounded so easy on paper, like I'd just walk out here and find one lone palo verde tree waiting to guide me true.”

“Are we even in the right canyon?” Jesse says.

“I don't know, Jesse. I really don't—”

“Shhh! You hear that?”

“Hear what?”

Something clanks in the distance.

“That.”

We stand bone still, waiting. A few seconds later, the noise strikes again. It sounds like a pickaxe on rock, or a hammer. Like a person mining.

“Come on,” Jesse says, and starts leading the way off the footpath and up into the ravine. The burros manage to stay with us despite the extremely rough terrain.

We keep climbing, moving steadily north through the pass as we go. But the higher we get, the harder it is to pinpoint the sound of the pickaxe. It bounces off the surrounding rocks, echoing and throwing us off.

“Hang on. What's that?” I point 'cross the canyon to what looks like a small cave. There's something distinctly manmade in its mouth.

Jesse checks with his binoculars.

“Looks like a stone house.”

He lets me have a turn.

The house—if it can even be called that—ain't much larger than a horse's pen. I don't remember a note 'bout this in the journal, but I also stuck to the maps and drawings, to the pages that held Pa's handwriting.

“Kate,” Jesse says, nudging my shoulder. I lower the binoculars and follow his pointed finger to a shadowy alcove on our side of the canyon, maybe a few
-
dozen yards ahead. Another cave, perhaps.

But that ain't what's caught Jesse's eye.

No, there's movement there. Something swaying.

I peer through the binoculars and find a burro snapping his tail at flies.

“It's them,” I whisper. “Or one of 'em, at least.”

Jesse puts a finger to his lips, then nudges his head for me to follow. Cautious and quiet as possible, I trail Jesse, watching my step round brambles and shrubs, and always keeping a spare hand 'gainst some bit of rock so I don't lose my footing.

We close in on the burro. He's standing in the mouth of what is indeed another cave, only the entrance has been boarded up with rocks and tree trunks. Even standing in front of the cave, it don't look like much.

As Jesse's pistols twitch to and fro, checking for threats, I skirt by him and duck round the blocked-up entrance.

It takes a minute for my eyes to adjust to the dark, and when they do, the first thing I see is the gold.

It glints where it's piled in the rear of the cave. Placer nuggets as large as my palm. Others smaller, but still nothing to shrug at. This ain't the mine, but a cache. And wherever the mine is, it must have one hell of a vein, rich in free gold that can be chipped and cracked out by mere hammer. The burro-driven arrastres in Prescott ground and cracked earth for hours on end only to produce tiny particles the size of pebbles and dust—like what I got left in Pa's leather pouch—but nothing like this. I ain't never seen such large pieces.

I tear my eyes from the gold and take in the rest of the cave. A bit of Rose's gear is dropped 'gainst the side wall: cooking equipment, a lump of clothes,
Pa's journal.

I dart forward and grab it up, my chest singing as the cool leather meets my skin. I tuck it into the back of my pants and freeze solid.

The lump of clothes ain't a lump of clothes at all.

It's a man, curled up and sleeping with his back facing me.

I cock my pistol, cringing at the noise it makes. Then I press the muzzle into the Rider's back. “Don't move,” I whisper.

And he don't. He don't even flinch.

Frowning, I put my hand to his shoulder and pull. The body rolls toward me, lurching like dead weight. His face is a butchered mess; nose broken for sure, lips cracked and bloody, skin stained red from a gash 'long his brow. A nasty raw wound on the Rider's chest suggests a gunshot, but there ain't a rose carved in his forehead, not yet at least, so he must still be—

His eyes flash open, and his hands come up, gripping me at the neck and cutting off my air. I'm so shocked, I drop my gun.

“Tompkins,” he gasps.

I reach blindly for my Colt but can't find it. My fingers go to his, clawing and prying 'em back. He's weak and drained, and it ain't a hard fight. By the time Jesse hears me coughing and races into the cache, I's already scrambled free.

“Tompkins,” the Rider says again, this time staring down Jesse. “He's gonna kill her.”

“Like he tried with you?” Jesse says.

The Rider just laughs, a low, chuckling gurgle. I think he's drowning in his own blood. I think he's already half dead.

“He's got a plan, Rose . . . always. He's got the gold . . . and he'll turn on Tompkins next. Just like he turned on me. Like he turned on all of us.” He pants, breathes deep. “He'll kill everyone. He'll send y'all to God with a rose on yer forehead, and he'll whistle while doing it.” His eyes lock with Jesse. “Exactly like he did when he strung up yer brother.”

Jesse kicks him hard in the side. The Rider howls, and in the time it takes me to blink Jesse's drawn his Remingtons and pressed one to the bastard's temple.

“Don't!” I says, leaping forward and pushing Jesse's arm away. “The mine's nearby. If'n we can hear the pickaxe, you better bet Rose'll hear yer gun. Besides, this guy's already gone. He ain't gonna make it much longer.”

A vein bulges in Jesse's neck as he swallows hard. In the end, he holsters his weapons. When he stands, his fingers dangle lazily near his six-shooters, but it's a ruse, a game. I's seen it in rattlers—a steady, indifferent sway before the attack.

“Come on, Kate,” he says. “It's time to kill us an outlaw.”

The pickaxe sounds like
a bell tolling.

When we look careful, we can spot their path—boot prints where the ground's more dust than rock, snapped bits of sagebrush where they walked quickly through a patch. I wonder how long Rose let his last remaining man help him haul out gold before he decided it weren't worth the extra labor, before he left him for dead back in that cache.

Ahead, and a bit to our left, I spot the palo verde tree Pa'd mentioned in the journal. You wouldn't look twice at it if you didn't know it were a marker. Half its bark is indeed missing and it's grown at a crooked angle, buckling over a rock so its limbs seem to motion up the rocky bluff we're already climbing.

I point it out to Jesse, but if he's acknowledged me, it don't show. He's a man on fire, a fuse burned down to its last bit of wick.

We scramble-climb up the rocky ledge, working our way toward the pickaxe chant in silence. Sweat drips down my back and between my breasts. I can hear my pulse beating in my ears, but I push on. Even when the pickaxe stops chiming, we don't slow.

After heaving ourselves over a wide, flat boulder, we find a somewhat level ledge. Looking back the way we came, I can see the foot trail winding through the ravine below and, in the distance, Weavers Needle looming proud.

But before us . . .

Before us and just beyond a wild bunch of mountain brush and a cluster of angry, jagged rock that piles 'bout waist high is the mine. We walk toward it together and peer in.

It's a deep, funnel-shaped pit, its edges lined with planks of wood to serve as footholds and handholds. Jesse picks up a rock and tosses it down, but it must've hit the makeshift ladder 'long the way, 'cus it clanks several times before going silent, making it hard to tell how deep the mine goes.

We wait, silent, expecting a voice to come up from the depths. It never does. The pickaxe ain't striking no more, but I know we're in the right place. So where . . .

“Where is he?” I says to Jesse.

There's the crunch of gravel back near the ledge, the sound of a hammer cocking. “Behind you,” says Waylan Rose.

We both cock our guns and spin round, ready to shoot together, but our barrels pull up at the same time.

He ain't alone.

Waylan Rose has his left arm curled round a woman, pinning her to his chest. His other arm extends over her shoulder so the barrel of his six-shooter points our way.

His hostage ain't much to look at. Streaks of gray mark the woman's dark, matted hair, which hangs to where her faded trousers are belted with a piece of fraying rope. Her shirt is sweat stained and tattered, her skin darkened by the sun. Toughened, too. It looks too loose round her neck, too wrinkled at the corners of her eyes. Like a vulture's. I can't tell if she's forty or closer to double that, though there's something youthful 'bout her fearful expression.

“Toss those six-shooters,” Rose says, “or mama dearest gets it.”

“Sierra!” the woman gasps. “Sierra, do what he says. Please!” Her dark eyes are locked on me, desperate and wide.

“I ain't messing,” Rose growls, and brings his pistol to the woman's temple. She seems to dissolve in his grasp, knees buckling. It's only his grip that keeps her upright as her hands claw at the forearm trapping her.

“Sierra, I'm sorry I left. I'm so sorry. But you don't want me dead for that, do you? We can start over. We can fix everything.”

“Who in the hell is Sierra?” I snap.

Her expression pales. “You, darling. Yer Sierra.”

“I'm Kate.”

“No,” she says, shaking her head. “We named you after the mountains where we found gold. We named you after the place that changed our lives.”