Vengeance Road (2 page)

“Reach down real slow-like,” I says, “and unhook that pistol belt.”

His lip twitches, but he does right in the end. The belt clatters onto the wooden seat the pot's set into. I grab it and toss it onto the dirt behind me.

“Who were you riding with?”

He grunts.

“I said, who the devil were you riding with?”

Still nothing.

I stare into his dark eyes and don't see an ounce of remorse. My father died alone. Alone and cornered and in an unfair fight—a gang 'gainst one. This man could be the very same who slipped the rope over his head, heaved him high, and left him swinging. Blood's pounding in my ears.

“Why'd you do it?” I says. “You didn't take nothing but his pistol. You just killed him and rode on, and for what?”

“You don't know?” The son of a bitch actually laughs. “A man lives with a secret like that his whole life and never tells his own son? Oh, that shines!”

“Yer friends,” I says through a snarl, praying I look like I know whatever secret he's on 'bout. “Where are they headed?”

“You'll never catch 'em, and if you do”—he grins up at me, flashing dark teeth—“they'll string you up just like yer Pa.”

I kick him right in his bleeding side and he howls.

It weren't a random raid. It were a hunt, with Pa being the target.

“How did you find us?” I says.

The bastard grunts.

“I ain't asking it twice.”

“A clerk at Goldwaters,” he says. “Real cordial fellow. He pointed us to yer pa
with a smile.”

Morris.

“Seems you ain't the only boy ignorant of what's walking round yer town,” the bastard says. He's still grinning at me with those tarred teeth, and I wanna knock every last one loose.

“Now you listen, and you listen good,” I says. “I'm going to Goldwaters, and I'm gonna get what you ain't giving up. Then I'm gonna ride after yer friends and do to them exactly what's in store for you—what's in store for
every
yellow-bellied coward who goes round stringing up innocent men.”

“That sounds real nice, boy,” he says. “Now for the love of God, lower that damn pistol.”

“All right,” I says.

And I do.

Right after I shoot him through the skull.

I let the door
bang shut, but it don't block out the image of his face—leathered skin and dark beard, vicious eyes that went wide the moment he realized my intentions.

I kick his pistol belt aside and spit at the base of the outhouse.

“See you in hell, mister.”

And that's where I'm going, sure as the sun will rise, 'cus I feel
nothing.
No remorse. No guilt. Not even a sliver of doubt. He deserved it, and I'd do it again. I'd do it over and over, and I wonder if something's wrong with me.

I ain't killed before, and it shouldn't've been so easy.

I quickly head for Silver, and we ride north 'long Whiskey Row, then cut a block east. At the next corner, I tie her up and stalk into Goldwaters. It's a hell of a general store. Anything you could ever need is crammed on these shelves—flour, spices, jerky, tobacco, ammunition, hardware. There's a grand-looking rocker in the front window too, handmade of wood and sanded smooth as marble. I sit in it every time I come in, and today the desire to own something so meaningless stings through to my ribs.

Morris is at the register, a starched shirt tucked into his trousers.

“He's a fine young man, Morris,” Pa said last week. A spark were dancing in his eyes with the suggestion, just like the last twenty times he'd brought it up as we purchased supplies in town.

“You can quit pushing me on him” was my answer. “I ain't marrying and leaving you alone.”

Only now
I'm
alone, honest and true, and Pa never got to see me off into something stable. I know he wanted better for me, but I ain't never had a problem with our homestead. The thought of being confined to town—standing behind a grocer's counter or waiting at home for a husband to return—is stifling. Every day the same. Marrying for security and nothing more. I can fire a rifle as good as any man. 'Parently I can kill another just as dead too. I don't see why I should act like I can't just 'cus it ruffles everyone else's feathers.

I shove my hands in my pockets. The whiskey's caught up with me now, and my feet don't feel so steady as I cut up the aisle of flour and canned goods. Morris spots me easy and inclines his chin. When coming into town, I'm usually wearing one of my fitted blouses and nicer skirts, and my hair would be hanging below my hat, dark and silky and reaching almost to my waist. If Morris don't even do a double take at my current state, it's only a matter of time till another recognizes me—or, worse, places me as the “boy” trailing that bastard at the Quartz Rock.

I check over my shoulder and there ain't no one left in the store but a little old lady examining a bag of flour with such care, I doubt she's got good vision.

“Kate,” Morris says. “Yer looking . . .”—he eyes my flannel—“
serious
today.”

“Well, I'm here on serious business” is all I says back.

“That so?”

“Did anybody come in asking after my pa recently?”

“Just yesterday,” he says. “Someone were inquiring about an old friend by the name of Ross Henry Tompkins. I said, ‘Henry
Thompson?
' and he goes, ‘Yeah, that's the one. Been a while.' So I told him you two had a place 'long the creek, up past Fort Whipple.”

“Did he give his name?”

“No.”

“What'd he look like?”

Morris frowns. “Is something wrong?”

“What'd he look like, Morris?”

“Pretty rough. Trousers and chaps. A long black coat. Skin like he'd been working land or running cattle most of his life. Might've been in his late thirties or early forties. He had one heck of a scar below his right eye.”

“And he was alone?”

“No, there were a few others riding with him, all packing.” Morris pauses. “They weren't friends of yer father's, were they?”

The pistol's humming at my hip again.
Goddamn you, Morris. You as good as killed him.

“Kate?” Morris reaches 'cross the counter and touches my hand. “Did something happen?”

I pull away. I need to get outta here. I need to leave before I put a bullet between poor Morris's eyes.

“Yer sure everything's all right?” he prods.

I think of what he'll say if I tell him the truth.
Talk to Bowers. Report the raid to Fort Whipple.
But Bowers, like the honest sheriff he is, left a few days back to track a horse thief who rode through town, and Whipple's soldiers protect settlers 'gainst Apache raids, not attacks from their own kind. Not that I got the time for neither. The longer I stand here yapping, the farther south those bastards slip, riding to the devil knows where. I gotta go home and load up my horse. I gotta ride after 'em before the trail goes cold.

“Kate?” Morris says again. “Did something happen?”

“Nah, everything's dandy.”

I even buy ammo and supplies just to make him shut pan.

In the last bit of remaining sunlight, I dig through what's left of the house. Pockets of ash are still warm, and certain pieces of furniture fared better than others. Half my bed frame's still standing. Our kitchen table ain't nothing but coals, but the kettle's sitting there atop the rubble, like a hen on eggs.

In what used to be Pa's bedroom, I find what I'd run into the flames for originally: an old metal lunch box he kept stocked with valuables and tucked beneath his mattress. He'd also had a worn leather journal always stowed beside it, but there ain't a sign of that left. Bet it made some mighty fine kindling.

I pluck out the lunch box and bang on it with the fire poker till the warped latch gives. Inside is a drawstring pouch holding a dusting of gold. Pa never liked to talk much 'bout the early days, but I know he spent some time prospecting down in Wickenburg before he and Ma came north and settled near Prescott. The meager funds he earned then helped raise our house 'long the creek, and I reckon nearly everything he had left got spent trying to save Ma from consumption. I were nearly four when she bit.

I shake the pouch, making the gold dance. Looks like there ain't more than a few dozen dollars here, but that's more than I's ever called my own. I pocket it and find a picture of Pa, Ma, and me—still a bundle of a baby—beneath the pouch.

I touch Pa's black-and-white face with my thumb. He's standing all protective-like, one arm wrapped round Ma's shoulder and the other touching the grip of his pistol. I'm a perfect blend of the both of 'em: dark hair from Ma, but extra inches in height gained from Pa. Skin that's caught somewhere between his fair complexion and her golden bronze. She were Mexican, living in Tucson when Pa passed through running cattle years back. The way he told it, there weren't a more beautiful woman in all the Territory. Truth be told, there still ain't many women in Arizona, but Ma
was
pretty. I glance back at the photo. Piercing eyes and high cheeks and a sternness 'bout her that makes me proud.

In a way, it's a blessing she died young. Prescott ain't taking kindly to Mexicans lately. They're run outta town or spat at on the streets. I been seeing less and less of 'em since I were a kid, and the cowardly part of me's happy half my features are Pa's. That I talk like him too.

The only thing left in the box is documents—a deed for our acreage, secured through the Homestead Act a few years ago; notes and ledgers tracking money Pa spent over the years; a small slip of paper folded in half.

I open it. Pa's handwriting shines up at me.

Kate, if you're reading this, stop. You know where you should be. Get on Silver and ride.

“Aw, Goddamn it!” I says.

Silver starts beyond the wrecked frame of the house, ears perking. I look back at the note, now crumpled in my fist.

If anything ever happens to me, you go see Abe in Wickenburg.

That's what Pa always said when I were growing up. Abe in Wickenburg. Wickenburg for Abe. Over and over till my ears were practically bleeding. So many times I had the name and place memorized before I could even pronounce 'em proper.

“But what's gonna happen to you?” I was always asking.

“That ain't the point,” he'd say.

Now I'm sitting here wondering if maybe this was exactly what Pa feared—if someone were after him. For what and why I ain't got the slightest. Heaven forbid he'd've explained anything to me.

I slam the box shut. The sun's setting and I can't do nothing 'bout the note till tomorrow. Only a fool would ride south through the mountains at night. You'd need a light, and fire's nothing but a beacon for the Apache.

I grab Silver's reins and lead her down to the barn, which the murderous bastards thankfully didn't burn. Pa's horse, Libby, is still standing there in front of the plow, half saddled and looking confused, and that's when I break.

'Cus this is where they found him, right here. This was where Pa's life began to end.

The saddle stand is on its side. There's boot marks and gouges in the dirt, marking a struggle. A few drops of blood are now so dark, they mostly look like drying mud.

The fog of whiskey's long gone, and yet I unravel like a drunken fool.

Screaming, I throw my hat 'cross the barn and rake my hands through my hair. My fingers snag on the singed and melted ends, and no matter how hard I yank, I can't fight 'em through. I pull out my knife and hack it off. Shorter and shorter, till my hair hangs at my jaw line and I can't feel no evidence of the fire. The bandage round my chest comes off next, and then I'm breathing easy, the tears and gasps free and fast.

I pull blankets off the shelves for the horses, and one for myself. I unhook Libby and lead her to her stall, then curl up at the foot of Silver's and sob. When she lies down beside me rather than sleeping upright, I know I need to pull it together. I can't be so far gone even my horse knows I'm lost.

I count to ten and stop crying. Just like that, I'm done.

When I were first learning to shoot a rifle, Pa told me that nearly every battle people face is in their heads. If you think you can't do something, you won't. If you believe you can, it's only a matter of time before you will.

We'd set bottles on the fence and Pa'd tell me to shoot 'em off. Every time I did, I had to move back three paces. Lately it's been weeks and months between a successful shot—the distance ain't something to shrug at—but I always strike true eventually.
Always.

But that's physical, and physical is easy. It's just focus and confidence. The emotional stuff, Pa warned, gets under yer skin and poisons yer mind. And I can't stand for that. I made a promise to that sick bastard in the outhouse. If my word dies with him, it'll be as if I never said it, and I have no intention of letting that murderous gang ride free.