Vengeance Road (21 page)

“You damn rascal!” I shove water his way. “Yer lucky that weren't my sore ankle. What happened to having manners?”

Will rolls his eyes. “He don't got none. He just pretends otherwise.”

“Shut it, Will.”

“You shut it, Jess.”

“Shut it all, y'all!” a voice barks from the shore. It's followed by the unmistakable clank of a shotgun being pumped.

I turn slowly.

Standing on the riverbank is a haggard-looking man wearing a mean snarl.

“Out,” he orders, emphasizing with the shotgun. “Outta the water right now.” He's got a slight accent, only I can't place from where.

“Waltz, put that blasted thing away,” Jesse says. “It's me, Jesse Colton. From Wickenburg.”

“Jesse?” Waltz echoes. “Abe's boy? Gosh, you's grown. Last I saw you, you didn't have so much muscle. And Will were still a scrawny thing.”

“That were over three years back.”

“Was it really? Time's gone a-flying, I guess.”

Waltz lowers the shotgun. He's older than I expected. Gray sideburns and faded beard and wrinkles stretching over his skin like cracks in parched desert earth. When Jesse said Waltz and Abe were mining buddies, I pictured someone closer to my pa's age, somewhere round forty. But Waltz looks easily twenty years past that.

“How
is
old Abe?” the man asks.

“Dead,” Jesse says.

“I'm sorry to hear that. Abe were a good man.”

Jesse grunts. “So why the firearm and threats, Waltz?”

“Heard shouting from the house and thought you might be looking to cause mischief. Can't be too careful, you know. These mountains ain't been nothing but trouble lately—endless gunshots from the range, vultures flying in circles. I keep hearing hoofbeats in the night too, like an outfit of ghost riders passing through, but every time I crawl outta bed and light the lantern for a look, there ain't a sign of nothing.”

“Well, apologies for startling you,” Jesse says as we climb outta the river, wring our undergarments, and start pulling on dry layers. “We had a notion you'd be back in Phoenix this time of year.”

“Usually am, but I's feeling lucky. Decided to stay longer this season.” Waltz pauses and squints at the boys. “Which means you didn't come all this way just for a visit.”

“We're passing through,” I says. “I'm Kate Thompson. My pa were friends with Abe too.”

Waltz gives me a little hat tip. “
Passing through
just means
planning to squat in my house,
don't it?”

Jesse smiles. “Guilty.”

“Well, yer lucky you caught me. I'm heading back to Phoenix in a few days. I ain't got a roof big enough for the lot of you, but yer welcome to stay the night outside. Rest and have a bite to eat. Just trapped a beaver this morning.” His gaze trails to our mounts. “Say, where's yer fourth?”

“Behind you,” Lil says, stepping silent as a deer through the tall grass.

Waltz yelps, jumping damn near outta his skin. “You don't go sneaking up on a man like that!” he snaps. “'Specially one with a loaded gun.”

“Apache are good at sneaking,” she says. There's a hint of a smile on her lips, and I catch her eyes darting to Jesse. There and back. So fast, it's like it barely happened. She heard him last night, what he said to me as she cleaned in the Salt. It's like she's everywhere, that girl. In the earth and the sky and the dry Arizona air.

I remind myself to never cross her.

Waltz don't seem too pleased 'bout the fact that an Indian's part of our group, but he shows us to his place after a bit of grumbling. His house, if it can be called that, sits beyond the small butte, just as Lil suspected. The whole thing don't look much larger than Silver's stall; a one-room home for sure, made of rock and packed mud, with a shoddy roof that tilts uneven, almost like it wants to rest 'gainst the rocky alcove the house is set into.

Inside, things look just as weary. A grass-stuffed mattress 'gainst the far wall. One window and a lone table and chair. Prospecting gear seems to fill every last inch of the place.

“You ever find anything in these mountains?” I ask him.

“Nah, but I's heard talk these parts are rich with gold. Can't help coming back every season.”

I look at his leathered skin and stern features, the stubborn light in his pale eyes. “Ain't you a little old to be prospecting?”

“Age is just a number, and old's in yer head. I's mined all over this damn Territory. California, too. The work ain't killed me yet, nor the Indians, so I figure that means I ain't supposed to quit.”

There's that odd lilt to his voice again—certain words pronounced different than how I'd say 'em.

“Say, Waltz?”

“Jacob,” he corrects. “Jacob Waltz.”

“You ain't from round here, are you?”

“Germany,” he answers. “I been on American soil thirty-eight years now, and been a citizen for sixteen. But don't let my youthful looks fool you. I'm as old as yer guessing.”

He gets a smile outta me with that.

As Lil starts a fire and the men prep the meat for dinner, I step away to tend to the horses. They're down near the water, grazing where Waltz's mare is kept company by a stout gray burro. Mutt's there too, lounging round like the lazy oaf he is. At this hour, Waltz's temporary homestead is draped in shadow, the sun having dipped behind the butte, and there's something peaceful 'bout the place.

I gather up Silver's reins and lead her over to a short tree. I secure her for the night and pull off her saddle, then repeat the process with the others. I reckon we'll be sleeping where Lil's making the fire, and the thought of lugging the saddles there—even though it ain't terribly far—smarts. I'm starting to feel all this travel in my lower back and rump. My hips are achy too, my thighs weary from sitting in a saddle day after day. And even though the wound on my shoulder's nearly healed, I feel the weight of the gear there more than in my ankle.

Grumbling to myself, I turn for the house and find Will blocking my way. I'm so startled, I nearly drop the saddle.

“Damn, you scared me,” I says, bracing it 'gainst my thigh. “You practicing sneaking like Lil?”

His mouth don't even twitch outta its current scowl. “Whatever's going on with you and Jesse's gotta stop,” he says.

“There ain't nothing going on.”

“Don't play with me, Kate. I ain't in the mood.”

“And neither am I. This saddle ain't made of feathers.” I try to walk past him and he sidesteps, blocking my way again. “Will, I ain't got time for this.”

“Don't act like you don't know what I'm talking 'bout,” he growls.

“Well, I
don't!
”

“He ain't thinking straight,” Will says, waving an arm toward the house. “It's bad enough he's set on going after the same gold a gang of outlaws wants, that we struck this deal with you, but now—”

“Oh, in tarnation, you two are both adults. You wanna walk, convince yer brother you both should walk. We can break the deal. I got Lil to help me now. I'll find Rose with or without yous. But you ain't getting those maps from me if you back out.”

“We ain't gonna back out. I hate it, but Jesse's right. We need the money, even if half his reason for going after it is tied up in the past. But now
this.
” He jerks his chin at me. “You getting in his head . . . It's too much. It's complicating things and it ain't gonna go smooth.”

“I ain't done nothing, Will.”

“See, but you did. Jesse's focused. He's smart. He don't spend time on things that are distractions. He ain't like me in that regard. But once Jesse's heart starts drifting—even the tiniest bit—he goes and gets himself blessedly in over his head, cobweb tangled, lost without a compass. I seen it before with Maggie, and I sure as hell can recognize it when it starts up again.”

The saddle's beginning to feel like it's bearing a rider in my hands. I can't hold it no more. Not with what Will's implying.

His glare at Jesse while swimming makes sense now. Will's picked up on a change in Jesse. He's seeing exactly what Lil's already told me, only Will don't seem to find it amusing.

“I ain't got no control over what Jesse thinks,” I says as evenly as possible. “If'n you got issues with where his head's at, maybe you should talk to him 'stead of jawing to me.”

I try to shove by Will again, and he grabs the meaty part of my arm, stopping me cold. “Don't encourage it, Kate. Don't smile or joke or ask him for another shooting lesson. I can see you ain't interested—you been on a mission that ain't had nothing to do with us since day one—so how's 'bout you make that clear to Jesse before he goes sinking any deeper.”

He drops my arm and walks off toward the others, whistling, like our exchange were over the weather.

By the time we's finished dinner, I'm in a foul mood. I's found a mostly level pitch of ground and rolled out my bed. I's cleaned my Colt and buffed my boots and smacked all the dust possible from my hat. It don't matter how much I keep my hands busy; Will's words are ringing strong in my ears.

He's sitting on the other side of the dying fire, chipper as all can be, spitting dip and acting like he didn't just accuse me of things I ain't got no control over to begin with. It ain't my fault if Jesse's head's in the wrong place, if he's seeing Maggie in me somehow. Hell, I got the notion Jesse didn't even like me much. He were furious after the ordeal 'long the Agua Fria and could barely look at me in Phoenix. Guess I did lie 'bout everything, and that mighta sat poorly with him, but still.

Jesse sits with his notebook propped 'gainst his knee again, blissfully unaware of my argument with Will. I follow his gaze and reckon he's sketching Mutt, who's sprawled out by the warmth of the fire.

As Jesse's pencil scratches over paper, Waltz tries to convince us not to enter the mountains. He won't let up. It dawns on me that he might think we're after his beloved gold, so I tell him 'bout Pa and the Rose Riders.

“Even more reason to not go in there,” he says. “Those mountains are dangerous enough as it is. Last thing you need is a gang of outlaws complicating yer trip.”

“My mind's made up and ain't changing,” I says firm.

He sighs and shakes his head. “Then you lot should at least take my donkey. Leave yer horses with me a few days. It ain't like they'd make it far in them canyons anyway, and my mare could use a little company. And take some of my prospecting equipment too. I noticed you ain't got much by way of mining gear.”

“I told you, Waltz,” I says. “We ain't after any gold. I'm just searching out a mine 'cus I know it's where them Riders will go.”

“Still, you can't be too prepared. Never know when you'll need a pickaxe or shovel or a length of rope.”

Jesse closes his notebook, smiling through the smoke pinched between his teeth. “First you nearly shoot us in the river. Now yer fixing to send us off right.”

“You think I'm joking,” Waltz says. “It ain't safe in them canyons.”

“Perhaps you angered the Mountain Spirits,” Lil offers. She's sitting cross-legged on her bedroll, stitching a tear in the hem of her smock dress. “It is wrong to dig for the yellow iron and destroy Mother Earth's body.”

“Indian lore ain't the problem,” Waltz says. “Last time I were in Boulder Canyon, bullets chased me out. I weren't even doing nothing offensive, just gathering some water. And the shooter coulda got me if he wanted. Blew my wooden bucket to splinters. I scanned the ranges and saw nothing, but when I reached for my shotgun another blast went off and dirt exploded right near my feet. I got the heck outta there after that. If'n that gun could get my bucket and nearly my feet from that distance, I was damn sure he could get my heart.”