Vengeance Road (31 page)

And just like that, the moments surge before me, flashing in a spark of truth. The bed, always still. The door, always pulled. That memory of a kitchen that weren't ours
was,
only in Tucson. Those bright colors were her heritage, Mexican roots Pa stamped out after we moved north.

I were young. I wouldn't remember it in time—all those childhood memories. 'Specially how he buried her when I weren't home.

'Cus there was nothing to see.

She was never in that bed, or that grave.

She was never, ever sick.

She left us. She left, and Pa moved me north, and he tried to protect me from the hurt. Maybe he thought she'd eventually come back to us, choose family. Maybe he kept the act going as long as possible, till a faked death were the only way to keep my memory of her pure and clean and something worth loving.

I stare at the woman before me, trying to see past the dirt caked in her skin, the wrinkles brought out by sun. I erase 'em with my mind, turn her graying hair dark, picture her in the same dress she's wearing in our family portrait. Suddenly alls I can see is features I recognize: those proud cheekbones, her bronzed skin, eyes that pierce right through to my soul, awakening something that's been sleeping a long, long time.

“Ma?” I says.

“Yes, darling.” A tear breaks over her cheek.

“But . . . you left us. Why would you leave us?”

“It's complicated.”

“No it ain't! You don't leave. You got family, you stick by 'em. Plain and simple.”

“If you just let me explain . . .”

“There ain't gonna be any explaining if you two don't toss those damn six-shooters!” Rose screams.

Jesse only aims his surer, but I drop my arm.

“Kate . . .” he says.

“She's my mother, Jesse. Lower yer damn pistol.”

“Kate, it ain't right. Where'd she come from? How'd she get out here? We ain't seen nobody for days.”

Which I can't deny, but I also can't have her death on my conscience, and I certainly won't have Waylan Rose murder the last bit of family I got left.

He kicks her in the back of the legs and she falls to her knees, sobbing. Rose presses his gun to her skull.

“Jesse, toss yer damn pistols!” I scream.

His gaze stays forward, and I know he's considering the shot. Rose ain't fully shielded no more, but the bastard's weapon is already aimed, his hammer cocked, his trigger finger faster than the both of us.

“Please,” I says to Jesse.
“Please.”

He bites his bottom lip and lets out a small growl but lowers his arm. I toss my Colt in the dirt between us and Rose, then nod at Jesse. It takes a painfully long moment, but he surrenders his twins.

“Finally,” Rose says, shoving my mother forward. “Maria, if you wouldn't mind?”

She crawls toward the weapons, retrieves them, and stands. Only, she don't turn round and shoot Rose in the face.

She walks back to him calm as ever and shakes his hand.

“Thank you kindly,” he says, accepting my Colt from her.

She twirls Jesse's twins round her forefingers, smiling. “Pleasure's mine.”

“But he . . . Yer working with . . . ? How can you
help
him?” I practically shout.

“I hired him,” she says plain. “Waylan and his boys have been after the gold in my mountains for ages, but my rifle usually fends 'em off and keeps 'em at a distance. It were only this past winter, when my cache ran dry, that I thought he could be useful 'stead of a nuisance.” She keeps spinning Jesse's pistols. She looks like a completely different person now. Not desperate or weak, but wild.

“There are three caches and one mine, see? I used to have maps marking the location of 'em all, but someone stole the journal from me. I searched for six straight seasons and managed to locate only one of the caches—the one farthest from here, and it sustained me a good long while 'cus it were already stocked with gold. But early this winter I showed myself to Waylan 'stead of running him off. Told him a man by the name of Ross Henry Tompkins had a journal mapping the way to the mine and that I suspected he'd gone north out of Tucson. I told Waylan if'n he could get me the journal, he could take all he could carry once we located the gold.”

“And he didn't shoot you right then and there?” Jesse scoffs.

“I showed myself from the mountains,” she sneers. “With them in my sights and plenty of distance between us. Plus a good bit of dynamite buried right where they were standing. They stayed nice and still and listened to my offer.

“But Waylan left and the months passed. I figured he'd failed, or abandoned the matter. I went back to my search, combing this land inch by inch, not leaving a single stone unturned. Imagine my shock when I discovered Waylan back in the canyons and heard one of his men ranting 'bout gold—how they got the journal, and the ore could be theirs if only they killed that damn Tompkins. So I did what any respectable woman would do. I shot the bastard in the head, and as many of the others as I could get in my sights.”

“It was
you
firing from the ridge,” I says. That day I thought it were me Hank wanted to kill, but it were her he wanted dead: the ghost shooter in the mountains, the woman who'd get most of the gold if they stuck to their deal. “You nearly killed me!”

“If I'd known you were my own flesh and blood, I'd've aimed different. But, sweet, yer dressing an awful lot like a boy these days.”

And right then it dawns on me why Rose changed the details of our trade, why he wanted me in exchange for Jesse. I were to be a bartering tool. Once he learned I was Henry's kid, he knew I were also Maria's. He planned to use me 'gainst her as he just used her 'gainst me: hold a gun to my temple till she dropped her weapon, giving him the opportunity to shoot her dead and clear out the mine. Why bother sharing the gold when he could have it all to himself?

It explains why he killed off his last man in that cache. Why he only shot my hat that day at the trade for Jesse 'stead of dropping me cold. Why he appeared to hesitate in the Tiger, when I confirmed who I were. He's been planning this since that very moment.

Maria scratches her scalp with the gun's barrel and turns to Rose. “Lucky I missed you that day, Waylan, don't you say? Only got yer hat. And then you brought that journal to me like a well-trained dog.” She whistles low. “How was it you said you found it again?”

“We were in Casa Grande when we got word a man done spent a suspicious amount of solid gold ore on a doctor for his kin. We traced the tale to Prescott, then his homestead on the Granite Creek.”

The doc who came when I had scarlet fever . . . That joke he made 'bout gold pay that weren't really a joke at all.

Maria smiles. “It were Ross's—Henry's—only slip in all those years, and it were dire.”

“I can't believe you,” I says through my teeth. “You hired Waylan Rose, a notorious outlaw and bloodthirsty criminal, to get back a
journal?
He killed my father. He hanged him from our mesquite tree!”

“It were a regrettable but necessary action.”

“Necessary? He was yer husband once!”

“And he
stole
you from me,” she snarls. “He took you in the middle of the night and left. It were
me
who spent months on end in these mountains, gathering ore from the cache and lugging it home.
Me
who kept us rich and living in comfort. And how did he thank me? He took you, a heap of gold, and the maps, then disappeared. And how dare he rename you! I give you a beautiful name like Sierra, and he changes it to something as boring as Kate.”

“If you knew me at all, you'd see it fits me better. But that ain't no shock, hearing you were outta sorts with reality. Pa said it weren't safe in Tucson no more, that folks were threatening yous. He said leaving were the only option.”

“Yer father was a coward and a yellow-bellied weakling,” she snaps.

“If you were even half the person my father were, you'd've had the courage to show up in Prescott and hang him yerself.”

She strikes me 'cross the cheek with Jesse's pistol, and my vision streaks white.

“You watch yer tongue. Think hard 'bout who's the villain here. I ain't gonna coddle you like Ross mighta, but at least I ain't lied to you. How honest has yer father been, truly? From what Waylan tells me, there's a grave marker beneath that mesquite tree bearing my name. If'n yer pa's fabricated half yer life, ain't it possible he's the vile one? Everything I did in those early years, I did for our family. And all he did was leave.”

“I think a lust for gold drove you mad,” I says through a snarl. “If you can't live in peace—if yer fearing yer own neighbors in the night—what's the point of being rich? Gold don't keep you safe.”

“But it sure can buy happiness.”

What sort of happiness? As far as I can tell, she ain't left these mountains in years. She's prolly been living in that sad stone house we saw, likely trades with Apache for whatever supplies she can't get herself, keeping her quest for gold quiet. I wouldn't even be surprised if the dynamite she mentioned came from a deal with Waltz.

Watching her go on like this, crazed and unsound . . . It causes something to splinter in my chest. Pa lied to me, yes. He spun yarns and told half truths and kept secrets most of his life. But he did all of it to keep me safe, to shelter me, to spare me from knowing the monster standing before me now.

I were supposed to think she were dead. I weren't to know 'bout the gold and the way it destroyed our family. If'n his past came to catch him, I were to go to Abe's and stay there and move on with my life. But I'm too reckless and wild and angry. I had to keep digging, had to avenge his blood. And it makes me wonder if all the bad in me—all those men I's shot and killed—is part of this stranger, this woman twirling Jesse's guns. Is there more of her in my veins than Pa? Am I more bad than good, more revenge than forgiveness?

I couldn't move on. Like her, hunting down the journal, I couldn't just bury Pa beneath that tree and move on.

“For the love of God,” Rose says to Maria. “You gonna berate her all day, or can we silence 'em?”

“You expect me to kill my own daughter?”

“Why not? You had no trouble letting me kill yer husband.”

“I had it all planned out, my future set,” Maria says. “And yet . . . now that my flesh and blood is standing before me, everything's looking different. My, my, this do present a problem.” She shakes her head in mock concern. “All this gold finally back in my hands and two extra brains knowing where to find it.”

“Christ, just shoot 'em or I'll do it for you!” Waylan Rose snarls.

“I don't think yer understanding me,” Maria says, voice thinning.
“One.”
She motions at Jesse, then turns to Rose and looks him dead in the eye.
“Two.”

“We had a deal,” he says. “If'n I bring you the journal, I leave with as much gold as I can carry.”

“I know,” she says, sighing, “but I just changed my mind.”

She aims and he aims, and Jesse and me drop to the ground, covering our heads as the bullets fly.

When I look up,
Maria is dragging herself toward a stout rock for shelter, one leg hanging limp. Already her trouser thigh is red. But somehow, 'gainst all odds, she were the quicker shot, 'cus Rose is in worse shape. He's dropped to his knees, fingers touching the front of his coat. When he pulls them away, they're wet with blood. He topples backward so he's splayed to the sky, legs bent beneath him.

I dart forward.

A gunshot cracks from where Maria's hiding, and I swear I feel a bullet whiz by my ear. So much for not wanting to shoot her own daughter.

I see Jesse dive for her out of the corner of my vision. He tackles her to the ground, and I can hear their scuffle as he attempts to restrain her, but I don't pause to watch. The only thing in my sights is Waylan Rose.

As I bear down on him, he's breathing shallow, trying to hold his blood in even though it's already seeping from his chest and between his fingers.

He raises an arm, but I stomp my boot on his wrist, pinning the pistol—
my
pistol—to the earth. I pry it from his bloody fingers. His free hand raises the other Colt, and I react. No thinking, all flow.

Cock, aim, fire.

He drops the pistol, recoiling in pain. My bullet went right where I intended: the meaty part of his arm.

I lean forward as he cringes. My shadow falls over him. My Colt's humming as I bring the barrel in line with Rose's forehead.

I got him, Pa. It's gonna end right now. I'm gonna make everything right.

“I'm worth more alive than dead,” Rose says through a grimace.

“Yer already dying, and I don't want a single dollar from you. You ain't worth nothing. Even the buzzards feasting on you will be a better fate than you deserve.”

He starts laughing, a shrill, haughty wheeze.

“You gonna do it, honey? Or you gonna stand there jawing me to death?”

As I reach for the trigger, he coughs up a heap of blood. His teeth are stained red. His blue eyes don't look vicious no more. They're scared and wide and so damn desperate. Is this what Pa's eyes looked like when he gazed up at his killers?

“Do it,” Rose says. A gurgle of blood reaches his lips. “Please.”

He's far beyond saving, and for a moment I consider walking away. 'Cus it would make him suffer more. 'Cus he deserves to feel every ounce of this pain. I want it to last a million years. I want him to burn for eternity. I should carve a damn rose in his forehead first so he knows just how rotten he is.

But then I'll be just like him.

I'll be like Maria.