Rustler Mountain

Chapter 14

I haven’t quite gotten the right of being a husband, and now I’m going to be a father. I don’t want my children knowing who I am, or what I do. But if I don’t continue to do it, I can’t build a life forthem.

—Austin Wilder’s journal, August 26, 1856

H e was avoiding going to bed, because he wasn’t in the mood to deal with the fantasies that would surely dog him once he tried to lay his head down. His phone rang.

He saw Millie’s name flash across the screen and he froze.

“Dammit,” he said, picking it up as quickly as possible. “Hello?”

“Austin,” she said. “I need you.”

Right then, he prayed to every saint, every sinner, and every deity that he could think of. Because he was going to need some forgiveness. He wasn’t strong enough to say no. Not again. He couldn’t explain this. The connection he felt to her. The way he felt compelled to touch her.

He had tried. But if she was going to say she needed him. . . .

“I found a box.”

“What?”

He wasn’t tracking with her.

“I found a box of letters. Letters and a journal, and other things. And I think you were right. Lee Talbot colluded with Butch Hancock.”

The thrill that shot down his spine wasn’t sexual, but he was still feeling aroused, and everything inside him felt like a hot mess, so he wasn’t sure exactly what he was feeling.

“Are you serious?”

“I went up to the attic tonight . . . don’t ask. I went up to the attic, and I was looking through some things, and I found a tiny shoebox that I hadn’t seen before. It was wedged between my grandmother’s plates and some old farm implements. Anyway. I’ve only looked at a couple of things, but you need to see this. And we can’t do it in public.”

“If this is a booty call, I need you to know, it’s kind of a weird one.”

Because he had to ask. Because he had to know.

“I promise you it’s not,” she said.

But there was tension in her voice, and that tension wound itself around him like a bronze thread. Pulling tight.

A lasso that secured him. Good and hard.

“I’ll be there in a minute. I assume you want me to come to your place?”

“Yes. Do you know where it is?”

“You live in your dad’s old place, right?”

There was a pause. “Yes.”

“Then yeah, I know where it is.”

He hung up the phone and stood. For a long moment. He grabbed his wallet off his nightstand, and then he stared at the furniture for just a moment. At the drawer.

Did it make him an outlaw or a hero if he grabbed a condom? He had told her no. And there were so many compelling reasons why it had to be no. But he was already opening the drawer.

Because his dad had not taught him a whole hell of a lot, but what he had taught him was not to be a fool.

You can’t count on your best intentions seeing you through tough times,boy.

That had basically been his sex talk.

Be prepared. Always. Because your brain cells went out the motherfucking window when your dick was hard.

He was thirty-five years old. He was better than that.

He stuffed a condom in his wallet anyway. Then a second one.

It was practically chivalry.

He shoved the wallet in his back pocket, then grabbed his keys and headed toward the front door. Thank God he didn’t have any siblings living in this house anymore. He didn’t have the patience to be dealing with them right now.

His mind was a blank as he drove down the gravel drive, his headlights catching jackrabbits bounding into the ruts in front of him, then back out again.

Mangy little beasts.

He had to slam his brakes on to avoid a buck that leaped down off the side of a hill right in front of him and froze in his headlights.

“Out of the way,” he grumbled, as the animal took its sweet time crossing the road. “I’ll just run you over next time.”

He was impatient. To hear about the history revelations. He didn’t think about the condoms in his wallet.

When he pulled up to the old Victorian-style house, the thrill of the forbidden that rocked through him was unwelcome.

That wasn’t why he was here. Provisional prophylactics notwithstanding.

He killed the engine and got out of the truck, very aware it loomed large in her driveway, extremely noticeable to any neighbors who might be setting their curtains twitching.

Then he walked up to the front door. He was about to knock when it opened.

And there she was, wearing the same prim little dress as when she had left his house a couple of hours earlier.

“Come in,” she said, ushering him in quickly.

“I hate to break it to you,” he said. “My truck is in your driveway, standing out like a sore thumb.”

“Not everybody knows it’s your truck.”

“Oh, at this point, everybody knows.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“We’ve caused a stir. I assume you know that.”

“Unfortunately.”

Her house was homey and warm. Nice. The furniture was old, and it was . . . just very her. Lace curtains, an oval rug on the floor. It might have been a portal to another time.

It wasn’t as ruthlessly neat as his place. Probably because she didn’t have the control issues he did. It was normal.

“I’m here for the letters,” he said, ignoring the way his wallet seemed to be burning through his pocket.

“I thought we might as well go over all of it together. I haven’t . . . looked at everything.”

“So it could be a big nothing burger.”

“Yeah. It could be. But I don’t think it is. This was the first thing I found.”

She took a letter out and handed it to him.

“Right.” There it was. Plain as day. A letter from Butch Hancock to Lee Talbot. He opened it up.

Sheriff, I am prepared to give you the names and locations of the gang responsible for all the robberies up and down Oregon Territory. On the condition that I go free.

“Oh, holy shit,” he said.

“I know. I don’t have Lee’s response, obviously.”

“Right. But we can assume that he accepted.”

“I think we can assume that he accepted. And I don’t think he wanted just information, but a cut of the money. It makes me think about those mining claims too. There was something to that. And the fact that it isn’t well documented that my family filed for those claims. At least, it’s not something that’s been passed down.”

“Right. So you think basically your ancestor was on the take. All around. Getting money where and when he could while pretending to be the savior of the town.”

“That is what I think. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with trying to make money outside of your job. That he had a mining claim isn’t a problem in and of itself. But the other implications. . . .”

“Right.”

“Come and sit down.”

She ushered him into the dining room, and there in the center of a blond oak table was the shoebox. There was a small red leather book sitting in front of it.

“That’s the journal,” he guessed.

“Yes. Though I’m not sure it’s a journal in the way that Austin’s is.” She shook her head. “It’s weird to me now that he has your name.”

“Imagine how I feel.”

“Why did your father name you after him?”

“I don’t know. My dad wasn’t a terrible man, Millie, for all that he caused his fair share of trouble. For all that he wasn’t the most responsible father. I think he cared quite a bit about us. About our family.”

“I believe that,” she said.

“I think he did it as some kind of gesture. Though sometimes I wonder.... Sometimes I wonder if it’s because I’m the one who’s supposed to fix this. Hell, I must be the one who survived for a reason.”

“Because you lived longer than thirty-five?”

“Yeah. It’s kind of a thing. For the oldest Wilder.”

“Yeah, I get that.”

She handed the red book to him. And he opened it up. Mostly, it was a ledger. And it was written out in a code that he imagined was lost in the mists of time. Abbreviations and initials that he would only be able to guess at.

“Yeah. There’s definitely money stuff happening here.”

“He certainly wasn’t writing about his wife and children.”

She sounded wistful. Sad.

“I think Austin was a pretty unique case for his time. Or maybe not. What else did people have back then but writing and reading to document things. To keep a record. He wrote everything out because nobody really knew him. I like to think that his wife did.”

“I’m not sure if anybody knew Lee Talbot. This journal is coded in such a way that not even we could ever figure it out. I have to think there’s something to that. If a man doesn’t want to be known at all, there must be a reason for it.”

“Do you think?”

“Yes, I do. I think there’s probably a reason he didn’t want anyone to know him. And there’s probably a reason Austin Wilder did want someone to know. Someone, someday. He wanted us to know why he became an outlaw.”

He nodded slowly. “I do believe that’s true. I believe he wanted to keep track of his motivations, good and bad. Because he knew that there was a risk his legacy would be what it is.”

“And Lee Talbot didn’t want anyone to know there was more to him. Because the simple legend is the story he wanted told. I’m convinced of that now.”

“Well, let’s go through all this.”

They found more letters. They sat there and pored over them. It wasn’t just Butch Hancock. There were people Lee had extorted. Holding the threat of hanging over them if they didn’t give up land rights, mining claims, money.

“He was like a crime lord,” she said.

“Damn. This is . . . it’s a lot bigger than I expected.”

“Yeah. I thought maybe . . . I thought there was something to what you said, but I didn’t expect this.” She pressed her hand to her forehead. “Did my father know? My grandfather? Is that why all of this was tucked up in a shoebox, never donated to the museum, never brought out for any kind of viewing? They knew.” The look in her eyes was suddenly wild. “They knew. And they let this same old narrative play out. This tired nonsense that painted your family in a bad light and my family in a glowing one. It’s unnecessary. There’s room for the truth. There is.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I really am.”

“Why would you be? This absolves you. All of you Wilders. It proves that everyone was wrong. All this time.”

“Not really. Lee Talbot can be a bad guy, and so can Austin Wilder. It’s not really about absolution or condemnation.”

“Well, it is to me,” she said. “Because I was given a simple story all my life. And it isn’t so much that the story isn’t what I was always told, it’s that the people telling it knew it was a lie. Because that means my own father had an investment in that lie. Even a dishonest one. That means he wasn’t the man I thought he was.”

“Unless you find records indicating that your own dad engaged in illegal activities, I don’t think that’s fair. He might’ve been entrusted with protecting the family legacy, and so he did. Family is complicated.”

“Not mine,” she said.

He looked at her, and he suddenly felt endless pity.

When you were the bad guy, you knew there was more to the story. Because you knew you were a full human being. But she had been sold a bill of goods. One that oversimplified all the people around her, one that oversimplified her family in a way that made her feel like the odd one out all her life, because she believed their story was the truth. The uncomplicated, unvarnished truth. And what a load of bullshit that was.

It had made her feel she wasn’t enough. It had her trying to reach for a bar that wasn’t obtainable because nobody before her had obtained it either.

He hadn’t thought there would come a day when he would pity Millie Talbot. Right then he did.

For a split second.

Until he picked up the next letter.

If you will swear to me that you saw them commit murder, and provide a written statement, I’ll be justified in hanging the lot of them. You can go on anonymously, live a decent life. You’ll have your spoils, and I’ll have mine.

This was it. Proof of the premeditated murder of Austin, Jesse, and William. Right here in black and white. It wasn’t a vague log or coded transaction. Sheriff Talbot had asked Butch to lie. So that they would have evidence to hang the Wilders with no questions asked. So that shooting Austin in the street would be seen as a great act of bravery, and not a cowardly act of avarice.

“It was murder,” he said, putting the letter down on the table. And in that moment, he couldn’t care about Millie at all. Instead he saw red. As he looked across at a Talbot, who, even unwittingly, had been charged with keeping this false legacy alive.

“Your family were a bunch of criminals. Just criminals. No honor at all. Outlaws, at least, are supposed to keep the Code of the West. I’m not saying my family didn’t do some despicable things, but they did it to survive.”

“I don’t think in the end they were robbing banks for their survival. Austin had a beautiful house in town, and you know that.”

“Are you going to defend a murderer?”

“No. What the sheriff did is indefensible. But it doesn’t make Austin a saint just because Lee Talbot was a sinner.”

“Doesn’t it? Because that’s how it’s been for my family all these years. Automatically bad while your family was blameless. The entire town is divided into sinners and saviors. Why do you get to do away with that rigid moral code when it suits you?”

“Because I’ve never—”

“You have. You believed in it plenty. That’s why you have such a hard time believing that I read. That I write. Oh, but you don’t have a hard time kissing me, do you? Because you’re just like all the other girls, Millie, though you pretended you weren’t. Even to yourself. You still want to ride a bad boy for a night and see where it takes you.”

She was trembling, her cheeks scarlet, and he knew a moment of guilt. A moment of conscience that told him perhaps he should stop. That he was being unfair. That he was treating her poorly, because she was a victim too.

But he didn’t want to consider the complex nature of their situation. What he wanted was to just savor this moment of being justified. Of being right. He’d believed all along that the Talbots weren’t that good. That the man who had put him in handcuffs had known the whole time that the original Austin Wilder wasn’t a murderer. That the original Lee Talbot had never been a hero.

“You want me bad when it suits you. Admit it.”

“Don’t,” she said. “Don’t bring the bad blood between our families into us.”

“How can it not be? You don’t think that’s crossed my mind? Just how good it would be to have you? Knowing how much your dad would’ve hated it.”

She drew back as if he had struck her. “That’s not why I wanted you. It’s not because I have some outlaw fantasy.”

“No? Too damn bad. It probably could’ve gotten you off.”

“Why are you being so horrible to me? I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Make up your mind. I’m either innately horrible or I’m not.”

“I never said you were,” she said. “I never did. I was never your enemy.”

“No. Just everybody else in your entire bloodline. And this whole town.”

“I told you the truth. As soon as I found out, I told you the truth.”

“Well, maybe the truth isn’t going to fix anything. Maybe it’s too late for me.”

He looked at her across the table, and the need within him grew. The desire.

He had known why he’d come here the whole time. It didn’t have sweet fuck all to do with historical documents. Not really. And this anger inside him—he wasn’t even sure it had anything to do with the past.

He couldn’t quite pinpoint what was driving him now. Except that she had always been out of his reach. He knew he shouldn’t do anything with her because she was a better person than he was.

He hated that he was poisoned even against himself.

It was the kind of poison that could kill a man.

“This is a mess,” she said, her eyes shining bright.

It was. It was such a big mess, there was no easy fixing it. They were going to have to present their findings and adjust the history of the town. The entire makeup of the place. And people wouldn’t want that. They would resent it. They would resist it.

And then personally . . . he had said some things tonight that were pretty damned unforgivable. But Millie and he were still going to have to work together. Maybe.

So he decided it was time to do what he wanted.

He reached across the space between them and pulled her into his arms. “I’m going to kiss you,” he said.

“Oh?”

“Hell yeah. Because I’m an outlaw. We take what we want.”