Chapter 32
Jem sat with his back against the post and let his anger fester as he relived his earlier conversation with Ransom over and over. His cheek still hurt from where he’d been slapped. As much as he hated Ransom, cooperating seemed like the best idea.
He thought about Theda's voice. Stand up for it. Whatever it costs.
He began to assess the camp.
Four men on watch, rotating in a pattern he'd clocked within the first hour. Jem watched them. Ransom had a particular way of teaching his men, of making sure they followed specific protocols.
Those habits had weaknesses. The horses were picketed at the far edge, shifting quietly in the dark. Ransom's tent sat at the center of the camp, the flap closed. Two fires burned low. The men not on watch were sleeping in their bedrolls, spread out.
It was not a careless setup. Jem shifted his weight against the ground.
His fingers moved through the dirt slowly. His knuckles grazed something small and hard, half buried. He pressed his fingers around it carefully.
A nail. Old, by the feel of it. Bent at one end. He closed his fist around it and went still as the watch passed.
He began to work.
The rope was a good rope, tight and well-knotted. Zachary had tied it, which meant he hadn't spared the tightness at all. But rope had give if you had time and patience. Jem had both.
Ransom taught him patience. Sit still longer than the other man. Outlast the discomfort. Let the situation develop before you force it. Jem had listened, all those years, absorbing the lessons.
The irony of it sat in his chest alongside the anger and the cold.
His ribs ached with every movement. His hands had gone mostly numb from the rope an hour in, which made the work slower and less precise, but he kept going. He worked through the pain. The watch rotated. He went flat and still. The night was mostly gone. It would be morning in a few hours.
The camp breathed around him. A man coughed somewhere near the far fire. One of the horses stamped and settled. The wind came through the pass in long, cold sweeps that covered small sounds, which was useful.
He thought about Theda tied to a tree on the other side of the camp.
He didn't let himself think about it for long. He brought himself back to the nail, to the rope, to the gap between the watch rotations.
One thing at a time.
The rope loosened by degrees. Slowly, then a little faster as the give increased. He kept the tension deliberate.
Somewhere in the hours before dawn, the last of it came free. For a moment, he didn't believe it until he had his hands free in front of him.
He didn't move immediately. He lay still with his hands loose in his lap and watched the watch rotation complete its circuit one more time.
Then he moved.
Flat across the ground where the firelight didn't reach, using the shadows between the sleeping men, stopping when he needed to stop, moving when he knew he had exactly long enough. Ransom had trained these men, and Jem knew Ransom's methods. Every gap was where he expected it.
He reached the tree.
Theda was awake. He saw it in the way she was sitting, too upright for sleep, her chin lifted slightly. When he came around the base of the tree, she turned her head and saw him, and her mouth opened.
He pressed two fingers to his lips.
She closed it.
He crouched beside her, his numb hands already moving to the rope at her wrists and found the knot Zachary had tied. Tighter than his own had been. He worked the nail into it carefully, slowly, watching her face for the moments when he was pulling the wrong direction.
Her eyes caught his, full of so many questions. There was so much hope in her gaze.
Her eyes moved over the cut on his jaw, the bruising starting to show along his cheekbone, the way he was holding his left side even while his hands worked. He could see her cataloguing it the way she catalogued everything.
He almost smiled.
The knot gave and at last, the rope fell away. She looked back at him with those steady green eyes and didn't say a word. She was the bravest person he had ever known.
He leaned close to her ear.
“Can you walk?” He pulled in a deep breath, reminding himself she was still safe. He was willing to risk being miserable, and on the run to keep her safe.
She was right, there was a better way, where he wouldn’t have to hurt people who he’d come to care about. But the risk was great. He had to keep her safe, no matter what or it was all for nothing.
She nodded.
He took her hand.
They moved low and slow along the tree line, using the wind as cover, staying wide of the firelight.
Jem kept his body between her and the camp, his eyes on the watch rotation, timing each movement the way he'd timed his own escape.
She followed without a sound. Her hand was cold in his, and she gripped back hard, and he felt every second of it.
The trees swallowed them.
He kept moving, pulling her deeper into the dark, his ribs counting every step, his breath careful and controlled. She matched him stride for stride. He could hear her breathing, fast but steady, the breathing of someone frightened who has decided not to let it stop them.
Ten minutes in, he stopped.
They stood in the dark between the trees, the camp behind them, the only light a thin grey suggestion at the far edge of the sky. Dawn was coming. He could feel it in the temperature, in the quality of the silence.
He turned to face her.
His hand came up and found her cheek, his thumb brushing along the line of it, and he looked at her the way he'd been stopping himself from looking at her for weeks.
She searched his face in the dark. “Why are we stopping?”
He didn't answer immediately. He looked at her eyes.
Will I ever see them again?
He wanted to savor the moment, to know that it would come back to him.
“It'll be dawn soon,” he said quietly. “There isn't time for both of us.”
“Jem…” She shook her head frantically.
“Listen to me.” His voice stayed low and even. “I have to go back. Create enough chaos that you have a real chance of getting away. If I'm with you, they find us both within the hour.” He held her gaze. “If I go back, you have time.”
“No.” She shook her head. “No, there has to be…”
“You told me to find another way.” His thumb moved along her cheekbone. “This is it.”
She pressed her lips together. Her eyes were bright with tears.
He pulled in a slow breath.
“I need to say something before I go.” He kept his hand where it was.
“You taught me what it felt like to fall in love.
I didn't know what that was before you.” He drew in a breath, hating how much it hurt him to hurt her by leaving her, saying goodbye to her.
His voice dropped lower. “You brought me back to God.
I don't know if you know that. Sitting with Jessup, listening to your brother, watching the way you moved through the world like it was worth caring for.
It got inside me somewhere, and it didn't leave.” He looked at her steadily.
“This is my way of setting things right.
Whatever I've done, whatever I was. This is what I can give.”
She made a sound low in her throat.
“Get to Phineas,” he said. “Tell him to ride to the army base and don't stop. The wagon train has to keep moving. If they can get there before Ransom regroups…”
“Will you be there?” Her voice broke. “At the army base. Will you find me there?”
He thought about lying. The lie was right there, clean and kind, the easiest thing he'd ever been asked to do. But he couldn’t assure her, not like that. It would only hurt her more later.
“If I can,” he said. “I'll be there.” His hand curved around her jaw.
“The only future I can imagine that's worth anything is one where I know you're safe.
Where maybe I get to see you again, even if it's only for a little while.” He searched her face.
“That's what I'm going back for. Not the diamonds, not Ransom, not any of it.
Just the chance that there might be something on the other side of this that's worth getting to.”
Tears tracked down her face in the dark, and he felt each one against his thumb where his hand still rested.
He leaned in and kissed her.
Slow and certain, both hands on her face now, memorizing the weight of it, the warmth of it, the way she leaned into him like she was trying to close the distance between them. He wished he could stay there forever.
He pulled back.
She shook her head. Small and desperate, her hands still gripping his shirt, her eyes closed.
He gently uncurled her fingers.
“Go,” he said. “Don't stop.”
She looked like she wanted to say something else, but instead, she turned and ran. He waited until he could no longer see or hear her, before he headed back toward camp. He reached the horses before the sky had changed color.
The picket line was long, the animals close together, shifting in the cold. He moved along it slowly, one hand trailing against their necks, keeping them calm, the way he'd watched Theda calm frightened things.
He found a flat rock and sat down behind the nearest horse and waited. The camp was still. The watch rotated twice. The grey at the edge of the sky began to separate itself from the dark, just barely. Jem was almost holding his breath.
It had been closer to an hour since Theda had left. The watch hadn't looked in her direction; they were so focused on their normal routine. But once the light of day lit up the place she'd been…he couldn't wait till the sun was fully up. Hopefully, the hour head start she'd gotten would be enough.
He stood.
He started at the far end of the line and worked back, cutting each rope with the bent nail and the knife he'd lifted from the sleeping man near the fire on his way through.
Quick and clean, one animal at a time. When he'd cut the last one, he put both hands on the flank of the nearest horse and shoved hard while slapping the rump of the one beside it.
They took off.
The first two horses startled the third, and the third startled the rest, and within seconds the picket line was empty, and the sound of it filled the whole pass, hooves on frozen ground, the high noise of animals in motion, and every head in the camp came up at once.
Jem was already moving.
He came through the confusion low and fast, using the sound as cover, the way the wind had covered him in the trees.
The first guard had his back to camp, watching the horses scatter into the dark.
Jem caught him by the collar and drove his head into the wagon frame beside him, controlled and deliberate, and eased him down.
Not dead. Breathing. Ransom always hated that he wouldn’t kill. There were times he’d considered it, and protecting Theda would have been a worthy cause, but he was determined to stick to his morals.
He moved to the next.
It was different from before. He noticed that, somewhere in the back of his mind, even while his body was doing the work.
He wasn't moving with rage or desperation.
He was moving with particular clarity. Each guard he put down, he put down carefully, finding the position that wouldn't do permanent damage.
He was done with the old way of solving problems.
Third guard. Fourth. The camp was fully awake now, men on their feet, voices cutting through the noise, nobody sure yet which direction to look.
He was nearly through camp.
He heard the tent flap. He’d taken care of half their best men. They’d be out for hours, chasing after Theda would be hard for them.
Ransom came out of his tent scanning the camp. Their eyes met across the chaos and the dim dawn.
Ransom went still for a second.
Then he came toward Jem, as if he didn't even have to ask what was going on. “She's gone.” Zachary's voice came from the far tree, urgent and rising. “Calloway's sister. She's gone.”
Ransom didn't break stride. He crossed the camp toward Jem with his jaw set and his eyes cold, and Jem stood where he was and let him come.
“Did you really think she'd get away?” Ransom stopped in front of him, breathing hard from the walk, his voice quiet. “Did you really think that would work?”
Jem looked at him.
“I don't know what I was thinking,” he said. “But I'm done. I'm done letting you run my life, Ransom. I'm done looking the other way and telling myself it doesn't count.” He held his brother's gaze. “That's all.”
Ransom hit him with his fist, the way he'd always settled things between them when it was personal. Jem's head snapped back.
He didn't raise his hands.
He turned his face back and took the next one, keeping his feet under him, keeping his body angled away from the direction Theda had gone.
That was the only thing that mattered now.
Keep Ransom's attention there, on him, on this.
Every second Ransom spent hitting him was a second Theda was moving through the trees.
The third blow took his legs out.
He hit the ground hard, one hand catching the dirt, and stayed there. His ribs were past the point of registering as separate pain; everything below his chest was a single long ache. The cold ground pressed against his cheek.
He thought about her face in the dark between the trees.
He thought about her hands uncurling from his shirt.
He closed his eyes and breathed and thought that if this was as far as he got, if this was the end of it, at least she was moving. At least she was out there somewhere in the sunrise, getting further away with every second he stayed down.