Chapter 11
ALICE
We ride. The carriage, a Mylord commandeered from one of the Astral Society guests, is led by two Clydesdales—one bay, and one roan with white blaze and legs.
They slow their pace once we’ve left the town behind.
I take shelter from the sun under the open carriage’s black leather hood as a passenger, while Kodiak drives up front.
Wheels clatter over stone, hooves pounding a steady rhythm that carries us away from everything I’ve ever known.
Kodiak doesn’t speak much, only says we’re headed south.
But when dusk fades and the sky clears, the stars tell me otherwise. I know them like old friends—the Dipper, the North Star, the tilted line of Cassiopeia. They show me what he does not say, what perhaps he doesn’t even know.
Not south. Southwest.
I am not sure why we’ve traveled in this direction, but I had no reason to ask.
We’ve already gone further than I’d ever dreamed.
We ride through the night until dawn bleeds across the horizon.
And the further we go, the stranger it feels to be untethered.
Back at the inn, my tasks had been marked out like minutes on a clock.
Routine so ingrained, I scarcely had to think to carry it out.
But here, inside this rattling carriage, nothing holds me. Only the sky above, wide as eternity. The rush of wind, the groan of a leather harness, the smell of horseflesh and sweat. A world of earth and animals and stars. I don’t know who I am without the chains of my old life.
At last, we stop beside a creek fringed with cottonwoods. “Trees’ll give us cover,” he says, his voice rough from hours of silence. Kodiak bends to inspect the horses’ hooves, then leads them to water.
It’s been a day since our last proper meal. I rummage through the rations, preparing a pot over a fire. It’s less than ideal. Nothing fresh. But it will fill our bellies, and for a time, the work helps me forget my listlessness.
When he returns, he gives the small camp I’ve made a quick once-over. He squats by the fire, peering into the pot. The summer sun sets behind him, painting the sky in pink and gold. “I’da chewed jerky and called it a meal. You make it feel damn near civilized.”
“It’s the least I can do,” I say. “I only wish I had more to give.”
He watches the pot a second, steam curling up into his face as he tips his chin with approval. “You’ve given plenty. I’d be dangling from a rope by now if not for your kindness.” His mouth crooks. “Hell, I’d be dinin’ with the devil hisself.”
The ease with which he speaks of damnation chills me. I stir the beans, though they don’t need it. “You’ve resigned yourself to such a fate?”
“I ain’t resigned to nothin’.” He flicks a twig into the fire, sparks jump. “I only know what I done, and what’s waitin’ for me past the grave. None of it pretty. But if that’s the price for livin’ honest, then that’s the price.”
I huff a breath I didn’t mean to. “I’ve never heard a man call robbing and brawling an honest life before.”
He gives a short laugh. “What’s more honest than takin’ what you need? Lookin’ a man square in the eye and givin’ him the choice—his life or his coin? I never lied about who I was.”
Silence gathers with the dusk. Crickets start up along the creek.
“William Archer?” I ask at last.
“Ah,” he says, with a slow nod. “You do have me there. Though what’s a man’s name worth, anyhow?
Call me Arch, call me Kodiak—don’t change the color of my blood.
” He rests back in the grass, tilting his hat forward to shade his face.
“Man ought to be known by his deeds, not the word somebody pinned on him.” He stirs the fire with a stick, sparks leaping.
The pot bubbles, and I dish the beans and salt pork into tin bowls.
He takes his portion with both hands, studying it a moment. “Same goes for a woman. Your deeds never cease to amaze.”
Heat rises to my cheeks. “It’s only beans and pork.”
His hand shoots out sudden, quick as a pistol draw, catching a firm grip on my wrist. His voice lowers, serious. “It’s kindness. And you ain’t owed it to the likes of me. So you won’t make it small, you understand?”
I swallow hard.
Loosening his grip, his thumb brushes softly against my skin before drawing back.
“Not long as I’m here to say different.” Sitting back in the grass again, he takes an eager spoonful into his mouth, bowl an inch beneath his chin.
“Mmm,” he says, touching two fingers to the wide, flat brim of his hat.
“You doctored this up, ain’t you? Seasonin’ and such? ”
I laugh, picturing the bare-bones fare he must live on alone. A fearsome outlaw who can scarcely boil an egg. “I had no spices to spare, but I brought a small jar of molasses.”
“Mercy, woman,” he says, with a grin.
A passing compliment, but I’m buoyant. Flying too high. I mustn’t forget he’s a criminal. An outlaw. A man not to be fully trusted.
We eat in silence, save for the hiss of insects, the rustle of wind in the trees.
It grows dark. Tilting his bowl back against his mouth, he takes a final sip, then wipes his forearm across his mouth.
I take the empty bowl from him, his hazel eyes fixed on me.
The air feels thicker, charged. I busy myself with the bowls, stacking tin and scraping them clean.
But my mind stays busy, the silence between us growing too much to bear.
“Do you usually travel with others?” I ask. “A band of outlaws?”
That earns a bark of laughter. He turns his head, teeth flashing in the dim.
“Gangs? Hell no. Packs of squabblin’ fools, cuttin’ shares, takin’ orders.
Curlin’ up around a fire together whisperin’ stories like a buncha sissies.
I’ve always gone alone.” He pauses, chest lifting on a quiet breath, as if replaying the last week that changed everything. “Till now.”
The kettle’s warm with water, and I pour some into the pot to keep the sauce from sticking. “Why me?”
He shrugs. “Don’t know. Somethin’ in you. Felt like fate, I reckon.”
The word fate strikes deep. I’ve wondered too, though I dare not name it.
If destiny is designed by God, then how could salvation find me through a man like Kodiak?
“I don’t even know right from wrong anymore,” I confess.
I scour the pot with a rag. “Everything I prayed for is falling into place. Freedom. Escape. But you…” My throat tightens. “You’re a sinner. You admit it freely.”
“Ain’t we all?”
I set the cleaned pot upside down beside the fire, brushing water from my hands. “Yes. But you commit mortal sins. Murder.”
He doesn’t flinch. Reaching into his pocket, he retrieves Joseph’s tobacco pouch and sets a book of cigarette papers on his thigh. “I’ve killed. I don’t make light of it. But most times it was them or me, and I aim to keep breath in my lungs. Don’t mean I sleep easy after…least not at first.”
As he rolls his cigarette, I rest on the soft earth beside him, blanket in hand. It’s cool out, and I drape the wool cover over my shoulders. “So you’ve no code? No rules to guide you?”
He huffs, shaking his head as he licks the cigarette shut.
“A code? No, sugarplum. I go with what feels right. And sometimes what feels right is ugly. Done cruel things. Been a real evil son of a bitch. Kindest thing I do for most folks is keep my shadow off ’em.
But you—” His voice softens and he lets out a weary sigh.
“I’d never have walked out of that place empty-handed.
I’d have emptied the safe, robbed every last one of your lodgers blind.
But you defended ’em like they were your own.
And you tended me when I was half dead. Somethin’ pure about you.
And, well, you seemed to want out of there, and I’m a man of my word so… ”
He trails off, letting the last few days speak for themselves. Could it be he believes I make him better? I turn to face him, my fingers twisting in the blanket. “I thought you might abandon me on the trail.”
He’s hooked his knife into the fire, and he fishes out a glowing ember, then kisses it to the cigarette, lit red.
His expression shifts, shadowed and veiled in tendrils of smoke.
“Alice,” he says, as if it troubles him, “I gave you my word I’d take you.
Truth is, that word ain’t safe to keep. Men like me draw lead, and lead don’t mind who it passes through. ”
“I am certainly safer traveling with you than I would be alone.”
He holds up his hand in warning. “Best not say safe out loud ’round me.” The fire cracks and he brings the cigarette to his lips, drawing hard. “Attracts bad weather,” he says, words mixed with smoke as he exhales.
The stars are in their familiar places. All the preparation, the setting aside of coin and tinned rations—would I have had the nerve to venture out alone?
All I needed was a pistol. Yet, Gideon easily provided one.
They were not hard to come by if I’d ever truly put my mind to it.
Perhaps it is time to fortify myself. If he leaves me, I cannot languish.
“I suppose I would find a way to manage if I must continue alone.”
“I ain’t gettin’ rid of ya. I just can’t make no promises. Ain’t my nature. But for now?” He leans closer, elbows on his knees, the stars and fire alive in his eyes. “For now, I ain’t goin’ nowhere without you.”
For now doesn’t offer me much confidence. The stars twinkle above us, and perhaps I ought to pray for guidance. But no prayer comes, only the thrum of his words in my chest and the ghosts of what I’ve done.
As night stretches on, the subject of sleeping arrangements can no longer be ignored. There’s but one tent. One bedroll. The carriage is an option, I suppose, though it doesn’t offer much shelter unless one sleeps beneath it. The prospect is rather unpleasant.
I clear my throat. “I’ve readied a tent.”
“See that.”