Chapter 25
KODIAK
She thought she loved an outlaw till she saw what an outlaw was really about. It’s the only explanation I have for the silence. The distance. Truth is, I feel a fool. Shoulda known better than to believe a soft, pious thing like her wouldn’t be horrified by the likes of me.
Hope is a rope to hang yourself, and I’m long gone.
She don’t say a word while I tend the mess I made—just curls up in bed crying while I drag the poor bastard to the washroom. Not worth the trouble of hauling his bones out, stirring a ruckus, drawing more attention. Best we leave him for the law to find.
“Come on,” I say. “Get dressed. We’re goin’ now.”
Wash water runs red. I scrub, slip back into my gentleman’s suit, and scrawl a note.
PRINSESS IS DED.
Figure it’ll throw them off. Buy us time, hunting assassins from a kingdom don’t exist. Poor desk clerk casualty of a war that never was.
I shoulder the bag, coat heavy with gains, and creep down the stairwell, Alice trailing behind like she wants us both to hang.
Can’t even hiss at her—the whole place echoes—so I stand at the bottom, watching her drift down like a ghost.
Horse and carriage wait in the alley, but my gut says no.
My gut ain’t been wrong yet. Sun’s hid but rising soon.
We need distance, and Alice’s warning rattles me: only so many roads out of New Orleans.
Sherman’s men will be watching them all, sure as the vault was robbed.
Virgil will see the wire by afternoon and know it was me.
I almost laugh thinking on his face. But we got to vanish, not trot the open country in a carriage they might have seen.
Then the answer comes—a screech and a bellow, like a cow caught in a church organ. Lanterns glow yonder at the wharf. A ship.
That’s it.
“Don’t go nowhere,” I say, dropping our haul at her feet. “I’ll be right back.”
She don’t look, just folds her arms. I got no time for pouting. This was her idea anyhow, and I’m the one keeping us alive. Had she not come down half-naked, maybe the bastard wouldn’t of thought he’d be getting lucky.
I run back up, grabbing luggage, dumping stones out on the floor.
Patting Byron’s pockets, I find a pocket watch, a chewed pencil, and a few coins.
I take them and head back down. Alice stands in the street looking hollow, arms crossed, treasure at her feet.
Ain’t no one around ’cept gulls and a roaming cat.
I split the haul between two bags, cinch them tight.
“Come on,” I call.
She don’t answer. Just follows, broke inside.
Seems she liked a taste of danger, a rough word, a hand on a pistol.
But blood’s too ugly. Too real. Naive little thing.
Don’t know nothing ’bout honor—the only thing worth a damn to an outlaw.
She don’t see how that boy crossed every line ’cept spitting in my face.
Out here, the weak don’t last. A man who don’t demand respect won’t never know peace, won’t never hold nothing safe, ’less he’s willing to die for it.
“Look alive, Alice,” I say, quickening pace toward the wharf, half a mile south. Dawn paints the sky. In the faint light, the gangplank shows, crew working at the landing.
We pass a shed with a placard:
MORGAN LINE — GALVESTON, SABINE, AND INTERMEDIATE PORTS
Texas.
At the gangway, a purser waits with a ledger open. “Name for the book?”
“Byron,” I say. “William Byron, and my wife, Mary.”
“Saloon or bunk? Bunk’s cheaper. Meals with saloon only.”
“Saloon,” I say, counting my coins. “Private.” I pull a double eagle and lay it down.
The purser bites it. My jaw tightens. “I look like a cheat to you?”
He glances at the dented rim. “Company policy,” he says, tearing a ticket, scrawling the dead man’s name, handing me the stub. “Steward’ll show you. Mind the step.”
I pocket the ticket and step aboard.