Chapter 31
KODIAK
The wind whips by, shouts and gunfire warring behind us.
In my head, there’s my pa sayin’, “You are a blight.” Voice steady as a minister even with the whiskey. “This—our present ruin—is your doing.”
This sweet woman suffered all her life, just for me to show up and finish the job.
Should’ve done her a favor and let the fever take me.
But I did what I always do—took what I wanted, because I needed it, and damn everything else.
I needed free, so I made her complicit in my crime.
I needed coin, so I dragged her along, got her thinking up heists of her own. Now look.
Christ almighty, she’s white as a ghost.
“Stay with me!”
My lungs can’t draw enough air. My heart’s beating so fast, it’s pounding my breath clean out, and I can’t catch up. Lord above, her skirt’s more blood than cotton.
“Kodiak,” she whispers, so soft I barely catch it.
“We’re gonna get help, all right? Just stay with me.”
Goddamn it. I don’t know Galveston worth a damn. Streets twist. Signs blur.
Doctor. We need a doctor.
Docks are docks. Sailors bust bones same as outlaws, and every port keeps a surgeon close by. So I drive the mare through the port road, praying I find what I’m looking for. I lean low, heels to the mare, and follow the masts rising above rooftops.
Then I see it: big brick walls by the wharf, flag snapping above, white cross painted bold on the lintel. Marine Hospital. No mistaking it.
A wanted man, a bloodied woman, in a federal hospital.
Guards. Military men. Telegraph right there.
Might as well walk to the gallows myself.
Feeling the life draining from the only woman I ever loved, I just might.
I haul the reins, near spill off the saddle with her in my arms, and shout before my boots hit stone.
“Doctor! She’s bleedin’ out!”
Hands reach. Voices call for stretchers. I lay Alice down gentle as I can, her breath fluttering like a candle. They take her through doors smelling of carbolic and boiled linen. A surgeon in a stained coat snaps orders.
“You her kin?” he demands.
My mouth goes dry. In my heart, she’s mine. Ain’t no say in it. Stars decided long ago. But say yes, and I damn her. Say no, and they treat her like a stranger and start asking more questions.
The men we ran from saw her go down like a bloody rag. They’ll follow that trail. It’s only a matter of time now.
“No,” I blurt, then catch myself.
You are a blight. The words land like fists, blunt strikes near taking me to my knees.
Pa was always right. Maybe the clean thing to do is the one thing I never could—let go.
Tell the truth, and the house’ll move. Deputies.
Pinkertons. But she’ll be in the right hands. She’ll have a roof. She’ll be safe.
She’ll be away from me.
God help me. Even a lowlife like me knows to put a bullet in a mare with a broken leg.
Especially when it pains you. It’s a kindness, and after all she’s shown me, it’s the least I owe her.
My best days are behind me. My lamb. Waking beside a damn angel.
A sting I haven’t known in years rises to my eyes. I stuff it down.
Enough.
Things are, then they’re not. Just the way it is.
“’Fore she blacked out, she said her name’s Alice Sherman. Kidnapped a month back in Ohio. Found her near the port, brought her here. I ain’t got no coin, but there’s a reward on her, I’m sure. You’ll want to tell the sheriff.”
The surgeon’s jaw tightens. “Sherman? You’re sure?”
“Sure enough.” I spit the truth raw. “Give her every stitch and care. That’s all I’m askin’.”
The nurse and doctor study my hands. The black of blood under my nails. The stink of gunpowder rising off me.
“We’ll take it from here,” he says.
Before they take her, I take her hand—brief as a struck match. Her fingers are cold.
“You’ll be home, lamb.”
“And your name, sir?” the nurse asks.
“Ain’t got one.”
I turn to go, but two men are standing in the way.
“Sir,” says one—orderly, maybe. “We need you to come with us.”
I look back. Alice is being wheeled away quick.
Ought to run. Ought to carve freedom out of these boys. But how’s a man pray for a miracle while spilling another man’s blood? No, I think it’s time me and the man upstairs get square.
I go easy, you save her.
Forgive her for what she done for me.
Wipe the slate clean.
Give her the life she deserves.
With a nod, I make peace with it and hold up my hands. “Don’t want no trouble.”
I’ll put up my end of the bargain.
Now God better take care of His.
Once the government’s dogs got their teeth in me, Uncle Sam tipped his hat. “Well, hell. Didn’t even have to chase you far. Federal courthouse is just down the street.”
Thanked me for delivering myself to Galveston. They ain’t need to do much once the local sheriff and the Washington men quit bickering over which one of ’em would have the pleasure of tightening a noose around my neck. Trial or no, I’ve never seen a jury do more than nod toward the gallows.
It ain’t the rope that keeps me awake. It’s Alice.
Her hand on my chest, her scent—rosemary soap.
Beat the hell out of the fish and brine, filth and shit stinking up this cage by the gulf.
Gangs of men in the county jail all snarling at each other like penned dogs, rattling chains and coughing up blood.
I miss the way Alice made the world quiet.
I don’t know if she’s alive. Part of me don’t even want to, ’cause if the truth’s too dark, it’ll gut me worse than their gallows.
If she’s gone, if hell’s a lie and death is just another trail, maybe when they drop that trapdoor we’ll find each other again. But if she’s alive, well, I’ll die happy knowing it was worth it.
In the morning, it’s, “Eat up, outlaws,” and a guard slops beans into a communal tin pan, with a side of rancid meat and moldy bread.
Dine on the floor of a cell with a bent spoon, if I’m lucky.
Four of us in a cell. Being the biggest and meanest makes living a little easier, unless someone wants to make a point and I gotta put ’em in his place.
Ain’t come to blows with no one here, but I come close.
“On your perch, jailbird. Charity lawyer wants a word.”
Oh, lucky day. Judge saddled me with some penny lawyer don’t give a damn whether I swing. I stretch as the guard opens up my cell, deputy waiting to take me wherever the hell it is we’re going. I step out, holding out my wrists.
“No shackles,” guard says. “Takin’ you to an office down the hall.”
I shrug. Makes no damn difference to me where I go.
“Come on, outlaw,” deputy says and walks on, hand on his iron.
Looking at a man like that, with his government gun and uniform all picked out for ’em, makes my mouth sour.
Tall, lanky cocksucker, not an ounce of muscle on him.
Take that shiny badge away, take the gun, let us settle things like nature intended.
Wouldn’t last two minutes with me ’fore I knocked his head clean off his shoulders.
Now he leads me down the hall, all puffed up ’cause the law deputized him important. He opens up a door to a small office, stacks of files piled up high. Smell of coffee makes my stomach tug. Alice brewed a fine cup.
Don’t make no sense how fast that thought tries to choke me where I stand. Blight, I am, poisoned the purest thing I’d ever known. Now I got some pole-thin penny lawyer standing at attention, ascot round his neck, hair slicked back with silver streaks at the sides.
“Mr. Randolph,” he says, extending a hand. I look at it and back at him like I’d sooner wipe my ass with a cactus than shake his hand. He draws it back, swallowing hard. “Right. Please have a seat.”
He pulls out my chair like he’s courting me and skitters around to the other side. If I had a chance in the dark of getting free, I’d watch it burst into flames in this bastard’s hands.
He sits, clearing his throat. There’s a stack of papers on the table in front of him, and he looks ’em over.
“Mr. Randolph, my name is Henry Wallace, Esquire. The court has appointed me to aid in your defense, as is your right,” he says.
“You’ve been accused of one count of kidnapping and carrying away of a citizen across state lines against her will.
Five counts of murder in the first degree.
” He flips a page. “One count of train robbery, said robbery being committed against the mail and passengers in transit. One count of willfully derailing a train. Destruction of railroad property. Horse theft, arson, and escape from lawful custody.”
He pauses to take a breath, then clicks his tongue.
“Assault upon a law officer, and two charges of attempted murder on survivors. That’s the whole bill, as the grand jury handed it down.”
“Guilty as charged,” I say.
He nods like I just told him I was born on the moon.
None of this matters a lick to me, so I ask the only thing worth knowing. “Alice. You know if she’s all right?”
He blinks, pen frozen. “I’m sorry… Alice?”
“Alice.” I lean forward, wrists on the table.
He flips through his papers for a clue. “I don’t believe I’m familiar with anyone by that name.”
The room shrinks. For a second I don’t hear the jail, don’t smell the coffee, don’t see his stupid ascot. Just the sound of my knuckles cracking.
“She’s the woman you’re saying I kidnapped,” I growl.
“Sir, I-I’m just your attorney. I have no knowledge of—”
My chair scrapes back, hands curl on the edge of the table. One hard move, and the law would have a reason to make this hanging quicker.
“Mr. Randolph,” he says, voice high now, “I’m only here to—”
I shut my eyes, counting slow.