Chapter 37 #2
She smiles. “I reckon you already did, just by walkin’.”
Before I go, she hands me a warm biscuit rolled in a cloth.
“For the road,” she says.
Outside, the air smells of wet pine and rain. I walk on, the road narrow and the money burning a hole against my chest. A proper man would buy a ticket, catch the next north-bound and be halfway to Meridian by nightfall. But a proper man’s face don’t hang in post offices and train depots.
I keep to the back roads till I find what I need—a horse trader’s pen just outside town, men loading wagons with corn and salt. The trader’s a fat fella with a cigarette on his lip.
“Fine animal,” I say, leaning on the fence. I nod toward the smallest of the bunch, a black mare with a kind eye and a limp in one leg. “That one looks sound enough for the road.”
“She’s slow.”
“So am I.”
He squints at me, measuring coat and gloves against the dust on my boots. “Three dollars.”
“Two,” I say, spreading the bills out so he can see that’s all there is. He stares, then spits into the dirt and takes them anyway.
“Bridle’s extra,” he says.
“I’ll make do.”
I lead her out by the rope and walk until the town falls behind and the road opens wide. The mare’s gait is uneven but steady. I call her Birdie.
By afternoon, the pines thin to fields, and every mile I put between me and the Gulf feels like penance. That night, I camp under an oak, eat the last of Mrs. Poole’s biscuit and think of her standing in that kitchen, flour on her apron, believing every word I said.
It’s a clear night and the stars come out. Ain’t never looked up the same since I met Alice. Wonder if she’s somewhere looking up too, mapping out the constellations. Three stars low in the east, just clear of the horizon. The hunter chasing north like he always does.
She’d name Orion’s belt, and I’d say something stupid like, yeah, but where’s his suspenders? She’d laugh, that real one that starts in her chest and bubbles up bright. The thought of that sweet sound puts a smile on my face.
“I’m comin’, Alice. Just a little slower than I’d like.”
Sleep don’t hold me long. The wind changes sometime near dawn. Carries a smell I don’t trust. Woodsmoke, faint but wrong for this stretch of empty land. I sit up, listen. Nothing but the steady rasp of Birdie’s breath and the whisper of leaves overhead.
When daylight comes, the fog’s burned off and the world’s clear again. Birdie limps worse. I walk beside her for a spell, my boots stirring dust that hangs low in the sun.
By midday, she’s sweating hard, each step a labor. I stop by a creek to let her drink. She lowers her head, water shivering round her muzzle, but she don’t take much. I reckon she knows what I don’t want to say out loud.
“Don’t quit on me yet, girl.”
I let her rest a while, then climb back up.
The land starts to roll gentle northward, fields turning to pine hills. The air grows cooler, sweeter. I almost let myself believe we’ll make Meridian by week’s end. Then the sound comes—faint, like thunder.
But it ain’t thunder.
Hoofbeats.
Dust rising on the eastern road, just a flurry at first. Then shapes. Riders.
Three of ’em, maybe four.
My gut goes cold. Birdie feels it too, her ears flicking back, muscles tensing under me. I press my hand to her neck. “One more run, girl. That’s all I ask.”
We lurch into motion. Wind bites at my face, coat tails snapping behind. The road north twists through woods. If we can reach the bridge by nightfall, maybe we stand a chance.
Behind us, the riders fan out, silhouettes dark against the glare. No lawman’s shouts, no gunfire yet. Just pursuit. Cold and patient.
Thirty miles north, the road narrows to a ravine where roots crawl like rope ladders down the slope. The creek below flashes white through the brush. I risk a glance back, dust cloud swelling, riders closing the gap.
“Come on, girl,” I whisper, nudging her forward. She stumbles once, catches herself, then pushes on.
By the time we hit the far bank, I can hear the jangle of tack behind us, the hollow clatter of shod hooves on rock. Birdie’s limp worsens. I feel the tremor roll through her muscles. I pull her up short in a thicket of sweetgum, slide off her before she can fall.
She’s shaking as I press my forehead to her neck.
“You done good, Birdie. You done real good.”
The riders’ voices come faint through the trees—one calls orders, the others answer.
Birdie stands a moment longer, head low, then eases herself down with a sigh that breaks something clean inside me. I reach out, touch the warm velvet of her nose. “Rest easy, girl.”
Then I run.
Not sure where, I just move. Branches claw at my coat, roots twist underfoot, shadows swallowing me with every step. My lungs burn, stitch flaring in my side.
Behind me, hooves crunch through the forest floor. I veer off the trail, tumble down a shallow embankment, and crawl beneath a thicket, the earth damp, pine needles sticking to my face.
Silence. Just the sound of me sucking in air and my heart beating in my ears.
They pass close—so close, I hear their horses panting. Then a pause. Something not right. One of the horses shifts, snorts.
“He’s close.”
Bootsteps. Too many.
I make a move, but before I’m upright, a hand grabs my ankle. I lash out, wild, catch a cheekbone or a jaw, but a second man slams me down. Knee in my back, arms twisted till I see stars.
“Easy now,” says a third. “Ain’t no use getting broke before Sherman sees him.”
Sherman.
Son of a bitch.
I stop fighting. The cold numb settles in slow.
They haul me to my feet. One wipes his split lip with the back of a glove, grinning at me through blood. Another rifles through my coat, comes up empty.
“Thought you’d make it farther,” he says. “For a train robber, you sure ain’t got much sense.”
They laugh.
“You’re out here riskin’ your neck for daddy Virgil?” I mock. “Wonder how else he puts that neck to use, you cocksuck—”
Before I can finish, a fist to my cheek shuts me up, blood surging in my mouth.
“That’ll do,” says the third man, voice flat. “Bring him in alive.”