Outlawed(28)

From behind the wagon I stole a glance at the pair. Both had their hands up. The driver was frozen to the spot. But the older man, the guard, was angry and antic, shifting from foot to foot, kicking the dirt.

“How do you live with yourselves,” he asked, looking at the Kid and me, “stealing from honest Christians who never did a thing to you? You’re filthy parasites is what you are.”

Elzy and the Kid did not seem to react. I couldn’t read their eyes. In the back of the wagon were burlap bags, neatly stacked and labeled in blue ink with the name of a ranch, the N Bar G. Each was so heavy I could barely lift it. I began loading up the horses.

“He has children, you know,” the guard said, pointing to the driver. “Two little boys and a girl, three, five, and nine. You want to explain to them why their daddy didn’t get paid this month? Why he lost his job?”

“Easy,” said the driver.

The guard ignored him. He took a step closer to Elzy and the Kid. Sweat sprouted under my arms. The guard did not seem afraid of them, and I did not know what he would do. My job was to handle the gold and silver, nothing more—the Kid had been clear on that point. But the Kid had not told me what to do if the others were in danger. I tried to listen to my gut, but my gut had no training for such a situation, and was silent.

“If your mothers could see you right now, I bet they’d weep from shame,” the guard said. “I bet they’d curse the day they birthed you.”

“Come on, easy,” the driver said, pleading now. Something was between them, something that gave the guard all the power.

I had given two of the horses all they could carry and was working on Amity. The guard took another step toward Elzy. The Kid stood perfectly still, watching. My heart was pounding, my mouth was tinder-dry.

“Stay back,” Elzy said.

The guard laughed.

“Stay back,” he said in a high and mocking voice. “Or what? You’ll shoot me, gelding? That I’d like to see.”

“Don’t test us, old man,” the Kid said. I thought the Kid looked at me then, but I wasn’t sure.

“Two geldings,” the guard said. “I’m pissing in my pants! I’m shivering in my shoes!”

The guard was just a few yards from Elzy now. I was not a fast shot. If he rushed her now, he might be able to get her gun before I could aim and fire. If only I’d had another day, I kept thinking—another day or two of training with Lo, then I would understand what to do now, whether to stand silent and calm or shout back or fire my gun right into the old man’s back and end the standoff now.

I did none of those things.

“Back up,” I said. Even I heard the fear in my voice.

The guard wheeled around to look at me. I panicked. I squeezed the trigger and shot him in the thigh.

What happened next happened fast, but I’ve played it so many times in my mind that the memory is slow, like dancing. The driver reached into his boot and drew a six-shooter none of us had seen. He fired a single shot. Then Elzy shot him square in the chest. I saw his face as he fell: pure shock, he could not believe his life would end this way. The guard howled, a high chilling cry like storm wind, I will never forget it. He crouched over the driver. Their two heads pressed together, I saw now—perhaps had seen before—that they were father and son. We mounted the horses. We rode.

We were less than a mile away when Elzy began to list in the saddle.

“I’m fine,” she told the Kid, but when my horse came up close to hers I saw the dark blood leaking down her sleeve.

She was limp as a doll as we lifted her onto the Kid’s horse, and the Kid had to hold her upright all the way back to Hole in the Wall.

It was long past midnight when we got back, but the sound of the horses roused the others. The moon was bright and full and I could see their faces as they came out of the bunkhouse: News and Lo and Texas and Agnes Rose, all happy and hopeful and then afraid. Cassie came out last of all. News had helped the Kid lift Elzy down from the horse; Cassie went straight to her and pressed her forehead to Elzy’s forehead, whispered something I couldn’t hear. Then, to me, “What did you do?”

I couldn’t even bring myself to say I was sorry, it seemed so worthless. Cassie turned to the Kid.

“I told you this would happen. You take in strays, and now—”

Elzy’s knees gave out. News tried to hold her up but her head flopped forward, her whole body limp. Blood dripped from her sleeve into the dirt.

I thought of the worst wound I’d seen with Mama, a gash in Luella Mason’s left thigh ten inches long, where a saw had slipped and bitten into her flesh. I remembered all the supplies I’d gathered from Mama’s storeroom then, how I’d packed them carefully so the bottles didn’t break.

“We need some iodine,” I said, “and at least three feet of thin, clean cotton. And some tweezers, for the bullet.”

“We don’t have iodine,” Texas said. “And we definitely don’t have tweezers.”

“Whiskey then, or whatever strong drink you have, and clean water, and something to mix them in, and the smallest knife you have.”

Texas and Lo went to gather what I’d asked for. News and I carried Elzy into the bunkhouse; Cassie and the Kid followed behind. For a moment everyone followed my lead, and even I forgot that it was my fault that Elzy was hurt and the wagon driver was dead. The moment lasted until I unbuttoned Elzy’s shirt and saw the wound in her bicep, small but raw and welling black blood at the center.