“Kodiak,” I breathe, barely a whisper.
His arm tightens, crushing me close, his voice breaking rough as I’ve never heard. “Don’t you dare leave me, lamb. Don’t you?—”
But I’m already plummeting, sinking into the dark. Away from his voice, his heat, the charge of hooves. The last thing I feel is his grip, fierce and steadfast, the last sound his roar—half prayer, half curse.
Consumed by endless black.
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.
