I untied my canvas and bundle of dry firewood, my fingers stiff and frozen, gloves clumpy with ice. A fire could bring the criminals right to us—but we needed flame, or we’d freeze. Above, the tree branches crackled like ominous chimes. Beyond, the sky was a weak and quiet slate blue, and underfoot the ground shivered, the earth buried somewhere below the layers of frost.
Chapter Thirty-Six
We’d burnt through our dry firewood a while ago and now fed the blaze damp kindling we’d warmed beside the fire. Smoke steamed from the logs and seared my eyes, but the blaze kept on. Beyond our haven, the world clattered and whirred. The chime of icicles, the groan of the storm, the forest the hues of ink and ghosts. It was peaceful, the whisk of cold draughts, the press of warm fire.
Beside me on a log, Stot whittled, his knife scraping a sliver of hickory sapwood.
“So, the Lawman?”
Stot rubbed his brow, dagger blade flashing in the firelight. “What?”
“I understand the summer name the Lawman, you being a sheriff and all, but—” I waved my hand, thinking perhaps he’d answer, in the sleepy, dreamlike atmosphere of the storm, like perhaps these intransient moments didn’t quite count.
“How’d I get an alias to begin with?” His boots scraped toward the fire. “I spiraled for a few years, seeking revenge against the Dalton Gang, executed several of them, and folks began murmuring tales round fires.”
I flexed my toes, frozen in my boots. “So you weren’t ever an actual outlaw?”
He grinned, and lightning slid the length of my spine. “Well, I did ramble about with their rivals a bit, the Dunn Brothers and Belle Starr.”His blade rasped down his twig; breezes rattled the icicles above. “I lost myself. Lost my control, my need for order, my desire for goodness,” he said. “Robbed some banks, transported liquor round the outlet.” He straightened his collar beneath his ammunition bandolier. “But mostly I just came up with plans for Belle and the Dunn Brothers. I’m not wanted for those crimes, though, just rumors.”
I saw him then, young and grieving, friendly with glamorous Belle Starr, Queen of the Bandits. He clicked his blade closed and open again. Our horses stamped their hooves on the other side of the fire, their shoes ringing against the ice. “I made a lot of vile choices,” he said.
I pressed my hand along my thighs, leaned toward flame. He unbuckled his gun belt, turning at the waist to hang it off a limb behind him, his vest pulling across his chest in the cavern of his jacket. One Eye curled up by my feet, and I ran a hand along his fur. “The only warrants out for your arrest, they’re for your family’s murder?”
He nodded.
“So why don’t you just tell the truth.” I rubbed the tines of my key, the same question echoing about me.
“Reckon I allowed others to believe I was guilty, as I supposed I deserved it. Not sure how to shake the alias now.” He straightened his hat, melted snow wetting the crown’s creases. “What’s that in your pocket, anyway?”
Of course he’d noticed my talisman. I hitched a shoulder. “A remembrance.”
He watched me, brows lifted. Snow feathered between the sumacs and maples. I supposed it was high time I shared fragments of myself with another again. Stot knew me as resolute and brash, but there was part of me sentimental and soft. I told him of finding the key in the woods with Magnolia, of her hanging it on a chain for me. He clicked his knife shut, slid the blade in the pocket of his waistcoat. “Why don’t you wear it?”
I pulled out the key, scraped at some dirt smudged on the hoop.
“I haul regret too,” he said, gaze tracking my fingers. “Work daily to forgive myself.”
“I’ve forgiven myself.” Snow blew inside my slicker, icing the narrow line of bare skin at my nape. “I think.”
“When?”
“I don’t know, long ago,” I said. “Someday. It’s a process.”
He slipped his hands into his pockets, pressed his heels against the ground. “I reckon so.”
I rested my cheek against my hand, tipped my face to study him, his posture calm amid the shattering ice storm. “And what about that shoot-out in the woods last month?” I asked.
“Hmm.” He crouched before the flames, adjusted the lay of the bonfire. In the firelight, a flush brushed up his neck. “I snuck up thataway, gathering salt from the plains. Tulsa Jack sighted me within the boundary of their land—and our taunts collapsed into a fire exchange.” Stot swept away slush from a birch log, settled the piece crossways over the pile. Steam hissed, but the flame plumed higher, glow blooming in our grove. “I blasted Tulsa Jack up significantly, so he couldn’t track me,” Stot said. “Otherwise, sure enough, the Bunch would’ve dropped me.”
The tendons in his forearms adjusted as he arranged the fire. As he stretched and crouched, he held his balance with such ease. “You just taunted him for rotten aim,” I said.
“Tulsa Jackisa wretched shot.” Stot rubbed his beard. “Cannot fathom that I let him wing me—not my finest moment.”
I laughed and winced, my shirtwaist catching on dried blood.
He walked toward me. “Here, let me see to your wounds.”
“I’m fine.”
