The clean-shaven man tilts his head at Pa, his broad-brimmed hat pulled down to shield his eyes, but I can just make out a scar cut lengthwise beneath his chin, like someone tried to slit his throat but somehow failed to kill him. “Up in Winach, some months back,” he says to Pa, his jaw grinding back and forth like a timber saw. “You were selling that tonic.” His head flicks to the wagon, and I can hear a smile in his voice, a satisfaction, and it’s clear he’s in charge—the boss of these road-weary men. “Saw you again a few days ago back in that farming town.” He pauses to spit onto the ground, a dark wad of tobacco tucked into his bottom lip. “I’ve heard people say you’re a conman, taking people’s money and giving them river water in return.”
Pa’s eyes click to mine, and I try to read some message in them, if he’s trying to tell me to run, but they slip back to the wagon—and I wonder if he’s thinking of the rifle tucked inside. But he doesn’t makea move for it. He stays firmly planted a few yards away.
“I’d say you’re giving people false hope”—a sneer curls across his upper lip, raven-dark eyes blinking, and he walks to the other side of Pa, staring up at the box wagon and the lettering that promises cures from heartache to toothache—“just delaying the inevitable end.” He turns back to Pa, hooking both hands against his belt, inches from two holstered guns. His jaw seems to lock in place, puckering the scar along his throat—the flesh wrinkled and jagged, as if it didn’t heal right. “People are dying,” he says through tight, clenched teeth. “Won’t be long until there’s nothing left.”
Pa’s eyes stay on the man, and I can see the tension slipping like water across his brow. This is what he was afraid of—someone tracking us into these hills and discovering his stash of medicine. “They don’t need to suffer,” he answers, shoulders tucked down, eyes unflinching.
The man laughs, dropping his hands from his belt, and takes a step closer to Pa. My whole body tenses, spine stiff—I know I need to run. Scramble away into the trees. But my mind keeps thinking of the wagon, and the gun waiting inside. How long would it take me to reach for it, drop the lever down to pop a cartridge into the chamber, then aim it at the man facing Pa? It would feel no different than staring down the old brown bear, it’s narrow-set eyes watching me, sensing that I was the thing it should fear.
But one of the men is still towering over me, blocking my path—his dark, oiled hair slicked down beneath his hat, nose sunburnt, and a silver bolo tie in the shape of a crow suspended around his neck with two leather straps. In his bottom lip, he chews a wad of tobacco—just like his boss—and I notice something else: a scar on his forearm just visible beneath his filthy gray shirt, rolled up tohis elbows. But the scar isn’t irregular in shape; it’s a perfect starburst, with a circle at the center and several lines unfurling outward.
It’s a brand, something normally given to cattle—a way to mark who the cattle belong to.
A hot piece of metal—likely heated on the coals of a campfire—was pressed into his forearm until the flesh bubbled and turned black. And now the scar remains. A symbol that he belongs to someone. Maybe this group of men.
The man notices me watching him, his eyes black and cold and unblinking, and he pushes out his lip to spit onto the ground at my feet, baring his teeth, the color of tar. I sense he’s just waiting for the chance to pull his revolver from his waist and shoot me dead right where I sit. If I even twitch or make a move for the wagon, I won’t make it more than a foot.
“So you think what you’re doing is a mercy?” the clean-shaven man with the scar along his throat asks, leaning toward Pa, jutting out his chin, as if he’s challenging Pa to contradict him.
Pa says nothing.
“You’re selling them a lie.” The man breathes heavy, grit in his throat, and he wipes hastily at his forehead, like he’s losing his patience. Still, I catch a quick glimpse of it: the same starburst mark on his forearm as the man standing over me. They both have it, and I suspect all the men hiding in the woods do too. A band of men who brand themselves, maybe for loyalty, duty, but surely for life. This group is not the kind you can leave. I imagine that death is the only way out.
“I’m selling them hope,” Pa answers, defiant now, eyes dark in the moonlight. “For some of them, that’s all they have.”
The air changes, a tension pulling tight, and my eyes flash from Pa to the man with the scar at his throat. He looks back at the tree line, nodding at the men who are only shadows and limbs. Then four, no five, figures separate from the trees, forming into human shapes, and under the dim glow of moonlight, they begin moving toward the wagon.
My heart begins to thunder in my chest. Adrenaline pulses at my eardrums, my vision vibrating.
Odie, who had been dozing near the front of the wagon, watches the men with her large brown eyes and stamps a hoof against the ground. She’s thinking of bolting, of tearing away into the trees.Stay put,I think.Don’t run.
“You might be right,” the man says to Pa, his jaw grinding again, as if he’s turning his teeth to dust, an awful sound. “Because there’s nothing else left in this godforsaken land.”
I breathe, feeling the cold ground beneath my palms, but my eyes flash to the wagon again.I could reach the gun in time; I’m sure of it.There is a long, weighted pause, no one saying anything—the silence splitting through my skin. The river bubbles a few feet away, and Odie still looks wild-eyed and afraid, but then the man waves a hand to the others, his mouth sinking back into a straight, ruthless line, his eyes passing briefly over me, then away.
He claps a firm hand on Pa’s shoulder, blunt, forceful. “But at least we have law and order,” he says. “And in this territory, I am both.” More men emerge from the road—some coughing, some staggering just a little, sick with illness—but they take turns leaning into the back of the wagon, lifting out crates of tonic, then hauling them away into the dark, where they must have their ownwagon waiting. “And it’s about time you pay your tax, Tonic Man.”
My eyes swivel to the cabin, where two more men have pushed open the door and are stepping inside. “Boss!” one of them shouts. “Come look at this!”
The man facing Pa turns suddenly and strides up the steps into the cabin. I can hear their voices, a quick succession of words, but not what they’re saying.
“Pa,” I hiss, my lungs heaving in and out, my voice broken, and I try to stand up, to move toward him, but the man standing over me grabs my arm and yanks me back, shoving me to the ground. I land hard onto my side, hands and face in the dirt. The air sputters from my lungs, and a dull pain shoots through my ribs. I lie for a moment, facedown, trying to breathe.This is bad,my mind repeats.We have to get out of here.
I see Pa try to move toward me, but the man still looming over me shoots him a look to stay put.
Slowly I push myself upright, but I stay seated on the ground, the breath in my lungs a sharp stab of pain with every exhale. Ribs throbbing. Head pulsing, pulsing. I check my coat pocket—the bottle of aspirin is still there.Then I brush my hair across my neck, keeping the tattoo covered. Out of sight.
“You all right, Vega?” Pa asks softly.
I nod, swallowing tightly, and then my eyes click to the cabin, where the man with the scar reappears in the doorway, both hands on his belt. “Well, looks like you’ve been hiding way more than a few jars of tonic. Where’d you get all those pills?”
Pa looks up at him but refuses to answer.
The man makes atsksound. “Been years since I’ve seen a stashlike that. I’d guess you either stole it, or your family’s been hiding it for generations.”
“I didn’t steal it.” Pa meets the man’s gaze, beard twitching.
“It seems luck is on my side today,” the man adds, striding down the porch steps, his boots thudding across the dirt, spurs jangling. He moves with a comfortable ease, a man in control—even of himself—who prefers not to lose his temper, although I sense it’s always there, just beneath the surface. Waiting. “But I’m not a greedy man, and I’m feeling merciful.” He walks to a row of crates sitting on the ground beside the wagon that his men have yet to cart away. He kicks one of the crates. “I’ll leave you a few jars of your fool’s tonic,” he says, as if he’s being charitable. “You’ll need a way to make a few coins so you can buy a horse.”
