Enough daylight came in through the holes so that I could see well enough. There wasn’t anything on the uneven floor but weeds and animal droppings and pools of rain water. I stumbled across it to the jumble of fireplace stones, clambered and clawed my way over and through them to the opening in the wall. My foot slipped before I reached it and my knee knocked hard on one of the rocks.
And just as that happened, I heard a thwack above my head and then the bark of Shock’s revolver behind me.
Gasping, sobbing, I crawled over the rest of the stones and flung myself through the hole, tearing a long rip in the sleeve of my coat. My knee burned like fire, but I didn’t care as I scrambled to my feet. All I could think was-run!
Run, run, run!
Boone Nesbitt
Kraft’s roan was a better horse than the piebald and Murdock was ten rods ahead when we cleared the trees and Crucifixion River came into view. But I had only a peripheral look at the crumbling ghost camp and Shock’s wagon stopped in the open meadow. What caught and held my attention was the girl staggering across open ground between the shell of a large building and a cluster of decaying shacks squatting among the trees.
“Annabelle!”
It was Murdock who yelled her name. We both veered sharply in her direction, guns already filling our hands. She heard us coming, twisted her head in our direction, but she had the sense not to slow up any. Shock was chasing her; in the next second, he came busting through a hole in the sagging back wall of the large building, brandishing a shotgun.
He spied us before he’d taken half a dozen steps. He swung around, crouching, as Murdock bore down on him. I pulled up hard just as Murdock fired-a wild shot, like most from the back of a running horse. Shock didn’t even flinch. He let go with one barrel of the Greener, and the spray of buckshot knocked Murdock off the roan’s back and sent him rolling through the grass.
I swung out of leather. If the ground hadn’t been wet and slick, I would’ve been able to set myself for a quick, clear shot at Shock. As it was, my boots slid out from under me and I went down hard enough on my backside to jar the Colt loose from my grip. It landed a few feet away, and by the time I located it and started to scrabble toward it, Shock was up and moving my way with that Greener leveled.
I heard him say-“All right, you son of a bitch.”-as I got my hand on the Colt, and I was cold sure it was too late, I was a dead man.
Only it didn’t happen that way.
It was Shock who died in that next second.
Murdock was hurt, but the buckshot hadn’t done him enough damage to keep him out of the play. He’d struggled up onto one knee and he put a slug clean through Shock’s head at thirty paces. The Greener’s second barrel emptied with a roar, but the buckshot went straight down as he was falling. Dead and on his way to hell before he hit the ground.
I got up slowly, went over to him for a quick look to make sure, then holstered my weapon, and went to Murdock’s side. He squinted up at me, his jaw clenched tightly. There was blood and buckshot holes on his left arm and shoulder and the side of his neck, but he wasn’t torn up as badly as he might’ve been.
“Dad! Dad!”
Annabelle. She’d seen it happen, and, now that it was finished, she’d come running. She dropped down beside him, weeping, and he hugged her and crooned a little the way a relieved father does when he sees his child is unharmed.
There were some things I wanted to say to Murdock, but this wasn’t the time or place. I turned away from them and went to where the peddler’s wagon stood in the meadow, to see what I could find to treat Murdock’s wounds.
Annabelle Murdock
I huddled in my bed, the quilt drawn tightly around me. My scrapes and bruises hurt, but not nearly as much as my conscience. For a while after we got back from Crucifixion River in the peddler’s wagon, I’d cried and felt sorry for myself, but I wasn’t feeling sorry for me any more…
A tap on the door and Mother came in. I asked her how Dad was, and she said she and Mrs. Devane had gotten all the buckshot out of his arm and shoulder and she’d given him some laudanum for the pain.
“He’s going to be all right, isn’t he?”
“Of course he is. He and Mister Hoover both.”
I said: “It’s all my fault.” And then-fool that I am-I started crying again. “If I hadn’t fallen for James Shock and hidden in his wagon, Dad wouldn’t’ve been shot. I did an awful thing, and he could have died and so could I.”
Mother sat beside me and patted my back, just as she’d done when I was a little girl and had hurt myself. It only made me sob harder. I felt like a child right now. A bad one.
She said: “That’s true enough. But we’ve made you live such a sheltered, isolated life, you couldn’t possibly know what a wicked man that peddler was. And you’ve never made a secret of how much you want to leave the delta.”
“Maybe it’s not so bad here, after all.” But I didn’t really believe that. Did Mother? I didn’t think so, but she’d made the best of the past eight years in this place. So had Dad. The least I could do was the same while I was still living here.
I wasn’t crying any more. I wiped my eyes with a corner of the sheet and said: “Someday I may still want to go to San Francisco, have a different kind of life. You’d understand, wouldn’t you?”
“Of course we would. But you’ll tell us when the time comes, let us help you? You won’t try to run away again?”
“No, Mother, I’ve learned my lesson,” I said, and I meant it. “I’ll never run away again, not ever.”
Rachel Kraft
I walked out of the roadhouse as the driver was bringing the stage around from the livery barn. Caroline Devane, wearing a gray serge traveling dress, stood still as a statue looking out over Twelve-Mile Slough, her crocheting bag and reticule beside her; the wind blew wisps of her hair, and her gaze was remote, as if she’d already traveled many miles from here.
I said her name, and she turned and gave me a wan smile. “Have you made a decision about your future?”
“Yes. I’m going on to my sister and her family, because they’re expecting me, but I won’t stay long. There’s a shortage of trained nurses in this state. I ought to be able to find employment in Los Angeles or San Diego.”
“Do you have enough money to live until you do?”
“Enough, if I’m fortunate. Before I left Sacramento, I sold my jewelry.”
Mr. Nesbitt had returned the $3,000 to me when he and Annabelle and poor Mr. Murdock came back with word of the peddler’s death, and, after talking to Joe, I’d put the money into his belt pouch. Now I pressed the pouch into Caroline’s hands.
“Perhaps this will help.”
She stared down at it, then opened it. Her eyes widened with astonishment when she saw the bills and specie inside.
“It’s half the money I took from my husband’s safe,” I said. “Fifteen hundred dollars.”
“I can’t accept it.” She closed the pouch and thrust it back at me. “Why would you want to give me so much money?”
“You saved Joe’s life.”
“I only did what I was trained to do.”
“Please take it. Joe and I want you to have it.”
“No, I wouldn’t feel right…”
“Please.”
Our eyes locked-two stubborn, proud women.
“You’re going away,” she said, “you’ll need it…”
“I’m not going away and I don’t need it. Joe and I decided to return to the ranch when he’s able to travel. My late husband’s affairs have to be put in order and there are other things that need attending to. After that…well, we’ll see.”