“You’ll be careful?”
He makes an attempt at a smile. “When am I not?”
“Cypress—”
“Yes, I’ll be careful. No unnecessary risks.” He smirks. “I do think I’ll bring the new poster back, though. Once I have a chance to draw on some fangs.”
I left at dawn.
Cora wearing an uncharacteristic amount of clothing for the current days as she and Aiden saw me off, although Aiden and I are also quite outside our norm.
Believing it to be a better disguise than my usual apparel, Aiden had insisted I wear some of his clothing into town, including his hat. Leaving his head of loose curls and his uncertain expression in full view as I held out my arms and asked them both how I looked.
Cora’s tongue had tucked into her cheek as she tried not to laugh. “You look…well, you certainly don’t look like a well-moneyed undertaker now.”
“Do I look like a cowboy?” I asked, arching a brow and pivoting away from them as I drew both pistols. The guns another mismatch, since the one in my right is the one that belonged to Cora’s father, still with only the single bullet in its chamber since I never have much cause to use anything except the pistolin my left and the rifle at my back. “Should I try to look more disgruntled?”
“All right,” Aiden barked, gesturing toward where Cerberus waited nearby. “Get goin’ so you can get back. Going to be pitch black on the return as it is.”
Against instruction, I had walked over and kissed him hard, doing the same with Cora, though I’d added a dramatic dip to it that made her long hair brush the ground as she giggled. “Keep an eye on him,” I told her before letting her back up. “You’re in charge.”
“I know,” she said, her chin tipping up as she stood beside Aiden, and though he shook his head, neither of us could suppress a grin.
I’m still wearing it when I finally reach Troy’s Hill, more and more secure in my decision that this was exactly what I needed to feel more myself again. To remember that this, too, will pass and that soon we will be back to our usual wandering.
Soon as that damn wanted poster fades.
I pass one posted to the first building on the outskirts of town and pass several more as I ride farther into town, keeping my head down beneath Aiden’s hat and keeping Cerberus at my side once I dismount. Trying to determine which copy would be the easiest to grab without rousing suspicion, while also taking in how much the once sleepy town has continued to change into a small bustling city.
How long has it been since I was first here? Five years? Six? Every year more and more settlers find their way out here in pursuit of a better life, just as Cora had. Just as Aiden and I had. And exponentially more will continue to do so as the railroad expands west with an aggressiveness and violence that seems to far exceed any initial possibility of peaceful coexistence.
Manifest destiny,I am certain I’ve heard it called. The belief that it is not only America’s right to inhabit but also her divinecalling to conquer these lands. Regardless of the native people that have already been here, regardless of the destinies that they themselves believe in.
Never has sat right with me. Whether due to the influence my mother had encouraged by expanding my narrow world through her books or the influence my stepfather had exerted by attempting to close it right back down to anything but him, one person feeling a right to dominion over another has always made me want to bare my teeth, taken me back to places I’d rather not revisit but still feel trapped in even as I stand free in the middle of a crowded street.
I tie Cerberus to a nearby post and reach into the pocket of Aiden’s coat to stop myself from fidgeting, understanding why, even after their initial misunderstanding, Cora remains fond of wearing it.
Itishuge. Comforting. Smells like him and feels like him in a way that makes me breathe a little easier as I step into the general store for a few things that were deemed essential: coffee, flour, dry beans, and kerosene. And some that weren’t: chocolate.
I wonder if Cora has ever had it as I take a bite from one of the bars while walking back out without finding trouble, loading up my saddle bags, and looking back in the direction from whence I came. But then my eyes land on the doors of the saloon across the street, and I debate the exact definition of unnecessary risk.
Surely, this doesn’t count, I reason, when I walk through them a few moments later, having no intention of staying long, of sitting down to a game, or of indulging in a drink. I simply want to hear the noise, feel the bustle of activity and the thrum of possibility.
I linger right past the threshold, planning only to watch a little before I’m gone again. But then I see him.
Tan hair. Short beard. Light eyes. A powder burn on his leftarm.I can hear Cora’s voice in my head as she said it. As she described the man who killed her father.
He’s sitting alone, two empty chairs down from me once I pick a seat at the bar, a half-finished drink in front of him as he waits…either for something or for someone.
Aiden’s contacts back in Last Chance told him the man was a bounty hunter, and I suppose he has that look about him. Looks like someone who has spent a great deal of time facing down death. But then, I suppose, I do not sit in any position to judge.
He knocks back the rest of the whiskey in his glass and raps his knuckles against the bar top as a request for another. The bartender nods at him in acknowledgment, then looks to me in question and I hold two fingers up to tell him I’ll have the same.
Cora’s fugitive glances in my direction, and I’ve experienced it enough from both sides of the table to know exactly what it feels like when I’m being assessed. His eyes stay on me as the bartender pours his whiskey then mine, then he raises his glass in my direction before turning away.
“You from around here?” I ask him, hesitant to let the opening get away so easily. “Or just passing through?”
“Been here for a while,” he says. “Longer than I planned.”