the sky with delicious hues of pumpkin and lemon, someone pulled a violin from his luggage and began to play old tunes that resounded through the rattling compartment. The music was plaintive and sweet. It lulled Rose into a welcome reverie, and she drowsed against the glass, her little white finger holding her place in the Jack Two-Fist book.
The conductor strolled through the car, lighting lanterns and folding down seats. Stanton elbowed Emily.
“Come on, Elmer,” he said. “It’s the floor for us.”
“Huh?”
“We shall allow Miss Hibble to sleep on the seats, of course.” Stanton looked at Emily meaningfully. “It’s the gentlemanly thing to do.”
“Oh,” Emily said. “Right.”
They, along with a few other single men, hurried to find places on the floor. Emily and Stanton were stuck with a place up near the coal stove. Well, at least they would be warm, but it was a small comfort when weighed against the fact that they would be sleeping right next to the gent’s saloon—near enough to smell the stench and be bothered all night by people climbing over them.
“Mind the spittoon,” Stanton said, wadding up his coat for a pillow and tipping his hat down over his eyes. Emily stared up at the pressed-tin ceiling, the patterns shifting mysteriously in the half-light of the swinging lanterns. The fiddler was playing one last song. Emily felt a twinge when she recognized it.
“Sweet, Sweet Spring.”
“Beg pardon,” mumbled a man as he climbed over her.
Even though the next couple of days were uneventful, every day was more tension-charged than the last. Whenever they stopped, Emily scrutinized the passengers getting on, anxiously scanning the platform, playing a grim game of Guess the Maelstrom. It was an odd conundrum: putting miles of distance between themselves and Captain Caul should have made them safer—but with each mile, each moment that passed, the danger grew and grew.
Only while the train was under way could Emily relax, watch scraggy mountains dip and recede, and breathe the cool air that smelled of new-grown sage and rain.
Stanton spent most of his time in the smoking car, away from Rose’s nonstop chatter. Emily was worried about him. He’d woken up from Caul’s spell, but it didn’t seem that he had entirely recovered. He was tense, constantly frowning, and the small muscles of his face jumped and spasmed at odd intervals. And while he wasn’t the sweetest-tempered individual in the best of times, he was now positively snappish. She wondered if the attack hadn’t done more damage than he wanted to admit. He wouldn’t discuss it, of course. He just assured her curtly that everything was fine.
Insufferable.
But still, he didn’t deserve any of this misery, just as Dag didn’t deserve to have his heart broken, just as Pap didn’t deserve to have to huddle in hiding from blood sorcerors tearing up Lost Pine to find her.
Three times what thou givest returns to thee …
Emily sighed, understanding for the first time the true seriousness of the rede.
It doesn’t just return to you, she thought. It returns to the people you care about. The people you love …
“… And his guns had pearl handles. Have you ever heard of such a thing, Mr. Elmer?”
Rose’s words scattered Emily’s thoughts. Emily shook herself.
“Pearl handles?” she said vaguely. She’d long since stopped listening to Rose’s recap of some fictitious outlaw’s exploits.
“Hand-carved mother-of-pearl handles on his revolvers, and with ’em he could shoot any walnut out of any walnut tree, just for the pointing! Can you imagine?”
“Whoever he is, I bet he doesn’t carry those revolvers around to shoot walnuts with,” Emily muttered. At the words, Rose’s face became a picture of sweet pleading.
“Oh, but the Brushfork Bandito doesn’t hurt people! When he held up that bank in Austin, he just tied everybody up. He even gave the doll back to the little girl who was crying! He’s not mean, he’s just … tormented.”
“Tormented by not having enough of other people’s money, I guess.”
This made the girl smile, a pink blush creeping over her cheeks. She ducked her head and lowered her eyes.
“You seem tormented sometimes, too,” Rose ventured, looking at Emily from under her eyelashes.
Emily couldn’t help giving a loud laugh—a laugh that was entirely too high-pitched. She pressed her lips together quickly. From ruthless to tormented. It really was too amusing.
After a moment, Rose’s smile faded. Her face clouded slightly. She chewed her lip.
“Your friend doesn’t like me much,” she said.
“Oh, don’t mind him,” Emily said. “He’s got a lot on his mind.”