Page 143 of The Widow and the Wanted

“Everett will not kill her,” she says. “Everett does not destroy value before he has spent it.”

She begins to pace behind the desk, one hand pressed to her middle, thinking aloud. “He also has leverage against you two. He knows there are only so many ways men like you can bear waiting. He can set a street full of witnesses between you and her and count on your fear to do what his hired guns cannot.”

My hand curls into a fist.

Goldie points at me. “And there. That. He has your pride too. Your anger.”

I say nothing.

“He has her testimony,” Goldie continues. “That matters. She saw Verdigris. She knows enough to ruin Everett if the right ears hear it. Alive, she is a bargaining chip.”

Goldie taps the map. “And there is me. He did not take some nameless girl off the street. He took mine. That means a message. Men like Everett adore messages.”

“So what does the message say?” I ask.

“That I am not the only one who can use bait.”

The room goes still around that.

Boone stares at her like he might be sick. I cannot blame him. There is something obscene in hearing Lula reduced to strategy, even by a woman trying to save her.

Goldie knows it too. Her fingers press once against the desk blotter, hard enough to pale at the knuckles, then release.

“If Everett truly means to bait you,” she says, “then he must first get into position.” Her finger moves along the map, slow, deliberate. “Somewhere close enough to blow his whistle, but far enough to hide gunfire.”

Silence follows that.

I study the map until the ink blurs. Coal yard. Assay rooms. Hollister’s office. The livery. Alleys like veins, all of them running somewhere dark.

“He knows he is better off keeping her frightened and useful. Killing her burns a bridge he cannot afford to burn by harming what is mine. He expects me to save her. But how? Why?”

The words reach into my chest and twist. I see Lula’s face as she left us, brave enough to look annoyed by our fear. I see her then in the wagon again, snow blowing sideways through the torn canvas, blood turning black beneath fresh white. I see a little blonde woman with a hunting knife shaking in her hand, telling two armed men to stay back after half the world had been shot dead outside.

“She may be your daughter,” I say. “But do not presume to know her. She met us in snow made red with blood, threatened us with a knife, and told us to freeze to death. Even frightened, she is brave, and I can assure you she is not waiting for rescue.”

Boone lets out something between a laugh and a sob, wiping a hand down his face. He shakes it off. “So what, we sit here takin’ comfort in the notion she’s bossin’ him to death?”

“If God is merciful,” Goldie says, already turning back to the map.

Footsteps pound the hall before another woman appears, dressed in a sapphire gown. “Ma’am,” she says, breathless, shouldering past Pearl in the doorway and into Goldie’s office. A paper is in her hands, the scent of ink sharp. “Whipple from the Register came by. Said he wanted you to see this before it hits the street.”

Goldie takes it roughly, squinting at the front page. The thing is odd in its construction, unlike any ordinary notice of auction or county business I have seen. In place of neat columns sits one large block of print, fat-headed and solemn, made to grab attention at a distance.

A CALL TO ALL DECENT CITIZENS OF THREE FORKS

Reliable testimony now before this office gives fearful reason to believe that the men presently concealed within the Gemini House are none other than the same lawless parties answerable for the late bloody outrage at Verdigris, wherein innocent travelers were set upon and slaughtered without mercy.

It is further reported, with all due sympathy to Ms. Goldie Eld and the women under her roof, that said house may not be sheltering these criminals by free choice, but under force, menace, or such threats as desperate men are known to employ. Particular concern is held for Mrs. Lula Clay, sole surviving witness to that terrible massacre, whose present condition is said to be one of grave distress, and whose silence may itself speak to the terror laid upon her.

Let no honest man mistake this matter. This is not a quarrel with women, nor with any establishment compelled by fear. This is a summons to justice. The accused must be brought forth to answer before the law and before the eyes of the citizens they have wronged.

Therefore all peaceable and upright men of Fort Gibson are called to assemble before the Gemini House at sundown this day, there to witness that justice be demanded openly, and that no murderer, savage, or butcher of innocents be permitted to hide behind a woman’s door.

Let the guilty be surrendered. Let Verdigris be answered for.

Goldie reads it once. Then again, slower.

The room holds still around the paper.