Page 62 of The Widow and the Wanted

The horse’s breath steams up around us, and the road becomes nothing but white and gray and the faint dark smear of timber. I angle into the trees when I can, away from the open line that’d leave a neat trail any fool could follow. Snow covers my tracks as fast as I make them.

A voice behind me. A shout.

I turn in the saddle so quick the pain flashes white and my vision swims, but it’s only wind making a fool of my ears. Only branches knocking.

“Keep goin’,” I mutter to the horse.

The ride stretches long. The more blood I lose, the more the cold gets inside me. A damp chill in my chest. I find myself thinking stupid thoughts.

Like Lula’s eyes when I held her.

Okee’s eyes when he’s scared, which ain’t often.

I picture the cabin. The loft. The hearth. Them two in there without me.

It hits like a kick to the gut.

Halfway back, my left hand starts going numb from holding the reins too tight. My right arm hangs useless, dead weight. Every breath pulls at the bandage and reminds me I’ve been shot.

Women, he’d said.

Killed all them women.

My jaw clenches so hard my teeth ache. Hollister had us painted as monsters and has done it well. Folks don’t need truth. They need a story that feels true.

And they’ve found one.

I suppose if I got to leave Okee alone in this world, there are worse places to be than in Lula’s hands. She’d see to him proper. Nurse him back to health when he falls ill. Hell, maybe he’d get to go home again. Finally have a partner to make his father proud.

By the time I see the rise that means I’m near, my vision tunnels. The world narrows down to the dark figures between pines.

Just get there.

Just see Okee’s face.

Then the cabin appears. Horse snorting, stamping, at the smell of smoke and life. I try to swing down, but my legs ain’t doing what I told them.

I hit the snow belly first, hard enough to knock the breath out of me.

For a second, I just lay there, cheek pressed to the cold, and think, so this is how it ends. Slipping off a damn horse a stone’s throw from safety.

Then the door flies open.

Light spills out, a fiery glow, and with it the sound of boots on boards and Lula’s voice going shrill.

“Boone?”

Okee’s voice hits right after. “Boone!”

I try to stand and the world rolls. I get one knee under me and black crawls in at the edges.

I hear Lula swear. Then hands are on me. Okee’s hands first, under my ribs, hauling me up like I weigh nothing. Lula’s hands at my coat, searching for the wound.

“Inside,” Okee says. “Now.”

“I—” I start, because I need to say it before my tongue goes useless. “Bounty.”

“What?” Lula asks.