Vengeance Road Read Online Free Page A

I says to the bartender. He pours it. This is turning into a damned disaster.
    â€œLast I knew, Abe was on the outskirts of Wickenburg,” Josie says. “His place’ll be the first you pass when you ride into town. Claude—Claude! Back to it,” she says. “Oh, brown Rosey”—Claude joins in on the keys—“Rose of Alabamy . . .”
    The trio squawk on together.
    â€œQuite a concert you got yerself,” I says to the bartender.
    He grunts and downs more whiskey.
    â€œSay, I’m trying to catch up with a friend.”
    â€œAbe. We know.”
    â€œNah, someone else. He likely rode through yesterday. Has a crew with him and a scar beneath his right eye.”
    Claude hits a wrong key and the song crashes to a halt behind me. The bartender’s expression goes so sour, you’d think I pulled my Colt on him. He reaches below the counter and brings out a shotgun as though I have.
    â€œYou go on and get,” he says, jabbing the barrel at me.
    I hold my hands up. “I ain’t even paid for my drink.”
    â€œIt’s no matter. Just get. Yer kind ain’t welcome here.”
    â€œMy kind?”
    â€œThe Rose Riders,” he says. “Now, you’s got till the count of ten to get outta my place before I fill you with this lead plum.”
    He starts counting, and I back out calm as ever. I tip my hat at Josie in the corner, who’s still staring.
    â€œThanks for the concert, miss,” I says. Then I push out the saloon doors and hop on Silver.
    The bartender and the trio step outside to watch me ride out, and even with a shotgun aimed at my back I can’t keep a grin from creeping onto my face.
    â€™Cus my so-called friend came through this way, and now his gang’s got a name.
    I’m one step closer to tracking his yellow ass down and sending him to rot in hell.

    â€™Bout five miles outside Walnut Grove, I realize I’m in a bad place.
    The sky’s losing its color and there’s another twenty miles or so between me and Wickenburg. I’m gonna have to make camp for the night.
    I ride till I find a small gully bordered with shrubs and prickly pear. I lead the horses off the trail and throw both sets of reins round the branches of a short mesquite tree. Then I run back to the trail and look down at the potential camp. Silver’s ears are still visible, but in the dead of night nobody’s gonna be looking this way. And I certainly won’t be visible once I’m lying on my bedroll.
    I get a small fire crackling, and as I scarf down some jerky my thoughts drift back to what the bartender said.
The Rose Riders.
    I think that’s Waylan Rose’s band, notorious for robbing stagecoaches all ’cross New Mexico. As gold strikes started cropping up in Arizona, the posse came west, preying on the lines between mining towns and looking to clean out treasure boxes full of fresh ore. I know it ’cus I overheard Bowers complaining ’bout Rose once, even though Prescott ain’t been booming with prospectors for at least a decade now. I thumb my lip, trying to wager what mighta brought Rose north of his normal routes and to Pa.
    I make sure my coals are scattered long before the sky goes dark. As the evening cools, I hunker into my bedroll and watch the bats swooping in the last bit of twilight. The sky’s so big, I swear I could swim right into it.
    It’s quiet, but not in the way I’m used to. When Pa were still alive, his voice were the last thing I’d hear every night. “Sleep well, Kate,” he’d say, and tug my bedroom door shut with a creak. Dreaming always seemed easy after that. But without Pa’s words, there’s too much nothing—too much sky and space and endless parched land.
    Sleep well, Kate,
I tell myself.
Sleep well, sleep well, sleep well.
    I tip my Stetson down to cover my eyes and wait for sleep to find me.

    I wake to a tumbling in the