Chapter Text
Miriam believed that Uncle Joseph could smell death in the morning. Mother said that was mere superstition, but Uncle Joseph had proved it more than once.
The morning of the tornado, he told her to pack up quick, roused the entire camp, and made sure she was sitting behind him on his horse instead of on the wagon as usual. They’d lost that wagon and a quiet but capable Mormon couple. The morning of the Paiute attack, Uncle Joseph was restless, muttering to Mother and Father about a bad feeling. They were able to flee, but the detour cost them a week and a half, which was hard on provisions, and little Joey had been hit in the arm by an arrow. The morning of the flood, when Miriam woke to a wet bedroll, Uncle Joseph was already on his horse, little Joey riding behind. She hadn’t been afraid then, only annoyed that Uncle Joseph had gotten Joey first.
Death didn’t frighten Miriam, so Alice Fletcher didn’t frighten her either. When she appeared like a ghost, elegant and heavily armed, asking to join them on the road, Uncle Joseph had kicked up such a ruckus that even Mother had been inclined to turn her away. But Alice Fletcher—Miriam could never think of her as Alice, and Ms. Fletcher didn’t suit either—had followed them patiently from a short distance and camped nearby, getting closer and closer each night until the camp leaders had given up. Short of shooting her, what could they do? She kept herself to herself, and that was enough to satisfy all of them, save for Uncle Joseph, who now slept with his boots on, and Miriam, who watched with fascination.
She was able to speak with Alice Fletcher only once.
“Where you going, ma’am?”
Alice Fletcher ignored her.
“Ma’am?”
“California.”
The way Alice Fletcher avoided meeting Miriam’s eyes wasn’t snooty or mean, just careful. Like if she looked too hard at Miriam, that would be something she couldn’t take back.
“Why are you going there?”
“I got family out there.”
“How come you’re by yourself? Your husband die?”
“Yes.”
“That’s all the family you had?”
“I have a son, got a wife last summer.”
“You don’t like her?”
“I like her fine.”
“How come you didn’t get another husband, ma’am? You’re pretty.”
Alice Fletcher looked at Miriam then. She had been pretty before, it was true, but when she smiled, she transformed, the difference being like dry brush before and after being set alight. She burned. She should have been a painting.
“One day, you’ll be pretty too, little one,” Alice Fletcher said. “May it do you better than it did me.”
Then Mother had set to shouting at Miriam from across the camp, and within seconds Uncle Joe had cantered by and yanked her up onto the saddle in front of him.
Now they were kept away from each other at all times, but Miriam watched her when she could, which wasn’t often. If most everybody was distracted with someone, Miriam could stare without being scolded. This is the reason that Miriam was the only one who understood the disappearance of Alice Fletcher.
Uncle Joseph had refused to eat breakfast sitting down that morning. As soon as he woke, he was on his horse. Mother only gave him a hardtack biscuit as punishment for indulging his fancies, but he was justified before the sun hit noon heights.
At the Redtop Pass, with crags and cliffs of pink and orange-banded rock reaching to the sky like jagged fingers and walls all around them, they stopped to water the horses at a rush of water that wasn’t large enough to be a river, not small enough to be a stream. Everyone stretched their legs, had a drink themselves, and washed their faces.
And then the hoofbeats came. Distant, at first, but coming closer so quick that it was all Father could do to shout a warning and dive out of the way before They arrived.
They galloped in single file, dozens of them, maybe more than thirty men, and each plunged into the water as hard and fast as though they were running from a pack of wolves. More than one horse was foaming at the mouth, and each man carried a gun in his hand.
Face still dripping from a wash, Alice Fletcher unslung her rifle, and though its muzzle was pointed at the ground, Miriam knew from watching her hunt that she could she could still have two or three of these fleeing men shot off their saddles before anyone could stop her. She was studying each man that crossed the water, tense but calm, scanning for a threat, when it happened. Miriam saw it happen, clear as day.
There were two horses roped together, each holding a man, and when they plunged into the water. Alice Fletcher looked first at the first rider, and dismissed him. Then she looked at the second rider, and froze. Miriam followed her eyes to the man just in time to see him shake his head, once, eyes full of meaning. Then his horse gained a foothold on the far bank, and scrambled up, and was off.
By then, Alice Fletcher had already turned and run for her own horse. There was a flash of sunlight on her knife as she slashed the horse’s tether and mounted it in two smooth motions. It sprang into a gallop, gaining speed instead of slowing as it reached the bank. Miriam thought it would fall, but it cleared the water in one magnificent leap.
Seconds later, a group of federal marshals some twenty strong galloped down the same way. A few of them tried to force their horses into the same leap. One failed. His horse’s front hoof made scant purchase on the far bank before it slipped and smashed its nose into the ground. Two didn’t even make the far bank. Only one succeeded, a man on a white horse.