The fire crackles.
'You don't think we could go back into Walkers Creek?' Laura asks.
'No, I said I didn't think I'd be much welcome. You'd probably do just fine. And I reckon Miss Nixon could probably still marry the mayor if she was that way inclined.'
Emily snorts with disgust.
'I don't have anything left, I've no reason to care where we end up. If you can think of a thing worse than ending up married to Jeremiah Humby then I think I'd be willing to try that just out of curiosity 'cos I don't reckon there is a thing worse.'
'Maybe we could get to Mr Tanner's mining camp and send word to Walkers Creek to find out the lay of the land?' Billy suggests.
Logan thinks that's a dumb idea and nearly says so. Any message they get back from the town is likely to be delivered by the bullets of a posse if their experience so far is anything to go by. But he bites his tongue and says nothing, realizing that they're agreeing to do what he suggests. He can lead them to the mining camp and leave them there. That will be good enough.
Emily yawns.
'We should get some sleep. Someone will need to keep watch in case we've been followed. We should take it in turns so we all get some sleep. I'm happy to do the first couple of hours, then I'll wake one of you to do the next couple.'
They murmur assent and fidget with the blankets for a few minutes trying to get something close to a comfortable bed to sleep on. None of them look like they're used to sleeping in the outdoors.
He gets up to walk around their little camp. He checks on the horses, still hobbled where they'd left them, and listens in the dark for anything that sounds like people on their trail. It is eerily quiet. Even the normal rustling sounds of wind and nocturnal nightlife seem to be absent in that sheltered gully.
He climbs up the bank to see if there is anything to see. Perhaps the campfire of someone on their trail. There is no moon and the starlight is feeble. He can make out a red glint in the distance that might be the smoldering embers of the ranch house. He can't tell.
He goes back to the fire, adds another small branch to keep it going a little longer and sits down and listens to the snores of his sleeping companions.
He wakes with a start and makes an involuntary yelp at the bright light in his face. It takes a moment to realize that the bright light is daylight and he has slept past dawn. Emily stirs from under her blanket.
'What?' she says, groggily. 'You didn't wake me for my turn on watch.'
He doesn't say anything. There isn't anything to say. He is looking at the empty space where Billy and Laura had slept.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
'You fell asleep?'
He doesn't look up and continues fussing with the fire, trying to get it lit again.
'I can't believe you just slept and left them to--' Her anger is getting the better of her. She takes a deep breath. 'Where have they gone? They can't have got far.'
Still he doesn't acknowledge her and carries on about the little camp as though they were the only ones who had ever been there. He reminds her of Sanchez, and in a way her father too. They were stubbornly unwilling to acknowledge their faults too.
She wants him to say something to give her an excuse or an explanation even though she knows she'll shout at him for it. His silence is exasperating.
'You don't care about them at all do you? You're glad they're gone. Did you tell them to go? Is that what you did? Whisper in their ear that they're not welcome and that they should just do us all a favor and go and die in a ravine somewhere on their own?'
'They've chosen to be on their own. You can't blame them for that. Don't forget McLaren is after you, not them. I don't think Billy can have been in such a bad way after all if they managed to get away without waking either of us. They should be safe enough if they can get themselves back to town.'
'That's it?' Finally she gets him to say something and all he can do is say that they wanted it so they must be alright? What about her? Doesn't he care about how she feels? Doesn't he realize she feels responsible for the state that Billy is in?
'You want me to chase after them?' He stands and looks at her.
'I want you to... I don't know...' The incoherence of anger.
'Let me tell you how it is. Last night I thought I might take the first watch and wait until you were all asleep and ride off on my own. Yes, that's right, I was going to do what they've done.'
So that's it. He hates her too. He wants to leave her behind and right now he's just annoyed that she didn't disappear into the night with the others. Maybe he didn't like her all that much in first place? Suddenly she hates him. All this time he has been stringing her along? She won't stand for it any more. She stands up abruptly and aims a slap across his face.
'Don't be so hasty.' He says, catching her wrist with his good arm. 'You see, I'd meant to go, but I didn't. Don't you want to know why I didn't?'
She wrestles to get her arm free from his grip. She hates him for wanting to run away but she wants to hear him say that he stayed to be with her. She wants to pull her arm away but she likes the feel of his strong hand and the sensation of their physical contact.
'I didn't go because I thought about you. I thought it would be kind of nice to still have you with me. Not just anybody. You. I thought you and me could really be something, and while I thought about that I fell asleep. I'm not proud of being a failure as a sentry, but I'm not going to cry because of how things worked out.'
She likes that he wanted to stay with her. She is so angry with him for letting them down and falling asleep but still likes to hear him say he likes how things have worked out. The two of them. She stops fighting and lets him pull her close. She looks up into his eyes but still can't shake the feeling of responsibility for Billy and Laura.
'I owed that boy,' she says, sad now rather than angry. 'He nearly died for me. Can't you see that?'
'I see it, Emily, and the best way you can pay him back right now is to let him go.'
It gives her a shiver when he doesn't call her 'Miss Nixon'.
'They've been wanting to run off together for a while,' he says, holding her. 'They said as much last night. And I know you feel like you owe him, but you have to see that you've brought him nothing but trouble so far.'
'They're just kids,' she says.
'I know. But they're good kids.'
She kisses him, savoring the warmth of his touch. She thrills to be so close to him and to be alone with him. It's a thrill, like a gallop on wild horse, exciting and scary all at once. Or is she just scared?
She pulls away.
'What's wrong?' he asks.
'I don't know. It's like they're watching us. I don't feel safe here.'
He turns back to the fire and tries to coax some more flames from the embers.
'I don't think they followed us from the ranch. They'd have killed us in our sleep if they had.'
'That's reassuring.'
They sit close together and watch the little fire recover. The darting flames and rising smoke bring to mind the fire at the ranch and she thinks of her childhood home and all her belongings. For some reason she thinks of the dress she bought from Mannion on the day she met Logan. She never wore it.
She has nowhere to go now. The ranch was everything to her. It was her work and her play all rolled into one. It was her link to her dead father, her one chance to feel she was doing something he'd be proud of. If he saw it now? She tries not to think about what he'd have to say to her.
Somehow it doesn't feel like she thought it would. She feels a sense of loss but at the same time a burden has been lifted. She has no home, but she has nothing to protect or defend any more either. She has nothing to prove, she can't fail any more than she has already. She doesn't need to fight to stop people stealing or trying to
