She’d set her mind to it. When Arbuckle walked out of the courthouse, she was going to take him by the hand, and they’d walk down the steps and through the crowd side by side. Whatever was waiting for them they’d tend to it together, and when the sun rose the next day she was certain they’d know what to do. Twenty atonements—sixteen was the most she’d ever performed, eighteen the most she’d heard of herself. But his hands. What of that? If she could do it, he’d survive—would she? Or would she drown in her own life as soon as blade cut skin, her blood pouring into his own until he too choked? She couldn’t lose him again.

I ain’t alone no more, Mama.

You never was, my girl.

She heard leather soles on dust and the creak of the hinge, and she stood, brushing off the back of her skirts with her fingers. She wanted to turn to him and say I can’t and never harm. But what would he say? Perhaps he would protest her worries and pull her in close, whispering that he’d thought of it the whole night through and had a plan. But what if her lie had turned him to ash? Would he believe that the conflict was still there just beneath her flesh?

“Morning, Lady Mae.”

It was not Arbuckle’s voice; instead what she heard was a familiar drip, liquid-like and hot. Instead, it was the one she knew like the pine floor grooves that lay under the living-room rug. It was him. Deputy Iverson. The one who—

Lady Mae turned slowly and saw Arbuckle standing in between two men, one of whom murdered her mother. The steps gave and the sun flashed and her heart lunged toward the earth. It stilled for long enough that she brought her hand to her chest, but she did not look at the Deputy. She didn’t need to; his eyes pressed into where she touched her breast, and there they remained until she felt a beat under her skin. Her mouth opened but no words came out. If she moved or started at all, he’d have her. And what then? She and Arbuckle were so close; they had but one night left in the settlement. If they could make it until dusk of the next day, then maybe.

Maybe, Mama.

You got more than maybes, my girl.

The hot sun glared down onto the four of them as they stood on the courthouse steps. “Been assigned watch,” Deputy Iverson said. “I got it in me to make sure the law is followed. Do anything that’s necessary, too.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” asked Arbuckle.

“Means I stand watch. Means I escort you to the depot. Means you best shut up now, boy, lest you end up like your pa,” Deputy Iverson said, then tilted his head toward Lady Mae. “Or her mama.”

He’d said it. It was both a confession and boastful, and as Deputy Iverson’s words circled above, the black scourge smoke-like and thick, she saw how it would unfurl. They’d follow her back to her house and cross the threshold and stand in the exact spot where her mother’s life was taken. Would he remember it as she did each day if she let herself? Or had her mother been just another resident who disobeyed the law? Perhaps there was a deep wake of bodies that carved its way through the valleys from settlement to settlement. Maybe there were other mothers out there, their brains beaten and bones left for meal. And what had their daughters done when they, too, watched their own flesh burn into the night sky?