Lady Mae lowered her shaking hands and put the letter on her lap. The tears fell heavily onto the creased paper. She watched the ink spread, turning the white space gray. She didn’t remember writing that letter, or that specific book, but it mattered not; they were all the same. Volumes of beliefs, all of which amounted to the same thing. Forgiveness. Empathy. Redemption. Her hands, which held the letter tightly; they had not forgiven. They had taken the life of a Deputy, and for that, she felt a piercing dread. The Deputies would certainly come for her now. But that wasn’t all—she had done the thing Arbuckle had refused to, the thing he felt so deeply in his heart was wrong. She had killed. She dropped the letter onto her lap and collapsed into her own hands, the weight of her grief choking and fierce.

Her breath broke, and she tried to calm herself. She did not wish to live, but she did not wish to die by their hands, and so she stood quickly and, opening her satchel, went over to the cupboards and emptied the oats and three tins into the leather bag. It wasn’t much—a day, two maybe, but it was something at least. Then she went back to the mattress, picked up the letters, took a shirt off the wall, stuffed them into her satchel, and slung the bag over her shoulder. She grabbed the oil lamp and the matches. Maybe she would stumble upon a hiding place, a space unknown to even Arbuckle. Perhaps there she would sit upon the ground, push her arms through Arbuckle’s shirt, and wait.

Next to the back door were traps, but they were large and heavy. She lifted one, the metal cold and rusty to the touch. If she took it, she’d have to carry it. And how long could she do that? How long did she expect to stay up there above the settlement? She’d go up, find a place to hide, and come back for the traps when it was light out. Until then she would walk, one foot in front of the other, the remnants of her life small enough to fit inside her satchel.

19

There was a path in the middle of the farthest tree line. The lamplight bounced as she walked, but it was enough for her to follow where the trees broke. The ground was rocky but clear, and as long as she went slowly, she could reach the ridge by sunrise. She’d escaped their torches and chains, and had come away with her life. To turn back would be certain death, and while she did not know what lay on the other side of the mountain, she was willing to take the chance. Arbuckle had said there was a whole world out there. But Lady Mae did not care for any world that did not have Arbuckle in it, and so while it would only take a few more days to be up and over the ridge, she did not wish to. To leave was to leave her mother. It was to leave him.