“This don’t have to go sour,” Amity said easily. She rested her cheek against the top of Esther’s head. “You know more about me now than you did this time yesterday. Maybe by tomorrow, you’ll know what my favorite color is, too.”
“It ain’t yellow,” Bet intoned. “No kind of coward could pull the con you just tried.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Esther saw Amity give the Head Librarian an appreciative nod. “Thanks for that.”
“Don’t thank me yet,” Bet said, folding her arms. Her posture was taut—she was ready for all of this to go wrong. Esther didn’t like seeing her hands get farther away from her life preservers, but she supposed there was no way for Amity to take a bullet without it passing through Esther’s own belly first.
Oh, Esther thought, clarity washing over her like cool water. Oh. I’m a human shield.
“You can’t stay with us,” Leda said, shaking her head. “I’m sorry, Amity. You must know how much we all admire the work you did to get on that poster, but you’re putting us in danger. We can’t get you to Utah.”
“I think you can,” Amity said. Her persuader was still pressed against Esther’s ribs—not so painfully as it had at first, though.
Esther wondered if Amity was letting up, or settling in for a long negotiation. “Please could I sit down?” She asked it carefully, in the same soft, easy voice she had used for the officer at the checkpoint. “I’m still a little light-headed from the ride.”
“You’ll sit down soon enough, my girl,” Amity drawled. “We won’t be talking for long.”
“There’s nothing to discuss,” Bet interrupted. “You’re putting our entire operation in danger. We’ll be doing damage control anyway, trying to fix any rumors that we’re associated with the resistance. We won’t be able to distribute Unapproved Materials for months. You’ve compromised our work enough as it is, Amity.”
“My work’s in a different weight class from yours,” Amity said, a sharp edge on the words. It was a tone Esther recognized, the kind of dangerous that would have been hard to notice if she hadn’t heard it a hundred times before. It was the danger of assumed authority. Amity thought of herself as more important than the Librarians, thought her work was more urgent.
Esther had grown up in a house with that same kind of importance. She knew what happened when it was challenged. She knew what people who thought of themselves that way would do, just to protect the idea that they had the right to do it.
She didn’t have a way to find out if Bet and Leda knew the same thing she did. She couldn’t tell if they also heard that warning tone, that growing undercurrent of don’t-try-me. Their faces betrayed nothing.
Esther was, she realized, nothing more than a hand of cards in a poker game between these three women. She was only a symbol. She wasn’t the thing they were playing for. And like a bad hand, she could be discarded at any moment.
“Please,” she said again, desperate to put out the fuse that was rapidly burning between the three women. “I’d really like to sit down. We can all talk about this over some water—”
“You’ll want to stop talking,” Amity growled in her ear, pressing the gun a little harder into Esther’s side. “This doesn’t really concern you.”
“It hardly concerns you, either,” Leda snapped. Bet’s eyes cut to her, and Esther wondered if Leda was pushing too hard. “You can go to Utah if you want, Amity, but we won’t be your escort.”
“Here’s the thing,” Amity said. “I’ve got another job to do, and Galahad is waiting for me at the Canyon Point safehouse in Utah. I’m wanted in the Lower Northeast in less than a fortnight. If you think I can afford detour time on account of your sweaty palms, you’re mistaken.”
“Your schedule is hardly our problem,” Bet started to say, but then Amity interrupted her with a single word, and she fell silent.
“What’d you say?” Leda said softly.
“I said Galahad,” Amity replied. “That’s my contact in Utah. That’s who I answer to. And I don’t doubt that’s who you answer to. Tell me I’m wrong.” Bet’s face didn’t move, and neither did Leda’s, and their stillness was answer enough. “Now,” Amity continued, “if you’d like to be the one to tell her that you set me loose in the desert because you were afraid of the big bad sheriff, I welcome you to go on ahead and do it. But my feeling is that none of us wants Galahad feeling stood up at the dance. Do I have that right?”
Bet was still for another moment before she broke. She whipped her hat off and let it slap her thigh hard. “Whiskey-shits,” she spat. “Why wouldn’t you just tell us? Why’d you have to go ridin’ high in front like that? I killed a man yesterday because of you,” she added.
“You killed six men yesterday because of me,” Amity corrected her. “They needed killing, though, didn’t they? What kind of good man becomes a sheriff these days? What kind of good man joins his posse?”
“Needs doesn’t pay the cost of killing a man,” Bet said, and there was a wound in her voice deeper than a bullet could travel. “Just because he needed killing doesn’t mean I can sleep easy.”
Amity let the weight of that settle over them all before she answered, and when she did, her voice was gentler than it had been before. “I didn’t tell you because I was told not to. My instructions were to get to Utah in one piece.”
“What about Gen and Trace?” Leda asked, her chin snapping up with sudden realization. “What are they?”
“I wouldn’t tell you if they were working the same job as me,” Amity replied. “So, I don’t know why you’d think to believe me. But for whatever it’s worth, they’re on the level. They just want a life together, same as they told you.”
Bet was still staring at the ground, her jaw working furiously. “Damn,” she muttered to herself. “Galahad,” she added with the same venom she’d used for the swear.
“Let the girl go,” Leda said to Amity, her gaze as cold and flat as gunmetal. “You don’t need leverage anymore.”
“You ain’t sworn yet,” Amity replied, all the light drained out of her voice. “Both of you do that, and then I’ll turn the pup loose.”
Something deep in Esther objected. Hadn’t she proven by now that she was more than a pup? But that objection evaporated like spilled water at high noon—she was trapped and trembling, and she sure wasn’t about to put up a fight.
Slow and steady, Bet and Leda each drew their revolvers. Esther cringed instinctively away from Amity’s gun, sure that she was about to get gutshot, but Amity’s iron grip held her steady. “Hush,” Amity whispered, even though Esther hadn’t made a sound. “You watch, now. You’ll want to know how this works.” Esther hardly needed the instructions—she couldn’t seem to look away from Bet and Leda’s hands. Each of them removed a single bullet from the belly of their revolver. “See?” Amity continued. “That bullet in Bet’s hand, that’s a promise. She’s giving it to me, and if she breaks her promise, I’ll have a bean in the wheel with her name on it.”
Bet and Leda held their hands out, a bullet in each palm. “Go on, then,” Bet said.
“Go on,” Amity repeated, still whispering in Esther’s ear. “My hands are full. You’ve got to accept this promise for me, pup.”
Esther looked back and forth between Bet and Leda, half-numb with fear. Leda caught her eye and nodded, just once, slow and sure.
Esther reached out with trembling fingers and picked up the bullets. Her fingers brushed each woman’s palm in turn. Bet’s was slick with sweat. Leda’s was dry as bone.
“Hop those in my breast pocket,” Amity said. Esther did as she was told, reaching awkwardly behind her to deposit the bullets in the pocket of Amity’s shirt. “There,” Amity said, cheerful as anything. She didn’t so much let Esther go as vanish from behind her, so suddenly that Esther staggered at her absence. “Careful, now,” Amity added, steadying Esther with a firm hand on her arm.
Bet sighed, rolling her shoulders. “We’ll have to tell the others,” she said. “No use trying to keep this a secret, I think, and it wouldn’t be fair to put them at risk without giving them the chance to turn tail if they need to.”
Amity smiled, holstering her revolver. “That’s fine,” she said, “that’s just fine. Let’s not make anyone hear this news with a cold belly, though. Leda, I think you’ve got a bottle of something good tucked away, don’t you?”
Leda pursed her lips. “I don’t think I do. We can drink out of your stash.”
“Fair’s fair,” Amity replied, still smiling. “Round ’em up, Esther. We’ve got a heap of discussin’ to do.”
The Bitter Springs checkpoint was the last hurdle the Librarians had to clear before they could get to the safe territory of Utah. The story Bet planned to spin was one that had apparently worked plenty of times before—that they were heading to Marble Canyon to deliver Approved Materials to the tiny outpost there. There was no reason for any suspicion to arise in response to this story—bringing Approved Materials to tiny outposts was the primary reason the Librarians existed. And they would deliver their goods to Marble Canyon, just as promised.
Then they would keep right on, riding their horses to Big Water to meet with the insurrectionists. With the rebellion, Esther mentally corrected herself.
The word insurrectionists didn’t fit right anymore.
The ride to Bitter Springs was a long one, and there wasn’t a single thing easy about it. The days were hot and the nights were cold and the wind was high, but not nearly so high as the tension between Amity and everyone else who was stuck riding with her. She’d made her case clear enough, but that hadn’t endeared her to a single one of the Librarians. Genevieve and Trace seemed unsure of how they were supposed to feel—they’d known that Amity wasn’t who she claimed to be, of course, but they hadn’t realized the danger she was putting everyone in by refusing to hide herself away, and they didn’t know how much guilt they were supposed to feel. They seemed relieved when, a mile from the checkpoint, Leda told them to get off their horses and hide in the false compartment under the supply wagon.
They weren’t alone in their confusion. Nobody seemed to know how much guilt they were supposed to feel, except for Amity, who by all appearances had never been acquainted with remorse in all her days. But everyone else was saddled strange with a combination of resentment and repentance.
Esther would have felt all at sea if she hadn’t been surrounded on all sides by desert. Bet and Leda were oddly solicitous in a way that left her dizzy. Amity was as bright and brittle in her friendliness as she had been before she’d jammed a six-gun into Esther’s ribs. Cye wouldn’t talk to her at all, wouldn’t even look at her. Everything was upside-down.
“You know, I meant everything I said,” Amity said after a few hours of riding. Her tone was just as light as it had been when she’d been a finger-twitch away from introducing a bullet to Esther’s belly. “No hard feelings, not from me.”
Esther didn’t look over at Amity, or at least she tried not to look. She’d been trying not to look ever since Amity’d let her go. As they’d sat around the campfire getting everyone on the same page, and as they’d finished packing up the wagons, and as they’d tacked up the horses, and as they’d ridden side by side—she’d tried not to look at the woman who had betrayed them all, the woman who had given her a taste of hope.
“I don’t know why you think she’d care if you got hard feelings or not,” Cye spat. They rode just a little in front of Esther and Amity, right in the center of everyone. From where they sat, they could put eyes on every person in the crew and both wagons, if they’d only turn their head to do it. But, like Esther, they’d been spending the ride staring straight ahead, trying not to set eyes on anything more complicated than the road in front of them.
“Well, you see,” Amity drawled, louder than she had to, “we’re some kind of friends. We bonded in the desert, is what happened, and now I feel a need to make sure Hopalong here knows we’re square, just like I told her before, while you were napping.”
The line of Cye’s back stiffened. “Don’t think there’s no hard feelings between us about that ‘nap,’” they said. Their hand drifted to the goose egg on the back of their head, where the butt of Amity’s revolver had put them to bed before she’d gone to eavesdrop on Esther’s confession.
“I’d never worry about hard feelings from you,” Amity said easily. “Esther, though. I wouldn’t want her as an enemy.”
Esther knew that bait was being dangled in front of her. It was almost a relief to take it.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked, and even without looking, she could see Amity’s catlike mouth curling up at the corners.
“Kind of girl who rides all the way to Endurance on her own? Hell, you didn’t break a sweat when I had my smoke-wagon in your side. You’re made of something tougher than you look.”
Esther couldn’t have felt heat rising in her cheeks if she was on fire, not with the sun beating her the way it was, but her heart leapt in a way she couldn’t fight. But she couldn’t thank Amity.
“That is a hell of a thing for you to say to me,” she said, and her voice came out low and husky, in a way she’d only ever heard herself speak when she’d been alone with Beatriz in the dark. “You don’t know the half of how tough I am,” she added, and even she couldn’t tell if she was blowing smoke.
“I think I do,” Amity said. “But maybe only half.”
Esther bit her cheeks, trying to keep from smiling. She told herself that Amity’s approval didn’t matter. But it did, and seeing how much the conversation burned Cye’s wick didn’t hurt, either. Esther broke for just an instant, glancing over at Amity, and she saw the assassin’s sidelong smile, and she knew that none of it was an accident.
“You can fuck right off into the Canyon,” Esther said, trying to keep the grin out of her voice.
Amity tipped her hat. “I’ve just been waiting for an invitation,” she said. “I’ll go let the boss know about it. Wouldn’t want to fuck off into the Canyon without giving notice.” With that, she clicked her tongue at her horse and trotted past Cye until she was caught up to Bet and Leda.
“She’ll just try and charm them, too,” Cye muttered.
“Won’t work,” Esther replied, watching the way Cye’s hips rolled with the motion of their horse’s back. “She couldn’t charm a snake into biting. Bet won’t budge an inch for her.”
“Hmph.” Cye spat, but their heart didn’t seem in it. “Charm or none, I hope she’s right about you.”
“Why’s that?” Esther asked, her belly still warm from Amity’s conspiratorial smile. That warmth dropped away at Cye’s next words, though.
“Because those lights up there? Those are the lookouts for the Bitter Springs checkpoint,” they said, gesturing at the tall wooden tower a quarter of a mile ahead. Lights shone off the sides of it, illuminating the road. A lookout post perched at the top of the tower, and Esther shivered at the feel of binoculared eyes watching her from so far away.
“It doesn’t look to me like Amity’s about to hide away in the wagon,” she murmured.
Cye glanced over their shoulder at Esther. Their face was grim, their wide eyes dark with warning. They tipped their hat back off their forehead so they could see Esther clear. “I hope you’re ready for another fight, Hopalong,” they said. “Because a fight’s about to be ready for you.”