Ned’s hands sweated around the reins, even though he’d been shivering from the cold for the past hour. This could only mean one thing. Adam Wild had ratted them out, and with the wanted posters hanging just a handful yards away from the saloon, Cole shouldn’t speak to any local, and neither should he.
He forced Nugget into a quick trot and grabbed Cole’s arm just as he was about to dismount. A few people were already peeking out of the windows in curiosity, and neither of them were hard to recognize. Cole—a half-Mexican dressed in black, and Ned—a tanned redhead with a fresh scar on his cheek.
“Adam talked,” he said before Cole could have snapped at him.
The stern features twitched behind the drops falling from the brim of his hat, and Cole inhaled through his nose, filling his lungs until his chest stretched the black coat. “How do you know?” he whispered, sliding his arm out of Ned’s grip instead of ripping it out like he’d surely intended before.
“We’ve got a bounty on our heads.” Ned cocked his head toward the notice board, so dismayed he realized he didn’t check how much the prize on him was. He could explain the misunderstanding to the Pinkertons and get it nulled once he managed to serve their cause, but Cole… he wasn’t supposed to be a part of this. “We covered our faces, and neither you nor me were wanted before. How else would they have our descriptions? Mine even mentions the scar,” he uttered, unable to keep his mouth from shivering. This was terrible.
Cole exhaled, his nostrils widening as if he were a bull about to charge. Even drenched to the bone he looked like someone Ned would not want to meet in the dark.
“It’s only been a day since his capture. And if they have the posters, then he must be in Gedes,” Cole rasped, flinching when the batwing doors creaked, and a woman stepped out of the saloon, hugging a green bottle to her bosom.
“Gentlemen! Don’t stand in the rain like that. Come! I’ll give you both a hug!”
Ned tipped his hat, hoping that the shade of his hair didn’t stand out too much in such low light. “Thank you m’am. We’ll see you in an hour.” He faked a smile, unsure when he had become such a good liar. He urged Cole down the road. “It’s a small town. One of these buildings must be the jail.”
Cole was remarkably stoic in the way he nudged Thunder to make him walk, but perhaps this was what being an outlaw for years did to a man, because Ned could sense accusatory stares on him even when there couldn’t have been any. The saloon girl returned to her bottle, there was barely anyone else within sight, and to top it off, the dreadful rain was dense as a widow’s veil, yet he still had the acute sense that he might not leave Gedes alive.
If the town’s men caught him, the secretive agreement with Pinkerton agents wouldn’t save Ned’s life. Come tomorrow, the sheriff would swing him off the noose, and that would be that for Ned O’Leary. Gone too soon, trying to do the right thing yet failing every time.
He followed Cole to the town’s single crossing. The large bulk of the stables blocked the longer end of the street, but his gaze wandered the other way, and he didn’t need to read the sign above the porch to know what one of the buildings there was. The solid brick and mortar making up its walls said it all.
Cole slid off Thunder’s back and hitched him to the railing in front of the general store, which had been closed for the day.
“Is there any point in risking discovery? Tom said not to. Maybe we should leave,” Ned said, walking shoulder to shoulder with Cole. “If he talked, he would not be welcome back with the Gotham Boys anyway.”
Lightning lit the sky the moment Cole turned to look Ned’s way. His features were tense, as if an invisible hand had dragged back the skin and held it there. He didn’t shiver despite being as soaked as Ned, and stared at him in defiance.
“Then go,” he said and spun on his heel, boots tapping against the wooden planks when he crossed the street.
Ned followed despite sensing phantom shotgun muzzles pointed at him from windows. Those fears could become a reality if they made a single mistake and revealed who they were. “I just need to know your plans.”
“I’m gonna talk to him,” Cole said in a stiff voice Ned could barely hear through the constant hum-and-tap, but there was no stopping Cole once he set his mind to something.
Through the sheer curtains in the house right next to the sheriff’s office Ned spotted a family having dinner, and slowed down at the onslaught of memories that were so recent yet distant at the same time. His life with Uncle Liam, Aunt Muriel and his cousins no longer felt real, buried beyond the new experience of eating around the campfire or sneaking out to share meals with Cole.