Caroline

Nevada

"Real smart, Fredrick." Klara snapped at me.

"Like you were any help, barely kept your damn gun steady." I snarked back.

The Nevada sun was beating on my back, I had removed my frock coat about thirteen miles back. Sweat and grime poured from my forehead and onto my horse, Stalone, who was close to becoming lame. I look up from my horse toward Deak, who was directly in front of me listening to Klara and I argue for the last eight states. Pa and mother were in front of the three of us, uncle Davis was far behind us, but not far enough to where we couldn't keep an eye on him. Deak picked up his speed and trotted up to pa as to tell him something. Pa raised his hand as a gesture to stop.

"Thank the lord!" Davis exclaimed and fell off his horse with a relieved sigh.

Caroline, who had rode ahead of the group to warn if law was nearby, emerged from the heat waves.

"What's the verdict?" I called through cupped hands before swinging my leg over to the other side of my saddle to hop off.

"There's no law for miles in this desert." She waited until her horse was parallel to mine to tell me. "We stoppin'?" She asked pa who threw his hands in the air out of frustration.

"You see us gettin' off our horses, right?" He said audaciously.

I led my horse to a desert willow tree, where I hitched it and got my bedroll from behind the saddle. Caroline hitched hers on the same tree opposite of Stalone. Davis had his bedroll beside mother and pa's. Deak, Caroline, Klara, and I all had our bedrolls parallel to each others, I set up a small campfire in the middle of the circle we had made. Pa cleared his throat and scratched his long, white beard.

"We sure as hell stirred up quite the circus in New York." He said glaring at me through his snarl, his singular silver tooth reflected a beam of blinding sunlight in my eye.

"And Pennsylvania, Ohio, Missouri." Deak said recalling when pa had gotten us into deeper trouble by killing either civilians and lawmen. "New York was anybody's fault, all of ours really. It ain't fair to blame a single soul." Pa scoffed in response and lay down, putting his hat over his eyes.

Which had a hole directly through the front to the back from where he had almost gotten shot. Davis set up a pot and began cutting carrots and meat for a stew, before anyone had made fire to the sticks and dead leaves that we accepted as a campfire. I took my hat off and wiped the sweat from my forehead with my forearm. Deak brought fire to the mess of sticks and sat down next to me, on his bedroll.

"What happened, Freddy?" Only he called me Freddy, no one else really had a nickname, Klara was Klara, Caroline was Caroline, and so forth.

"I left you and Klara alone for three minutes, I'm not angry, I'm genuinely curious." He looked at me with thoughtful eyes instead of the angry glares I've been getting. His voice was at a low whisper just loud enough for me to hear.

"There were too many of them."

"Law? Fred, we all had to deal with them."

"Sheppards." I said staring through him. He was silent when he nodded in acknowledgment

"Like I said," His voice deep with intensity, "it wasn't your fault."

"We got the money." I said lightheartedly.

"Right." He smiled glancing to his saddlebag.

I watched a spider make a web inside of a nearby fallen tree, it used a hole that was previously there and crawled inside for shelter. It reminded me that we needed a better cover than just the shade casted over the entire circle by the two trees over us. It was the evening, 7:30 exactly as my pocket watch read, so the sun was just at the horizon giving us a break from the unforgiving heat.