I don’t know how far we got. I stopped trying to figure it out when we made it out further to the west than the farm was to the north. That was twelve miles. And we didn’t stop until full dark had risen. But at the very least, we stopped running the poor horse ragged. Eventually. Her flanks heaved under my heels and she walked exactly as slow as Euler let her.
“You can’t be Baron Euler, though,” I said.
“You told me that already,” he said. “How’s that, you figure?”
“Well, Euler is…” I paused. “I saw a poster. You don’t look anything like that.”
He laughed. It was full and I could feel his belly, as flat and hard as it was, shaking with the force of it. “You put a lot of faith in those things, huh?”
“What else am I supposed to think?”
“Think what you like.”
“He’s…” I realized that I was about to say ugly. I wasn’t sure whether I would be more offensive with the accusation, or forward, with the implication that this man certainly wasn’t ugly.
Anything but. So I shut my mouth, instead, and he laughed behind me, his hands digging into my hips as his arms tried to hold himself still and found a body in the way. I pretended not to like it, because only a harlot would do anything else. At least, that was what I thought at the time. I don’t know what to think, now.
“He’s what? Scarred up?”
He offered me a way out of my own mistake, and I took it without a second thought.
“Yes.”
“And I’m not. Is that right?”
“That’s right,” I agreed.
“Where do you figure they got all their information?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, you think that Baron Euler, grande bandito, sat down to have someone draw a portrait of him?”
I said nothing. He was right.
“Nobody would. Of course you don’t think that. So someone told the warrant office what they thought I looked like, and then they drew a picture, showed it to the guy, and he said, yeah, like that.”
“They were wrong?”
“Who says the drawing wasn’t exactly what they wanted? Exactly what I wanted?”
The way he put emphasis on the word made me realize that he wasn’t making an idle question at all. He was making a suggestion, and the suggestion was obvious. He’d done it himself.
Or maybe it wasn’t Euler himself, but a confederate of his. In the end, someone else had described the picture, and they’d put out an inaccurate drawing. Eventually, maybe, someone would suggest that the picture was an inaccurate one. But that would be after the wrong picture was already sent out and seen by dozens, or hundreds of people.
A lie spreads fast; it’s hard to correct a false first impression, after all. I let out a breath. “Then…”
“Your people back there, they’ll have seen me.” He pulled up the horse to a stop. “I’m going to grab some firewood. Don’t get any ideas.”
I got several ideas. I knew the way we’d come. I could go back. It was a long way off, but I’d seen a town, off in the distance. Only a few miles back. I tried to calculate how far it would be. Only a few short miles. Perhaps two hours.
And I could be out of sight within ten minutes, in the dark. There was no way that Euler would be able to find me.
He slid out of the saddle as if there was no doubt in his mind that I would slide off after. He turned his back right on me. I didn’t need to walk. I could take the horse. And his rifle was tucked into a saddle-holster. Which left him with only the pistol on his hip.
Within a minute, even less, I could be out of range of that. I could be back home before tomorrow morning dawned.
I thought of Jodie, sitting there, his nose bloodied and his head spinning because of a door catching him right on the nose. I sucked in a breath.
I thought of home. Of Mother, who barely left her bed. Of the fact that if I didn’t find something else, I wouldn’t ever be able to leave her side. Not until it was long past time for me to start a family of my own.
I thought of my father. I never knew him, not as a grown woman. He died when I was six. He left when I was five. In my memories he’s a big man. He could have been twenty feet tall for all I know. But children see things in a strange way.
And I knew, in my gut, that I couldn’t go back. Not if I wanted to have a life of my own. I needed to get away somehow. And eventually, I would. But not at that moment.
I took a deep breath. I would find another chance. But it would be someplace where I could settle down and live my life. Until then, I would be in deep trouble.