The Last Ride
Copyright© 2025 by Heel
Chapter 4
The desert outside the small town was quiet, the train gone, leaving only the distant scrape of wagon wheels and the occasional crow calling overhead. Inside the small whitewashed room, Ione Beaumontlay was in the traction frame, body stretched and restrained, her green eyes fixed on the ceiling. The doctor had left her in a carefully maintained limbo—legs set, spine aligned, arms free to move slightly but no more. Pain, constant and dull, threaded through every nerve, but the worst was the helplessness.
Rigg lingered longer than necessary. At first, it was merely duty—he had to ensure she survived until she could be moved, that she did not slip from consciousness in pain or fever. But gradually, he found himself lingering, watching, listening.
“You’ve been running a long time,” he said, voice quiet, careful not to startle her.
Ione’s lips twitched into a faint, ironic smile. “A long time and always just ahead of trouble. Doesn’t feel like much of an accomplishment, does it?”
He shook his head. “Doesn’t excuse jumping off a train like a fool.”
She laughed softly, a rasping, brief sound that drew a wry smile from him despite himself. “I never claimed to be sensible, Marshal.”
He studied her, the contours of her face, the tilt of her green eyes, the subtle strength in the way she held herself even immobilized. She was fragile and lethal at once, pain and poise woven together like a fine wire. Her arms moved slowly as she gestured, small, pale hands with nimble fingers testing the limited motion allowed to them. Even her feet, small and still, resting motionless against the board, seemed impossibly delicate.
“Tell me,” he said finally, leaning a little closer, “about the train, the bank jobs, the robberies ... everything.”
She sighed, the sound wet and shallow. “You want the whole story?” she asked. “Every detail?”
“I want to know who I’ve caught,” he said.
And so she told him.
She told him about the first robbery, the first man she ever shot, the clever disguises, the nights spent hiding in abandoned cabins or beneath freight cars. She told him about the gang she led, the loyalty she demanded, the lives she had taken and spared on whims, the careful plans gone wrong. She told him about the fear she had always carried, masked by arrogance, and about the freedom she had always sought, at any cost.
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