The Pinkertons had come—not for Magdalena’s people, but for Dutch. A traitor in camp (Micah, always Micah) had sold the location of the gang’s new hideout, and the chase had ended here, on the mudflats of the Lannahechee. Arthur, sick with tuberculosis, coughing blood into his bandana, stood on the bow as flames licked up from the engine room.
“The Imperadora was my leaving,” she said. “My husband was a colonel in the Brazilian army. He beat me for ten years. One night, I put laudanum in his wine, walked to the docks, and stowed away on this ship. By the time we reached the river, I was free. But freedom is just another word for ‘now you get to starve on your own terms.’”
“I’m thinking about a lot of things.”
Magdalena’s smile vanished. “The law doesn’t sail here because the hull is cracked in three places. One good storm and we’re all at the bottom of the river. But that’s not why you’re really here, is it, Mr. Morgan?”
And that was when Arthur understood the truth that Dutch would never accept: