Conn didn’t particularly like heights, and his guts were tight as shrunk leather as he crossed this narrow ridge with sheer cliffs on both sides. The gelding slipped a little on an icy patch, making Conn’s heart jump, but the horse kept its wits and its footing, and a short time later, they were across the ridge and back on the mountain proper, with gentler slopes of scrub and scree to either side.
As the light of day dimmed, snow fell. In the silence between gusts of wind, they could hear its gritty patter against their hats and jackets.
None of it would reach the valley below. Not yet. The mountain had its own weather. But it was a reminder of what was coming not only for the mountain but for all they beheld.
If Mary wanted to rebuild, she had her work cut out for her.
He hoped her family came for her soon. He hoped they talked some sense into her. He hoped when he returned to the homestead, he would find it empty with maybe a note awaiting him, Mary explaining that she was needed on her father’s farm, where he was welcome to visit.
An invitation he would decline.
It was too much, too sad.
Once he killed these men, he wanted to put all of this behind him as quickly and completely as possible. If Mary stuck to her guns and set to rebuilding, he would keep his promise and help her, of course, but he hoped she would give up that empty dream and start over with her family in Cañon City.
Certainly, she could have a better life there, close to family and far from this place that had been so cruel to her.
Meanwhile, she would also free Conn to go in search of a better life himself.
He didn’t know what that would look like, exactly, but he supposed there was no rush, either. He had been certain that his destiny awaited him here, alongside his brother.
Now, with Cole dead, he wouldn’t even know which way to turn once he left the hopefully empty homestead.
He had changed. He knew that. He was done with the life he’d been living. But at the same time, he didn’t want to head back to Kansas. Maybe for a visit. He did miss his parents, and they would probably like to see him, especially because of what happened to Cole.
But not to stay.
He had moved beyond Kansas somehow, just as he had moved beyond the rough life he’d been living since leaving there.
But he supposed he shouldn’t plan too far ahead. Not just because Mary might indeed stick to her plans, delaying him probably through winter and maybe even spring planting, but also because he had this work in front him, the dark work of vengeance, and he had no idea how this work might change him further.
Better not to think at all,he reckoned as the cold wind whipped harder and sleet sizzled against his jacket and made him squint.
The day was dying.
Sheffield rode forward and drew up beside him. “Best get off this ridge and make camp while we can still see, Conn.”
Conn nodded, and a short time later, they left the main path and followed a game trail downhill into the trees, where night had, for all intents and purposes, already fallen.
They made camp on level ground among the snapped-off trees of a storm-ravaged bench, comfortably out of the wind next to a sizeable deadfall from which they quickly gathered dry wood. They built a campfire in the shelter of a cave-like overhang that blocked the wind and caught and held the heat.
They boiled coffee, and Conn threw together a meal of beans with bacon and bread he bought in the Fairplay bakery.
They ate, as they had traveled, in silence.
But once the plates were cleaned and packed away and they sat there, sipping their coffee, Sheffield said, “This whole ride, I been thinking about that marshal.”
“Mayfield?”
Sheffield nodded and lifted the coffee cup to his drooping mustache, his bony face looking brutally hard in the flickering firelight and shifting shadows. “What do you think he was talking about with Junior?”
Now it was Conn’s turn to sip his coffee. “Hard to tell. Man like Mayfield, maybe he was just trying to put a burr under your saddle.”
Sheffield stared away from the fire out into the darkness. “Maybe.”
“But you don’t think so?”
“No, I reckon probably I don’t.”
