Some for pay, some for sport. The kind who never seemed to leave a town without someone getting buried.
Anthony had seen him once before...on that wagon in Silver Cross. But Tate’s hat brim had been low then, a bandanna covering most of his face. All Anthony had caught was a glimpse of his eyes. Sharp, pale, and cold as creek ice.
Now there was no mistaking him. A cold weight settled in Anthony’s gut.
If Vanburgh had Tate on his payroll, this wasn’t just about money or land anymore. This meant Vanburgh was willing to put bullets in anyone who got in his way.
Poison the water, kill if needed. It was all the same kind of business.
The thought coiled in Anthony’s chest, hot and heavy. Vanburgh wasn’t working with just hired hands anymore. He’d brought in a man who made his living ending lives.
Anthony stayed low behind the boulder, forcing himself to breathe. The urge to ride back to Abigail and warn her pressed hard against the back of his mind. But he couldn’t move yet. Not with Tate’s gaze sweeping the canyon like a hawk’s.
If that man so much as caught a flicker of movement, Anthony knew how it would end. Quick, bloody, and without warning.
And if Tate was here, then Vanburgh’s plans were already farther along than Anthony had feared.
Chapter 8
The ride back to Silver Cross was a blur of hooves and dust. Anthony kept his mare at a steady pace. His mind was still lodged in the canyon: the slosh of poison into clear water, the pale glint of Lyle Tate’s eyes under the brim of his hat.
The air grew warmer as the trail sloped down into the valley. The smell of sage faded under the heavier scents of smoke from cookfires and the coal stoves that kept the saloons in business long after sunset.
Anthony had only one thought and one course of action. He had seen enough to be certain. Vanburgh’s men were poisoning the river that ran into Shoshone lands, and one of those men was Lyle Tate—a killer with a reputation that reached farther than the Union Pacific tracks.
And now Tate was here, working under Vanburgh’s brand.
The knowledge scraped at him. If Tate was left unchecked, he would do more than foul the water. The man’s trade wasviolence, and Anthony knew from experience that it was never just the guilty who wound up bleeding.
By the time the mare’s hooves struck the packed dirt of Silver Cross’s main street, Anthony had worked himself into a hard knot of resolve.
The sun was sinking behind the ridge, but the sheriff’s office still had lamplight glowing behind its dusty window.
Anthony swung down and hitched his horse to the post before striding for the door.
Sheriff Winston Muldoon was behind his desk with his sleeves rolled up, chewing a toothpick and flipping through a stack of yellowing wanted posters. The sheriff glanced up once, then went back to his papers.
“Muldoon, we’ve got trouble,” Anthony said, slamming the door behind him. “Big trouble.”
The sheriff’s eyes came up slowly this time, his expression the same mix of boredom and mild irritation he wore for anyone who came in without a bottle or a bribe.
“Evening, Hawk,” Muldoon said. “Something biting at you?”
“Lyle Tate,” Anthony replied, leaning forward. “He’s here. I saw him not an hour ago, up in the canyon off the east fork.”
Muldoon frowned, setting the toothpick down. “Tate? You sure about that?”
“Sure as I’m standing here,” Anthony said. “And I didn’t just see him. I saw him with a man called Bill, Vanburgh’s wagonman, dumping barrels of poison into the river.”
The sheriff’s brow went up a fraction. “Poison.”
“Barrels of it,” Anthony said. “I don’t know what’s in them, but it’s foul enough to kill a creek stone dead. That water runs straight to Shoshone land, Muldoon. To folks’ homes. To the wells they drink from.”
The room went quiet except for the faint ticking of the wall clock. Muldoon’s eyes searched Anthony’s face, but there wasn’t belief there, only the calculation of a man deciding how much trouble this conversation might cause him.
“You’ve been out riding too long in the sun, Hawk,” Muldoon said finally. “Lyle Tate ain’t in town. I’d know.”
“You don’t know, Sheriff,” Anthony said. “You don’t know because you don’t want to know. But I saw him, plain as day. Tate and Bill, together, working for Vanburgh.”
