He swung into the saddle, the leather creaking under his weight. Spirit shifted eagerly, as if she too sensed that their course was set.
Anthony nudged her into motion, keeping to the shadowed side of the ridge. His thoughts ran ahead of him and down through the gullies and across the flats. All the way to Silver Cross.
He would find Abigail. He would tell her everything: the barrels in the river, Tate riding under Vanburgh’s brand, the bounty hunters prowling the high country. She had to know. She had to see that this wasn’t just his fight anymore.
The wind rose behind him. He didn’t look back again.
“Abigail’s the only one,” he whispered to himself. “The only one left who’ll listen.”
And with that thought firm in his mind, Anthony rode on.
Chapter 12
Anthony tightened the strap of his saddlebags and nudged Spirit forward. Behind him, the scorched skeleton of his homestead sank into the folds of the ridge until only smoke-blackened beams poked above the brush.
He glanced back more than once, his shoulders coiled and every nerve on edge. The mountains gave nothing in return but the restless sigh of wind through the pines.
“Easy, girl,” he murmured, brushing Spirit’s neck. “Just a little farther.”
He steered her along a narrow deer path that skirted the town. Silver Cross lay down in the flats, its rooftops glinting in the light of the sun, but Anthony had no intention of riding into the streets where Muldoon’s eyes might catch him.
The back trails curled instead toward the outer edge of the valley, where a lone whitewashed building sat against a grove of cottonwoods: the clinic.
The ride took him across uneven ground. Each step Spirit took seemed louder than the last, and the cut on his arm throbbed in time with his heartbeat. The Colt at his hip weighed heavier with every mile. It was a silent reminder that he wasn’t free of danger yet.
When the cottonwoods finally came into view, Anthony felt his chest ease. The clinic stood just beyond them. It was close enough to Silver Cross for its patients yet far enough to keep him off the main road. Safer ground, at least for the moment.
He swung down from the saddle and let Spirit nose at a patch of grass near the fence. His hand hovered at his belt but didn’t touch the revolver. No, not here. He hadn’t come for blood.
Before he could step onto the porch, the door opened with a faint creak. Abigail stood framed in the light with her hair loose around her shoulders. Her expression tightened as her eyes fell on him.
“Anthony,” she said, her eyes sharp. “You look like you’ve ridden through a storm.”
“I might as well have, ma’am,” he said, keeping his voice low but urgent. “We need to talk. Now.”
She stepped aside. “Come in. What is it?”
Inside, the scent of herbs and clean linens did little to calm him. His gaze swept over the small clinic. Everything was orderly and calm, but Anthony knew better. The world outside this door was anything but calm.
“My home,” he began. “I know I didn’t need proof, but I checked anyway. It wasn’t lightning. It was deliberate.”
“Deliberate?” Abigail asked, glancing at the wound on his arm.
“Oil-soaked rags,” he said. “I followed the scorch patterns, checked the beams, the wind shifts. Someone wanted it to burn. Everything I saw points to someone who knew exactly what they were doing.”
“Vanburgh,” she said. It was obvious.
“Of course, he’s involved,” he replied. “And it isn’t just the homestead. The creek...the creek’s been poisoned. Lyle Tate, Vanburgh’s man, was dumping barrels into the river that runs through Shoshone land.”
Her eyes widened. “Anthony . . .” She took a step back. “That’s . . . How can you be certain?”
“I saw it,” he said. “I was there, and I watched him work. There’s no mistaking it. The river is in trouble. And so are the people downstream. You and the clinic...everyone relying on that water. They’re in danger.”
She turned, pacing the small space. Anthony watched her.
“We can’t just go on what you saw,” she said. “Not without proof. If Vanburgh knows we’re accusing him without evidence, we’ll be the ones in the fire next.”
Anthony ran a hand over his forehead. “Proof. By the time we gather proof, it could be too late. Every day we wait, more poison flows. Innocent people get sick. That’s the proof.”
