“You can’t hide forever!” Ike yelled.
“I ain’t hiding,” Chato said, his voice low behind him.
Ike spun. Too slow. The knife flashed once. Then twice. The Rider staggered back, blood spilling over his shirt.
“You,” he gasped. “You . . . devil—”
“Wrong spirit,” Chato said.
The man fell.
Chato wiped the blade clean against Ike’s coat and crouched over him. His jaw was tight, the lines in his face carved deep by years of anger.
“You should’ve stayed by the river,” he murmured.
From the tunnel mouth, another shout rang out.
“Ike! Ike, you dead?”
Chato’s head lifted. Two more Riders were rushing toward the mine, rifles in hand. He grabbed Ike’s carbine, checked the chamber, and ducked behind the rocks again.
“Get to the gold!” one shouted.
“The hell with the gold,” the other barked. “Kill whoever’s shootin’!”
Chato exhaled through his nose. “Come try.”
He waited. He watched the shadows shift as they drew closer. When the first Rider crossed into the open, Chato fired once. The man pitched forward, sliding face-first down the slope. The second dropped to a knee, firing blind toward the rocks.
“Show yourself!” the man yelled.
“Why?” Chato said. “You’re already dead.”
The Rider swung wide, trying to flank him. Chato tracked the movement in silence. When the man darted past the outcrop,Chato rose and fired again. The bullet took him clean in the chest.
He dropped beside his partner. Both sprawled in the dust.
For a moment, the canyon was still again. Just wind, stone, and distant thunder from within the mine.
Chato’s eyes moved toward the tunnel mouth. It glowed faintly orange from inside. The fight was still going. Blaze was in there somewhere, alone with Wilder’s wolves.
The Indian checked the carbine. Two rounds left. He slid behind a boulder near the entrance and waited.
Then came the voices again.
“Where’s Ike?”
“Dead, I reckon.”
“Then hold the damned entrance!”
Two Riders came running from the side slope, one carrying a revolver, the other clutching a satchel.
“Drop it,” Chato called.
They froze, startled.
“You!” one shouted. “You’re that Indian son of a—”
