“I . . . I can’t—”
“You can! You have to!” Blaze yelled. “Stay with me!”
They crashed through the brush, branches scraping their arms. Blaze spotted a thick cottonwood, its trunk wide enough to hide them both. He shoved Rachel down behind it, then pressed himself flat against the bark.
“Don’t move,” he whispered, chest heaving.
Rachel buried her face against his shirt, shoulders shaking. Blaze held her tight, listening and waiting.
The Riders’ shouts still cut through the night, but the sound was moving past, fading as the horses thundered deeper into the desert.
“Spread out! Find ’em!” Wilder’s voice rang once more, then grew dim, swallowed by the distance.
Blaze dared a glance around the trunk. Empty scrub stretched under the glow of the burning ranch. Sparks drifted up into the black sky. Beyond the crackle of fire, the Riders’ noise grew faint, then vanished.
Only silence remained.
Rachel lifted her head.
“Are they gone?” she whispered.
“For now,” Blaze said, his voice hoarse. He smoothed her hair with a shaking hand. “They’ll be back. But not now.”
Rachel clung tighter, and Blaze’s eyes fixed on the glow on the horizon. The ranch was nothing but flames now. The roof was gone, and the smoke was rising like a black pillar into the stars.
And his mother.
He closed his eyes, the memory crashing back. The sharp crack of Wilder’s gun, the way she had stood tall and defiant, refusing to beg. The way she had fallen, and the scream that had torn from Rachel’s throat before Blaze dragged her away.
His jaw locked. His chest heaved once more, but not from running.
“She’s gone,” he whispered, barely able to form the words. “They killed her.”
“Mama . . .” Her breath hitched.
Blaze swallowed hard, forcing down the sob that clawed at his throat. He gripped the revolver at his side, the worn handle rough against his palm.
“They’ll pay for it,” he said. “I swear it, Rachel. Wilder and every last one of his Riders...they’ll pay.”
The firelight flickered through the branches, casting shadows across his face. Behind the tree, the two children huddled close as the desert night pressed in around them.
For the first time since the shots rang out, the silence felt heavier than the gunfire.
Chapter 5
The desert night stretched wide and empty, stars sharp as knives overhead. Hooves drummed against the packed earth, twelve riders moving in a loose column. Dust rose beneath them, trailing behind like a pale ribbon in the moonlight.
Dean Wilder rode at the head. He was a tall man in a long duster coat. His hat brim cast a shadow over his face, but his eyes caught every flicker of movement in the brush. His hand rested on the butt of his Smith & Wesson as if he might draw it without thought.
“They couldn’t have gone far,” said Clay, the youngest of the Riders. His voice cracked with nerves. “Children don’t outrun horses.”
“Children don’t got to,” Wilder said, not turning his head. “They hide. They burrow like rats. You’ll ride past a dozen times, never knowin’.”
Clay hunched lower in his saddle, muttering something under his breath.
From behind, Jeb gave a harsh laugh. “Boy’s green as spring grass. Don’t fret, Clay. Wilder will smoke ’em out.”
Wilder didn’t smile. His gaze swept the dark horizon, ears tuned to the night sounds: the coyote yips, the rustle of wind through mesquite, the faint crackle of fire still drifting from the Buckeye ranch behind them.
