The fire crackled softly. Coyotes yipped in the distance. For a while, they ate in silence.
“Your uncle,” Blaze said after a bit, turning to Chato. “What happened?”
Chato’s eyes flickered to the flames. “He was guarding the gold. Riders came in the night. Shot him where he stood. Buried what they stole under sacred earth. My people will not step there now. It’s cursed.”
“I’m sorry,” Blaze said.
“Don’t be,” Chato replied. “Just help me kill them.”
“I intend to,” Blaze said.
Marisol’s voice came firm. “Then we hunt.”
The three sat there, the firelight painting their faces in shades of orange and gold. They were strangers bound by blood and loss, but in that moment something small began to form. Trust.
Blaze leaned back against his saddle, staring into the night.
“Guess we’ve got ourselves a posse,” he said softly.
“Don’t get ahead of yourself,niño,” Marisol replied.
Chato gave a single nod. “Sleep now. Tomorrow, we ride.”
Blaze looked out toward the darkness where the horizon melted into the stars. Somewhere out there, Wilder and the Riders rode free, laughing at the lives they’d taken.
He tightened his jaw.
The fire crackled. Nancy snorted nearby. The desert stretched endlessly, but Blaze no longer felt small against it.
For the first time since his home burned, he wasn’t alone.
Perhaps he was a fool for trusting two strangers so easily. But only time would tell.
Chapter 12
“Again,” Marisol said.
The crack of the revolver echoed across the dry flats, the sound bouncing off red stone and fading into the wide silence. Blaze exhaled through his teeth, lowering the gun. The can he’d been aiming for sat untouched atop a rock twenty paces away. Dust puffed beside it where his bullet hit the dirt.
“Missed,” Marisol said.
“I can see that,” Blaze muttered.
She stepped up beside him, boots crunching against the grit, and took the Navy from his hand. Her eyes flicked to the horizon, then back to him.
“You’re flinching before you pull the trigger,” she added.
“I ain’t,” Blaze said.
“You are.” She handed the gun back, grip-first. “The way your shoulders move...you’re bracing like you’re about to take a punch,” she pointed out. “Stop doing that.”
He rolled his neck, frustrated. “Hard not to when it jumps like a mule.”
Marisol’s mouth twitched, just short of a smile. “You’ll get used to it. Try again.”
Blaze took aim. The revolver felt heavier with each round he fired. The morning sun pressed down hot against the back of his neck, sweat beading under his collar. He focused on the can.
“Breathe,” Marisol said. “Slow. Let your lungs do the work. Don’t fight the gun. Make it dance with you.”
