So the trio worked with grim thoroughness. Marisol started rifling through bodies for papers or jewelry, Chato was splitting the dead man’s belt for a compass, and Blaze was hauling the saddle off Nancy with stiff hands.
The horse’s eyes were clouded but open. Blaze pressed his forehead to the warm flank once more before he let it go.
“Nancy,” he said aloud to the empty air, a whisper carried on a cold wind. “You kept me alive for a while. I’m sorry I couldn’t keep you.”
Suddenly, Marisol’s hand came down on his shoulder.
“Don’t waste her with words,” she said. “Make her mean something.”
Blaze nodded. He felt the hollowness knotted like a stone in his gut and turned it into a sharpened edge. He looked at the spread of the bodies, the saddle marks under the sun, the drop of blood on the sand that was today’s tally.
“All that’s left is to move,” Chato murmured. “We go find shelter. We need a plan.”
Marisol kicked at the sand. “We bury what we can.”
Blaze let his jaw set. He picked up Nancy’s bridle, the leather sticky with blood. He placed the horse’s head gently, turning her to lie with dignity, if there could be dignity there. He stretched the blanket over the mare’s flank, tucking sand around the animal as if tucking a child into bed.
His hands were steady now, not from peace but from hardening.
“Come on,” he said. “We’re not staying here.”
They left the creek bed together, dust rising in their wake. Six men lay dead in the sand. Six fewer mouths to laugh at other people’s ruin. Blaze felt nothing like triumph—only the weight ofwhat had been taken and the small, bitter certainty that this was the cost of the path he’d chosen.
“First fight,” Chato said quietly as they climbed the low slope toward the ridge. “You lived.”
Blaze didn’t answer for a long while. The Colt felt heavier on his hip than before, the metal warm from his hand. He thumbed the cylinder, tracing the groove worn by his father’s use.
“I’m not done,” he said finally. “Not by half.”
Marisol slung her rifle across her shoulder. Her dark hair stuck to her neck with sweat and dust, and she glanced sideways at him.
“Then don’t get reckless,” she warned. “There’ll be more.”
Blaze breathed in the desert air. Nancy’s death still sat under his ribs like a bruise, but something in him had hardened. He didn’t feel like the boy who’d run from the burning ranch anymore. He felt sharper. Colder.
They walked in silence for a while, boots crunching over gravel and dry brush. The sun had slipped low, the light gone amber and thin. The road ahead shimmered, long and lonely. Blaze’s legs ached, but he didn’t slow.
“Hold up,” Chato said suddenly.
He stepped off the road and crouched near one of the fallen Riders lying half in shadow beside a scrub bush. His movements were quiet.
Marisol shifted her rifle forward, scanning the ridge.
“What is it?” she called, her voice low but alert.
Chato didn’t reply right away. He reached into the dead man’s coat, fingers moving until they found something tucked deep inside. When he pulled it free, the last of the sun caught the edge of paper. It was creased, sweat-stained, and bound with rawhide.
“Found something,” he said.
Blaze took a step closer, the soles of his boots crunching against the grit. “What kind of somethin’?”
The Indian held the paper and glanced over it, eyes narrowing. He passed it over, and Blaze took it carefully.
The writing was rough. It looked like a half-map, half-note. Names were scattered through it, along with a few markings he couldn’t make sense of...except for one word, underlined twice in dark ink.
“Red Mesa,” Blaze said aloud. The sound of it sent a ripple down his spine.
Marisol leaned over his shoulder. “That a place or a name?”
