“I’ll get him, Pa,” Blaze said. “I swear I will.”
The wind moaned through the cracks again, as if the hills themselves heard him.
Chapter 16
Dawn broke slowly over the desert. The air still carried the bite of night. Inside, the fire had burned down to embers. Blaze woke to the soft scrape of Graycloud stirring the coals and the clink of Marisol’s rifle being checked again.
They didn’t speak much. None of them had slept well. The floor had been cold and uneven, and Blaze’s dreams had been worse: fragments of gunfire, smoke, and the echo of his mare’s dying cry.
He sat up, brushing grit from his hair, and pulled his coat tighter around him.
“Sun’s up,” he said.
Graycloud nodded. “Eat first.”
They gathered near the fire, each moving like clockwork. Marisol opened one of their tins of beans with her knife and setit by the coals to warm. The metallic smell mixed with the faint tang of ash.
Blaze passed around tin plates. The beans were lukewarm and gritty with sand, but no one complained. Marisol stared out the door as she ate, her eyes fixed on the horizon.
He felt the tension rolling off her like heat from a forge. He wanted to say something to fill the silence and smooth over the edge left from the night before. But the words wouldn’t come.
Graycloud was the only one who seemed at ease, his movements slow and deliberate.
“We’ll ride soon,” he said between bites. “Red Mesa’s a two-day ride, maybe less if we keep the pace consistent.”
“Any chance more of Wilder’s men have gone through after the shootout?” Blaze asked.
“If they have, they’ll leave a trail,” Graycloud said. “Men like that don’t pass quietly.”
Marisol rose, slinging her Hawken Plains rifle over her shoulder. “Then we move.”
She kicked dirt over the fire and walked out into the pale light without another word.
Blaze finished what was left on his plate and followed. Graycloud came after him, leading the horses from behind the shack. His Appaloosa mare and Marisol’s white stallion still bore the scars of their last fight.
They rode in silence for a long while. Blaze sat behind Graycloud, the rhythm of the horse’s stride rocking through him. The wind smelled of dust and sage.
Marisol rode ahead, her braid whipping against her back. Blaze could tell she was trying to keep her distance—not just from him, but from the memory of what they’d all survived.
As always, Graycloud said little. Blaze could feel the strength in him, the steadiness of a man who didn’t need to speak to command respect.
Still, Blaze’s thoughts wouldn’t quiet. Every jolt of the horse beneath him brought him back to the day before. He could still smell the blood and dust in his nostrils.
He clenched his jaw. He told himself he wouldn’t freeze like that again.
Then, somewhere between the ridge and the flat, he saw it.
A flicker. It was movement against the glare of the sand. It was small, far out, but wrong. Not the wind. Not a coyote.
“Graycloud,” Blaze said sharply.
The tracker turned his head slightly, reins tightening. “What is it?”
“There,” Blaze pointed ahead, just past a patch of scrub and dry grass. “By that dead tree.”
The Indian slowed the horse, scanning the stretch of ground. His hand drifted toward the rifle strapped to the saddle.
Blaze’s pulse quickened. He leaned forward, eyes narrowing.
