Wind came in long, hollow breaths through the canyons, carrying grit that stung the eyes and settled in every crease of leather and skin.
The horses shifted restlessly near the edge of camp, stamping at flies and flicking their tails. Above, the sun bled through a veil of dust, its color the same as old brass.
Dean Wilder sat on an upturned crate, a cigar burning low between his fingers. The map lay across his knees, corners weighted with stones. He had looked at it so many times he could trace every ridge and dry riverbed from memory.
The gold.
Buckeye’s gold.
He still saw that name like a curse etched in his mind. Thomas Buckeye had robbed him blind. Him and the men who’d staked their futures on that haul. Two years of searching mines, cutting deals, spilling blood, and the bastard had slipped off with every last ounce.
The sound of boots crunching on gravel broke through his thoughts. O’Hara approached, the brim of his hat torn from some forgotten fight. He carried the look of a man who’d outlived his better choices.
Behind him trailed Clay and Ike, both younger but cut from the same coarse hide. Jeb was last, his arm still bandaged from a scuffle weeks back. The four of them moved with the rough precision of wolves used to following the same scent.
“Boss,” O’Hara said, dropping a half-bent tin cup beside the fire. “Got word from the Riders.”
Wilder didn’t look up yet. He drew on his cigar and blew out a long, steady plume. “Go on.”
“They come from Red Mesa,” he said. “Said Benton and Jed ain’t comin’ back. Myles too.”
The cigar stilled between Wilder’s fingers. A faint pop came from the fire as sap burst in the wood.
He let the silence hang long enough that even the horses stopped shifting.
“What happened?” he asked finally.
O’Hara exchanged a quick glance with Clay, who scuffed at the dirt before speaking.
“They ran into trouble,” he replied. “Some folks said a boy with a Colt and a woman with him. There was another fella too...an Indian by the sound of it.”
Jeb spat into the dirt. “Ain’t just trouble then. That’s blood.”
Wilder ground the end of his cigar into the sand and stood. His coat swayed with the movement, catching the firelight.
“You tellin’ me three of my best got laid down by a boy, a woman, and an Indian?”
“That’s what the Riders said,” O’Hara answered. “They didn’t stick around to count bodies, but word’s spreading.”
“Names?” Wilder’s voice came out low, steady as a drawn knife.
“They said the boy called himself Blaze.”
The name landed like a hammer blow. Wilder turned toward the horizon, his jaw tightening until the tendons stood out like rope. Blaze.
Buckeye’s son.
He was still on the road.
The desert wind picked up, scattering the ashes from the fire. Somewhere out beyond the cliffs, a coyote barked.
Clay broke the silence. “You think it’s true, boss? That it’s him?”
“Ain’t no coincidence,” Wilder said. “The son’s walkin’ in his daddy’s ghost trail.”
He knelt and touched the edge of the map with two fingers, as if he could feel the weight of time pressing against it.
“Buckeye took from me,” he said quietly. “Took everything I built, everything I bled for. Now, his boy’s out there thinkin’ he’s the one chasin’ me.” He straightened and looked at them all in turn. “That ends here.”
