Blaze looked toward the horizon, where another thin trail of smoke curled upward into the pale sky.
“Then let’s make sure he knows we’re still behind him,” he said.
Marisol frowned. “You think he cares who’s followin’?”
“He’ll care when I catch him.”
They rode on through the afternoon heat. The land opened wide and merciless, dotted with sagebrush and the charred remains of once-living things.
Every few miles, they passed more signs: a wagon wheel half-buried in dust, a farmhouse door hanging open with the wind moaning through it like a ghost.
Near dusk, they came upon a family digging graves by the remains of their barn. The man’s shirt was soaked with sweat, his face hollow. Two small boys worked beside him, their hands blistered from shovels too big for them.
Blaze couldn’t continue riding. He stopped at the fence.
“You need help, mister?” he asked.
The man looked up, eyes red-rimmed and sunken. “Ain’t enough help in the world for this.”
Blaze dismounted, stepping closer. “Was it the Hollow Creek Riders?”
The man nodded slowly. “Said we owed Wilder tribute for riding on his land. We told them we didn’t owe him nothing. So they made sure we remembered who did.”
His gaze fell to the three mounds already covered. Blaze didn’t ask who was buried there. He didn’t need to.
“I’m sorry,” Blaze said softly.
The man looked at him with dull hatred. “Sorry don’t change nothing. You one of his too?”
“No, sir,” Blaze said. “I’m hunting him.”
The man spat into the dirt. “Then make it quick when you find him. Don’t let him beg.”
“I’ll do what needs doing,” Blaze promised.
He turned back to his horse, but the man called after him. “You can’t kill what the desert’s already cursed, boy. Wilder ain’t just a man anymore. You’ll see.”
Blaze mounted up without answering.
“What was he talking about?” Marisol asked from her saddle.
Graycloud looked like he beat her to asking the same question. He narrowed his eyes at Blaze, expecting him to answer.
“I don’t know,” Blaze replied with a sigh.
The man’s words hung in his head long after the ranch had faded behind them.
***
That night they camped beneath a ridge of red rock, with the moon spilling pale light over the desert floor. The fire crackled between them.
Marisol sat with her rifle in her lap, oiling the barrel.
“That man was broken,” she said. “You could see it in his eyes.”
“Whole country’s breaking,” Blaze said. “One town, one farm at a time.”
Graycloud added another stick to the fire. “This is what happens when gold finds men before peace does. My uncle used to say the earth remembers greed.”
