“Out of rounds!” Marisol shouted from her position.
He looked up just in time to see a bandit closing in on her with a pistol raised. Blaze grabbed the nearest thing within reach, a jagged rock, and threw himself forward. He smashed it into the man’s skull with a sickening crack. The bandit went limp, blood streaking down his face.
Quickly, he dropped the rock and took out a knife he had found on one of the bandits’ bodies after the previous shootout.
If he didn’t have a gun, he needed a sharp weapon. After all, it was working for Graycloud.
Another man lunged at Blaze from behind. That was when Blaze spun, driving his knife up into the Rider’s stomach. The man staggered, eyes wide in disbelief before collapsing to his knees.
The Colt finally gave, the jam clearing with a metallic click. Blaze thumbed back the hammer and fired once, twice, three times...dropping the last two Riders before they could reach him.
Then, silence.
Smoke drifted low through the canyon. Horses screamed in the distance, then faded. The only sound left was the wind scraping across the stone.
Blaze straightened slowly, his chest heaving. The ground was littered with bodies. A dozen men, give or take, were scattered like broken shadows across the dirt.
“Everyone alive?” he called.
“Still standing,” Marisol replied, pushing herself up from behind a fallen horse. Her hat was gone, her hair was loose and tangled, and her face was streaked with dust. She kicked a spent cartridge aside. “That’s the last of my rounds.”
Graycloud wiped his blade clean on a Rider’s coat.
“They were waiting,” he said.
“No doubt about it,” Blaze replied.
Marisol spat in the dirt. “Reckon Wilder sent them?”
“Who else?” Blaze reloaded his revolver, each bullet sliding in with a hard click. “They must have been tracking us. They knew we were coming.”
Graycloud crouched beside one of the fallen men, rolling him over. The Rider’s coat was torn, his bandana marked with a black serpent stitched into the cloth.
“I’ve seen this symbol before,” Graycloud said. “It’s definitely the Hollow Creek Riders.”
“They’ve been busy,” Blaze said.
Marisol picked up a fallen rifle and checked the chamber. “Nothing left in it.”
“Take what you can,” Blaze said, holstering his revolver. “We’ll need it.”
He scanned the scene, taking in the sight of the dead bodies. It no longer bothered him. It was strange how quickly he had become accustomed to it.
Marisol and Graycloud were the same. They didn’t bat an eyelash.
“Where to now?” Marisol asked.
“Out of the open,” Blaze said. “Before more of them show up.”
Graycloud glanced toward the horizon. “Foothill trail curves east. There’s a gully, a dry stream bed. Could use it to cover our tracks.”
“Do it,” Blaze said.
They began gathering what they could—guns, cartridges, a half-torn map from a saddlebag. Anything. Everything. The air still stank of black powder. A vulture circled overhead as if waiting for them to finish.
Marisol kicked one of the bodies as she walked past.
“Reckless fools,” she muttered. “You’d think they were drunk.”
