O’Hara nodded once. “You think he’ll show up?”
“Anything is possible,” Wilder said.
He watched O’Hara disappear into the shadows of the mine.
Alone again, Wilder leaned against the rock wall and closed his eyes for just a second. He could hear the echoes of the noise. The sound should have pleased him. Instead, it made his skin crawl.
“Buckeye,” he whispered. “You think you can outlast me? You don’t know these hills like I do.”
The wind shifted, carrying dust into the tunnel. Wilder drew his Smith & Wesson revolver and held it loosely at his side.
Somewhere deep inside, the mountain creaked. It was a low, hollow sound like breath drawn through a coffin.
He smiled. “Let it come,” he said softly. “Let him come.”
Chapter 32
“We’ll stop here,” Blaze said.
The words came out low, though his chest still burned from the climb. The ridge leveled just enough for the three of them to crouch among the rocks. Below them, the mountain dropped into a labyrinth of canyons and jagged stone. The air was sharp, thin, and bitter with dust.
Marisol unslung her rifle and crawled to a boulder’s edge.
“They’re down there,” she said. “Smoke from their fires. See it?”
“Yeah,” Blaze said, squinting. “They’re setting up for a siege.”
Graycloud moved silently behind them, his eyes narrowing at the faint flicker below.
“Wilder has chosen a fortress,” he said. “The mountain hides him, and the gold keeps him chained.”
Blaze watched the thin wisp of smoke curl into the dying light. It was small—no more than what a few campfires could produce—though he could feel the weight of it. A camp like that didn’t rest easy.
“They’ll have lookouts,” Blaze said.
“Of course,” Marisol replied. “That’s what makes this stupid.”
Blaze turned to her, a faint smile twitching at the corner of his mouth.
“You don’t even know what I’m fixing to do yet.”
“Oh, I know,” she said. “You’ve got that look. The same one you had before walking into that saloon where we all got ambushed.”
“We lived through that, didn’t we?” he asked.
“Barely,” she replied.
Graycloud lowered himself onto one knee beside them.
“We cannot charge a mine,” he said. “They would shoot us like deer in a canyon. We need a way inside without being seen.”
“Exactly what I was thinking,” Blaze said. “One man could walk in. Maybe two. They’re expecting an army. What they won’t expect is a fool.”
Marisol frowned. “You’re sayin’ you want to walk in there?”
Blaze glanced down the slope again, tracing the ridges with his eyes.
“Not as me,” he said. “As someone else.”
