Page 120 of Dusty Spur Ranch Cowboys

The crack reaches me before I reach him.

It tears through the arena, followed by a scream I still hear every time I close my eyes. Leather groans beneath the strain, dirt sprays beneath pounding hooves, and I run harder, my lungs burning while every step leaves me farther behind than the one before it.

Then the arena dirt crumbles into black ash beneath my boots.

I stumble, catching myself as heat rolls across my face. Flames race along the side of the stock trailer, climbing higher while Arizona runs straight toward it with her hair whipping behind her.

“Arizona!”

She doesn’t even look back.

She disappears through the smoke, and by the time I reach the trailer the fire has become pine trees swaying overhead.

Arizona’s weaving between them, chasing the figure I’d seen watching the ranch, her copper hair flashing through the branches every time I think I’ve caught up.

“Stop!”

She keeps running, and the trees thin into the practice pens.

The gelding stands where he always does, his feed bucket waiting beneath the fence. He lowers his head for another mouthful, then stumbles so hard his knees buckle beneath him.

“No…”

The gelding’s legs buckle beneath him, sending the feed bucket crashing onto its side. Grain spills across the dirt, but instead of oats scattering across the ground, black paint pours out with it, thick enough to swallow the earth until the bucket disappears beneath it.

The paint spreads across the yard, climbing the barn wall exactly where I’d scrubbed until my shoulders burned.

RED BRONSON PAYS HIS DEBTS.

I grab the wire brush leaning against the wall and scrub until my hands ache, but every stroke only drags the letters farther across the timber.

Black smears over my palms, creeps beneath my fingernails, and stains my sleeves while fresh paint keeps bleeding through beneath the brush.

“You can’t scrub this one away.”

I turn.

Travis stands beside the fence where the gelding should be, his hat pulled low and his shirt hanging open at the collar. The blood running from the corner of his mouth trickles down into his beard, but he doesn’t seem to notice.

I take a step toward him.

“You should’ve stopped me.”

“I tried.”

He gives a hollow laugh that sounds wrong coming from a man who shouldn’t even be standing.

“You always try, Red.” He lifts a hand toward the black words covering the barn. “Then somebody gets hurt anyway.”

I shake my head and keep walking. “Travis…”

He looks at me with the same disappointment I’ve carried around for years. “Who’s next?”

I wake with a gasp, my chest heaving as sweat clings to my skin while the darkness of my bedroom replaces the ranch.

It takes a few breaths before I stop expecting to hear hooves pounding outside the window. My hands still shake when I push the blankets aside.

I sit on the edge of the bed with my elbows braced on my knees, staring at the floorboards until the room finally settles back into the one I’ve slept in for years.