By midnight, the thief was locked inside the small holding room behind the general store in town.
By sunrise, Harlan Voss had disappeared.
His carriage was gone.
His house stood empty.
And nearly everyone assumed the matter was over.
Waya did not.
“Men like him do not run before collecting what they believe belongs to them.”
She was right.
At nine o’clock, Nell vanished.
They found her shoe beside the creek.
Gideon made a sound Eli would remember for the rest of his life.
Not a shout.
Not a sob.
Something beneath both.
A sound created when an old man’s entire world suddenly became one small shoe lying in dust.
Waya crouched beside the tracks.
“Two horses.”
She touched the ground.
“South.”
Eli was already saddling Calico.
Chaska caught his arm.
“We go together.”
“You don’t have to.”
The second the words left his mouth, he regretted them.
Waya looked insulted.
Serina looked almost amused.
Chaska simply stared at him.
Eli sighed.
“I’m still learning.”
“Yes,” Chaska said.
They rode south.
Three hours later, Waya found where the riders left the main trail.
Another hour carried them toward red country.
Eli recognized the stone before he recognized the place.
Amber Ridge.
His stomach tightened.
Ten years disappeared.
The same twisting cuts.
The same red walls.
The same burning silence.
The same canyon where everything had begun.
Waya saw his face.
“You remember.”
“Yes.”
They found Voss near the narrow eastern passage.
Nell sat on a rock behind him.
Her hands were tied, but she was unharmed.
Voss held a revolver.
One hired man stood beside him.
The other lay unconscious ten yards away.
Nell had apparently kicked him off a ledge.
“I told you,” she shouted toward Gideon, “I bit one!”
“Proud of you!” Gideon yelled back.
Voss pressed the revolver toward her.
Everyone stopped.
His smile was gone.
No linen suit.
No polished businessman.
Dust covered his clothes.
Sweat darkened his collar.
All civilization had been stripped away, leaving only greed beneath it.
“Bring me the documents.”
Serina lifted the satchel.
“They’re here.”
“Throw them down.”
“No.”
Voss pointed the gun closer to Nell.
Gideon took a step.
“Don’t.”
Eli stared at the canyon walls.
Something pulled at him.
A memory.
Ten years earlier.
Three women running.
Mounted men behind them.
A narrow eastern passage.
Use the terrain.
He looked at Waya.
She followed his eyes.
Understood instantly.
Eli spoke loudly.
“Give him the papers.”
Serina stared.
Then she saw Waya move.
Barely.
A shift toward the southern wall.
Serina understood.
She removed the blue-corded bundle.
Voss extended his hand.
“Bring them.”
Eli took the papers.
He walked forward.
Twenty feet.
Fifteen.
Ten.
Voss smiled.
“Always knew you were practical underneath all that frontier virtue.”
Eli stopped.
“No.”
Voss frowned.
“I’m just good at making the same bad decision twice.”
He threw the documents straight upward.
Voss instinctively looked at them.
Waya’s arrow struck his gun hand.
He screamed.
Eli charged.
Chaska ran toward Nell.
Voss’s remaining man lifted his rifle—
—and Calico slammed into him.
The gray mare had followed Eli through gunfire, fire, storms, and ten years of loneliness.
Apparently she still disliked men who threatened people in canyons.
The rifle flew.
Gideon tackled the man.
Eli and Voss hit the ground.
