The man in front wore a cream hat.
Mae whispered one word.
“Owen.”
Caleb kicked Juniper forward.
The mare exploded into motion.
Dust tore behind them.
A shout came from the ridge.
“MAE!”
Her whole body jerked at the sound.
Owen’s voice carried across the prairie.
“MAE, YOU COME BACK HERE!”
Caleb felt her trembling.
Then another voice shouted.
“RUSK! DON’T MAKE THIS YOUR BUSINESS!”
Caleb recognized that one.
Sheriff Elias Pike.
His mouth hardened.
The sheriff was riding with the man Mae had just accused of beating her.
That answered one question.
And created twenty more.
They reached the ravine as a rifle cracked.
Juniper lunged.
A bullet struck stone beside them.
Mae screamed.
Caleb bent over her.
“Keep down!”
They raced through the narrow wash, sage whipping past their boots.
Another shot.
Then another.
But Caleb knew this land better than most men knew their own kitchens.
He guided Juniper beneath a limestone shelf, across a dry cattle crossing, and into a maze of gullies where four riders could become lost in minutes.
Eventually the hoofbeats faded.
Mae did not relax.
Neither did Caleb.
Because one thought had lodged inside him like a nail.
Sheriff Pike had fired before asking a single question.
Eliza Trent arrived at Caleb’s cabin carrying a shotgun, a medical bag, and enough fury to frighten the devil.
She pushed Caleb outside before examining Mae.
“You wait on the porch.”
“It’s my house.”
“It’s my patient.”
Caleb went.
An hour passed.
Then another.
The sun sank behind the Crazy Mountains, turning the grasslands copper.
When Eliza finally emerged, she looked ten years older.
Caleb stood.
“How bad?”
“Nothing broken.”
Relief touched him.
Eliza continued.
“But that doesn’t mean nothing’s broken.”
Her voice cracked slightly.
Caleb looked toward the closed door.
Eliza lowered her voice.
“Some bruises are days old. Some weeks. Some older.”
Caleb’s hands curled.
“There are scars I’d wager go back years.”
“And the burn?”
Eliza’s eyes sharpened.
“You noticed.”
“How could I not?”
A crescent.
Perfectly shaped.
Small enough to fit beneath a shoulder blade.
Eliza watched his face.
“You know something.”
Caleb stared across the yard.
Sixteen years vanished.
He was nineteen again.
Standing beside his father outside their old cabin.
His sister Clara had been twenty-one.
Beautiful.
Headstrong.
Laughing.
Then gone.
Officially, she had run away with a traveling horse trader.
Nobody believed it.
Six months later, a woman’s body was pulled from the Yellowstone River forty miles east.
The face had been ruined by water and stone.
But she wore Clara’s silver locket.
And on her shoulder was a mark.
A crescent-shaped burn.
Caleb had never forgotten.
“The mark,” he said quietly. “I’ve seen it before.”
Eliza’s face changed.
“Where?”
“On my sister.”
Behind them, the cabin door opened.
Mae stood wrapped in a blanket.
Her face had gone white.
“What was her name?”
Caleb turned.
“Clara Rusk.”
The blanket slipped slightly from Mae’s fingers.
She caught it.
“Clara.”
“You knew her?”
“No.”
Mae shook her head too fast.
“No. I never knew her.”
