The Endless Fall (Deadwood Duet #1)

Prologue

Willa, Age 25

The distinct sensation of being watched whispers across my skin like an unseen caress. I might’ve spent the last five hours tracking down a rogue mountain lion, but something—or someone —is hunting me.

Scalp prickling with awareness, I train my rifle on the stream of sand trickling over the rocky face of the red canyon wall in front of me. Little spirals of heat rise into the air off of sunbaked boulders and sweat drips down my spine while I wait with bated breath for whatever’s been following me to make itself known.

The sand stops, a gust of hot, dry wind lifting the damp hair off my neck and flooding my nostrils with desert sage and arid dirt. I wait another moment, and when nothing moves, I relax my shoulders and let loose an annoyed puff of air.

After four years of working undercover to investigate wildlife crimes across the southern United States, this assignment is so far outside my normal scope of duty it’s almost comical. But of course, I was the only available agent when the call for assistance came from local rangers.

I never should’ve picked up my damn phone. Especially since this is my last weekend off before reporting for my next job .

As a special agent for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, I’m usually charming my way into a smuggler’s confidence or staking out the latest shipment of trafficked goods. More often than not, this means I spend my days in a dusty warehouse, dingy dive bar, or— when I’m really lucky —on a kingpin’s yacht down in the Gulf of Mexico. Not in the desert, sweating my tits off under the blazing Texas sun while something stalks my every step.

I haven’t had to do shit like this since?—

A twig snaps somewhere inside the mouth of the canyon, and my body tenses.

Chances are whatever’s trailing me is an animal, but I’ve pissed off too many scumbag traffickers not to at least consider that one of them might’ve tracked me down looking for retribution.

Despite the scorching temperature, I shiver—the scars stamped up and down the length of my back tightening with a sudden ferocity as the breeze causes loose strands of my white-streaked hair to lash across my neck and cheeks.

It’s an animal , I say to myself for the nine hundredth time, keeping my head on a swivel. It’s not a murderous convict seeking payback, or a skinwalker, or any of the other horrifying creatures Mrs. Crowe told you about when you were a teenager.

It’s just an animal.

Sweaty palms clutching my rifle, I approach the entrance of the box canyon on soft feet while scanning the crevices in the rock walls for any sign of movement. Apart from the blood whooshing violently in my ears, nothing stirs.

Sweat and sunscreen drip into my eyes and down my neck, my rapid pulse drowning out all other sounds. I’ll need to stop for a water break soon if I want to avoid passing out, but for now, I settle for readjusting the red bandana around my neck and swiping my sleeve across my face.

Five hours on the trail and there’s been no sign of another human and only rare evidence of the well-camouflaged creatures calling Big Bend National Park their home. I did find a putrefying section of a half-eaten Bighorn sheep leg about a quarter mile back, as well as quite a bit of sun-bleached scat in a dried riverbed that I suspect the mountain lion’s been using as an oversized kitty litter box, but no fresh tracks.

Another twig snaps and my chest hitches.

Whatever made that noise is close. Too close.

Slowing my steps, I drop to one knee. The hairs on my neck stand on end as I silently switch out my rifle for my sidearm and rise to my feet.

It’s the mountain lion. It has to be . I click off the safety on my handgun. She’s looking for her next meal, and if I’m not careful, it’s going to be me .

My knuckles blanch as I grip my gun tighter.

This feels wasteful and wrong. We’re the ones who encroached on her territory. It’s not the cougar’s fault she doesn’t know the difference between prey and hikers… Unfortunately for both of us, her fate was sealed the second she took down that birdwatcher.

In the past week alone, there’ve been three more attacks, and if my suspicions are correct, there’s a very real possibility I’m seconds away from being the fourth.

The breeze picks up, and I inhale deeply, trying to scent anything on the wind that might give me an idea of what direction she’ll come at me from. When I was growing up, my hyperosmia was a nuisance, but out here on the job, my heightened sense of smell has saved my life more than a time or two.

Right now, all I can smell is juniper and bits of dry Texas earth caked on the inside of my nose. But when I inhale again, my spine stiffens at the faint note of cheap whiskey and black-pepper aftershave riding the wind—a scent that doesn’t belong anywhere near this mountainside.

I draw in another breath, trying to make sure I’m not imagining it or catching a whiff of something lingering in my hair from the cantina I stopped at last night for dinner… There it is again . My nose scrunches at the underlying musky aroma of an unwashed male body.

Pulse racing, I scan my surroundings, a snarl forming on my lips when a shadow steps out from behind a boulder barely twenty feet away. Even from this distance, I can see the saccharine smile plastered across his leathery cheeks and something black and shiny tucked into his intricate belt.

Motherfucker.

I raise my gun, the polymer grip biting painfully into my palm as my blood runs cold.

Of all the people who could’ve come after me, I never imagined it would be him . Not after all this time.

“You’re a hard woman to track down,” he says in a once familiar East Texas drawl.

His grating voice echoes off the canyon walls, the vibration unearthing memories long since buried and awakening a slumbering well of deep hatred in my blood.

Aiming my pistol at the center of his chest, I take a single step forward. “Why are you here? I warned you what would happen if I ever saw you again.”

My voice quavers the tiniest bit, and he shakes his head, eyes narrowing in mock disappointment as he clicks his tongue. “Don’t play dumb, Willa Dunn. You know why, the same way you know what I’m about to do.”

Unease skitters up my spine in the sweltering heat, like a lizard fleeing from danger, but I harden my jaw, refusing to let him see how unnerved I am. “You’re going to have to be a bit more specific.”

“I lost everything because of you ,” he spits, a hint of tobacco accosting my senses when he steps closer. “Figured it was about time I repay the favor and finish what your mother started all those years ago.”

I belt out an unexpected laugh, the sharp sound surprisingly loud and a little unhinged. If I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard that phrase…well, I’d have two or three nickels, but still. These idiots really need some new material.

“You waited seven years and came all this way just to kill me?” I laugh again at the ridiculousness. “God, you really are pathetic.”

The man’s smile fades, his fingers inching toward the gun tucked into his waistband. “Watch your mouth, girl?—”

A piercing scream splits the air, high-pitched and everywhere all at once as it ricochets off the dusty canyon walls. I can’t pinpoint where it’s coming from, but there’s only one animal that screams like that, and this one already has a taste for blood…

My hackles rise, and my head snaps right and then left, up and then down in search of danger, barely catching a blur of movement before the cougar springs out from a crevice in the rocks, landing on top of the man before he can draw his gun.

He screams—at least, that’s what I think that choking croak was meant to be—but the sound quickly cuts off when her teeth clamp onto his throat. Doubling down on her assault, the cougar swipes at my would-be attacker’s barrel-shaped belly with her massive paws, sending bright-red blood splattering across the ground and trees as she attempts to drag him away.

I flinch as the gore hits my face, the hot viscous liquid dripping onto my lips and coating my mouth with the taste of iron.

The metallic tang snaps me out of my shocked stupor, forcing me into action. I fire a single bullet into the air, advancing on the duo with my gun trained on the cougar and my opposite arm held out to the side in an attempt to appear as large as possible.

Maw stained with blood, the cougar’s amber eyes—both beautifully intelligent and terrifyingly bloodthirsty—flick to mine, barely stopping her assault for a millisecond before she sinks her teeth back into the man’s shoulder. He shrieks when she shakes her head, tearing loose a chunk of flesh and flooding the canyon with the nauseating squelch of muscle being ripped from bone.

My confident steps falter from the unfamiliar warmth I can only describe as calm satisfaction blooming inside my chest. He deserves this , the devil on my shoulder whispers. This is the price of the choices he’s made and the people he’s hurt…

I start to lower my gun… Then, just as quickly, I raise it back up, aim at the mountain lion, and shake my head. Get it together, Willa. You’re a federal agent, for fuck’s sake .

Gritting my teeth, I fire off another round, this one grazing the mountain lion’s shoulder.

Still, she doesn’t stop.

“Dammit,” I growl. With the way she’s positioned on top of him, I can’t shoot her without also risking hitting the bastard beneath her.

The man attempts to scream, but with the cougar’s jaw clamped down on his throat, it comes out as a gurgle. The second she lifts her head for another attack, I fire again, this time hitting my mark straight through the murderous creature’s skull.

The mountain lion collapses atop the man, who claws uselessly at the bloodied shreds of his mangled chest and throat—as if he can somehow undo the damage.

Closing the distance between us, I kick away his gun and hastily verify the cougar is no longer breathing before kneeling by the man’s head. Already, blood loss has stolen the color from his face and hands, his pale skin nearly gray in the blinding sun.

A spray of gore erupts from his mouth as he reaches for me with a bloody hand?—

No, not me… My gun .

I scoot backward, just out of his pathetic grasp, and make a tsking sound. “You weren’t going to try to shoot me, were you?” His lips pull into a tight, stubborn line, and I can’t stop my smile. He knows he needs my help, otherwise he’d be spewing profanities right now.

Using the barrel of my gun, I tilt his chin up to get a better visual of the wound, grimacing as blood surges from his shredded flesh in time with his rapid pulse. Yikes. The cougar must’ve nicked an artery, which means he’s got minutes at best.

I suck in a breath through my teeth and rest my forearms on my thighs so that my gun hangs between my knees. “That doesn’t look good,” I say, mouth scrunched to the side in mock sympathy.

Eyes wide and frantic, the man tears his attention away from my pistol to meet my gaze.

“ Help ,” he whispers, and I have to bite my lower lip to keep from laughing. It’s not the first time I’ve watched an evil man die, but it never ceases to amaze me how they all seem to think there’s a way out—like they can negotiate with death itself.

I scoff. Maybe the nutjobs are right and the human race is too far gone.

Maybe we really are doomed…

I bring my free hand to my chest to cover my racing heart. “You want my help?”

The man nods vigorously, my vindictive sarcasm apparently failing to cut through his panicked adrenaline. I glance at the wound on his neck and then to the sky, calculating how long it would take medevac to get here and how much time he has left based on blood loss.

Best-case scenario, I could get someone here in an hour or two. There’s absolutely no way he’ll make it that long, but he doesn’t need to know that…

I blink slowly. “I’m not sure you deserve my help.”

His lips gape open and closed, a hoarse gasp escaping his throat like he’s trying to speak. But whatever he’s saying, it’s too quiet for me to make out.

Curiosity overcoming my better judgment, I lean forward.

“ Evil bitch ,” he hisses. “ Abomina ?—”

I cover his mouth, rage reigniting a dormant fire in my chest as his blood and spit seep between my fingers. “None of that,” I chide, bringing the barrel of my gun to the center of his forehead. “You might not deserve my help, but I’ll make you an offer anyway. Confess, and I’ll call a medevac.”

It’s a lie, obviously . He’ll die no matter what I do, but at least he can give me some closure—let me know once and for all if it was true .

He shakes his head in refusal, alarm or maybe the movement itself robbing his face of the last of its color.

Disgusting coward.

Then again, a man like this has committed so many sins he might not even understand which one I want him to confess to.

“I want you to admit what you did to her,” I clarify, fighting the urge to close my eyes as the image of a tiny, frail body in a hospital bed comes flooding back to me with a tsunami of other memories from the day I left Deadwood.

Wind howls through the canyon, hot and fierce, whipping dirt into my face and ripping strands of my hair from my bun. My lip quivers, but my eyes remain open, the violence thrumming in my veins growing each second I wait for his answer.

Still, he doesn’t speak.

I grind the gun into his forehead, my hand shaking with the effort not to pull the trigger and be done with this. Blood surges from the man’s throat and belly, his slippery hands falling to his sides as he loses strength.

“Tell me,” I scream, my vision momentarily turning red as my opportunity for answers leaks out of his arteries like sand through an hourglass.

The man pauses, his mouth thinning as he motions for me to come closer with a weak crook of his bloodied finger. For some stupid reason, I do it, mouth souring while the rancid smell of his breath mixes with the coppery tang in the air.

Then he speaks.

Eyes wide and horrified, I listen to every word of his whispered confession, the vile truth squeezing the air from my lungs.

“Who else?” I croak once he finishes.

A volatile mixture of spit and blood splatters across my cheek with each new name he chokes out, but I don’t react. I can’t. I’m frozen solid, unable to think or breathe through the revulsion twisting my gut into knots.

“And the fire?” I whisper, keeping my eyes on the tree line because I can’t bring myself to fucking look at him. “Was that your idea?”

“Which one?” he whispers with a bloodied grin.

Ice slithers up my spine, but then the man gurgles and coughs, sending a spray of blood into the air as he gasps for breath. I glance down, noticing the deep-red halo blossoming on the ground around his shoulders.

“ Help me ,” he pleads, weak fingers clawing at my boot.

Rocking onto my heels, I stand and slowly wipe the dirt and blood from my face with my sleeve. “No, I don’t think I will.”

My boots are filled with lead as I position myself by his feet. Then I aim the pistol at his chest, take a deep breath, and squeeze the trigger.