Chapter One
Clint Langston didn’t like the look of those buzzards.
They wheeled in slow, lazy circles above the ranch house about a mile and a half down the road.
Not over the pastures where the Longhorns grazed, but directly above the roof and barn.
Buzzards meant death. And they usually didn’t circle for no reason.
He weighed his options. The nearest town, Hollow Ridge, was a good ten miles off, and he wasn’t even sure they had a sheriff. Either way, he’d have to pass that ranch house. Maybe someone was still alive. He couldn’t ride without checking.
The big double doors were already open. Once inside, the air was warm and stale, thick with the smell of hay, manure, and old wood. A rusted plow leaned against the far wall. A stack of burlap sacks sat slumped in a corner, and a few hens clucked softly in the rafters, disturbed by his presence.
It took a moment for Clint’s eyes to adjust to the dim light.
Then he saw the body—an older man lying on his side in a dark pool of blood. Chest shot, and another in the leg.
Clint frowned. Why the leg? A warning? Punishment?
A sudden rasping breath broke the silence.
Clint raised his revolver, turning toward the sound. A boy slumped against a stack of hay, head lolling to one side, barely clinging to life. He had an empty gun belt strapped to his waist, but he held no weapons. Whoever did this had stolen what they could before they left.
Clint knelt next to the boy. Even by looking at him, he knew the kid wouldn’t survive. It hadn’t been a killing shot, but the boy had lost too much blood. “Who did this to you, son?” he asked quietly.
The boy turned to look at him, blood frothing at his mouth. “Steele,” he gurgled before his head became limp.
Steele. The name didn’t ring any bells.
Clint sighed and straightened. Land disputes were a dime a dozen out here, but something about this one felt wrong. He stepped outside, squinting against the morning glare toward the ranch house. The front door hung ajar.
Did they kill the lady of the house, too?
A familiar feeling stirred in his gut—one he’d spent years trying to bury. Still gripping his revolver, he crossed the yard and stepped through the doorway.
The thick stench of death hit him first. A cast-iron stove still held the flicker of a dying fire, its embers glowing faintly beneath the range. On the windowsill, a cake sat untouched, a swarm of flies claiming it as their own. A single chair lay overturned on the floor.
He moved quietly across the creaking floorboards.
In the bedroom, the sight that greeted him wasn’t a surprise, but it still landed like a punch to the gut.
A woman lay face down on the floor, blood dried in a wide, dark pool beneath her.
Shot in the back. She’d never had a chance to defend herself.
Clint took off his Stetson, ran a hand through his dark hair, then settled the hat back on his head with a heavy breath.
This was no mere robbery but an execution.
He gave the room one last look, jaw clenched. He needed to get to town. Let the law know what happened here, although if they were anything like the ones back home in New Mexico, he doubted they’d do much about it.
As he stepped past the woman’s body, something on the floor caught his eye. He bent down and picked it up. It was a paper doll, cut with careful hands and slightly crumpled. Without thinking, he smoothed it down.
Three years. Had it really been that long since his own daughter scattered dolls like these across the floor of their home in New Mexico? A sharp ache flared in his chest. He swallowed it down, the way he always did.
Now wasn’t the time.
But the weight of the doll in his hand meant one thing: there was another child here. A daughter. Had she been killed, too?
Clint stood still and scanned the room. Then he heard something shifting beneath his boots. He stepped back and kicked aside the edge of a worn rug. A few floorboards looked out of place, slightly raised, like someone had lifted them in a hurry and hadn’t had time to set them back properly.
He pried up the loose floorboards, and a sharp gasp escaped from beneath him.
It was dim inside the crawlspace, but he could just make out the shape of a girl, maybe eight years old, pressed tight against the far corner like a frightened animal. Her eyes were wide, and she was trembling fiercely.
“It’s all right,” Clint said, keeping his voice low and steady. “You’re safe now. No one’s gonna hurt you.”
The girl didn’t move.
“I know you’re scared,” he went on. “But I need you to come a little closer so I can help you out of there. Can you do that for me?”
Still nothing.
He holstered his pistol and knelt fully, softening his voice even more. “It’s okay. I’m not one of the men who did this. I’m going to take you somewhere safe.”
A beat passed. Then another.
Finally, the girl crept forward. As the light from the window touched her, Clint saw her face more clearly. She had light brown hair hanging in a tangled braid, skin streaked with dirt, and brown eyes far too old for someone so small.
She was shaking so badly, he wondered how she’d managed to stay hidden at all. “It’s all right,” he said again. “I’ve got you. I need you to close your eyes for me and don’t open them until I say. Can you do that?”
The girl nodded and squeezed her eyes shut.
Clint reached down and lifted her out of the dark.
She was clutching something tightly in her arms. As he carried her through the house, past her mother’s still body, his jaw clenched.
He stepped into the second bedroom and sat her gently on the bed.
“Okay,” he said softly. “You can open your eyes now.”
She blinked up at him.
“This yours?” he asked, holding up the paper doll that he had stuffed into his pocket earlier. She nodded and took it from his hand, hugging it to her chest.
Then he finally noticed what she had been carrying. It was a stack of papers tied with a string, blotched with dark stains. “What’s that you got there?” he asked, keeping his voice even.
The girl shook her head and drew it tighter against her body.
Clint held up a hand. “All right. That’s fine.
Look, I don’t have an easy way of saying this, and I’m sure you already know, but your family was killed.
You’re in good hands now. We’re going to go to the sheriff in town, and he’ll help bring those bad guys to justice.
” The girl said nothing. She didn’t cry.
She just stared at him with her huge brown eyes. “What’s your name?” he asked.
She didn’t answer.
“My name’s Clint Langston, but you can just call me Clint,” he said, keeping his voice gentle.
“I’m headed west, toward Callahan’s Trading Post. Hoping to pick up some work.
It’s been hard to come by recently, but I was looking for maybe some ranch work or some work in one of the mines in the area . . .”
He wasn’t sure why he was rambling. Maybe it was the silence. Maybe it was the way the girl hadn’t made a sound since he pulled her from under the floor. She just sat there, clutching that bundle of paper like it was the only thing tethering her to the world.
“I know this is hard,” he went on. “But I can take you to Hollow Ridge. The sheriff there might be able to find you some kin . . . or someone who can help. You’ll be safe.”
She gave a small nod, barely more than a dip of her chin. She looked exhausted, and no wonder.
Clint’s eyes drifted back toward the other room, to the bloodstained floorboards, to the barn outside the window.
He wanted badly to bury the family, to give them something more than being left for the buzzards.
But with the girl here, he didn’t dare stick around.
His eyes caught a glint of metal atop the dresser.
Half-hidden between two folded blankets was a Colt, untouched, overlooked by the murderers.
He crossed the room and picked it up, the weight of it familiar in his hands.
He’d find a mortician once they reached town. Make arrangements. For now, he had to get her away from this place. He hoisted the strap of his rifle over his shoulder. “C’mon, let’s get to town before it’s too late.”
The girl trailed after him, silent as a shadow, as they left the house. Clint kept a steady hand on her shoulder, guiding her wide around the barn so she wouldn’t catch sight of what was inside. No child needed that burned into her memory.
Smokey stood where he’d left him, contentedly cropping at the dry bunchgrass near the fence. Clint slid his Winchester back into its scabbard, the newly acquired Colt in his saddlebags, then lifted the girl into the saddle.
Swinging up behind her, he settled into the seat and gave the reins a gentle shake. The gelding turned without protest, and they rode out toward the road, leaving the blood-soaked homestead behind them.
***
They’d been riding silently through the hard country for about an hour, past low, scraggly mesquite and dry washes.
The sky stretched big and empty overhead, and the summer sun hammered down without mercy.
Off in the distance, red rock bluffs rose like sentinels, and the only sound was the creak of leather and the clop of hooves on dry ground.
The first sign that something was wrong came when the girl slumped in the saddle.
Clint reined in fast. “Hey, you okay?”
No answer. She sagged forward, barely keeping her seat. Her cheeks were flushed, hair plastered to her forehead with sweat.
“Damn.” He placed the palm of his hand on her forehead. Her skin burned. He didn’t need to be a doctor to know that this was a bad fever. Real bad.
He got them to a patch of trees near a dry creek bed and helped her off the horse. She didn’t cry or moan, just leaned limply into him like a rag doll.
The way his daughter had, once, the last night she was alive.