Chapter 15
“Close the door,” Marisol said.
Blaze pushed it shut against the wind. The wood groaned.
Dust swirled across the floorboards, the last light of dusk bleeding through a crack in the roof.
The shack was barely more than four walls and a half-collapsed chimney, but it was shelter.
After what they’d gone through, it felt like the only place left in the world.
“I’ll get a fire going,” Blaze said.
“Use the dry boards by the hearth,” Graycloud replied. “No smoke. Keep it low.”
“Right,” Blaze said.
He crouched by the hearth, struck flint, and watched sparks catch on brittle kindling. The flame licked upward, weak but alive. His hands were shaking. He told himself it was from the cold.
Behind him, Marisol stripped her rifle and wiped the barrel clean with a rag. Her movements were sharp and angry. Every snap of metal echoed through the cabin like a slap. Graycloud sat cross-legged near the wall, his face unreadable in the flickering light.
No one spoke for a long time.
When Blaze finally did, his voice came quiet. “I can’t believe Nancy’s gone.”
Marisol didn’t look up. “We all saw it.”
“I should’ve seen it coming,” Blaze said.
“You couldn’t have.”
“I was leading,” Blaze said. “She trusted me.”
“Your horse died doing what she was trained to,” Graycloud said softly. “She carried you clear of gunfire. There’s no dishonor in that.”
He swallowed hard. The words helped, but not much. He’d buried Nancy out by the dry creek bed before they rode off on their two remaining horses. It wasn’t easy to do it without a shovel, but luckily, there was already a significant dip in the ground.
All they had to do was push the animal’s lifeless body into it.
“She was a good horse,” Blaze said.
“Then honor her by living,” Graycloud said.
Blaze nodded, but his chest felt hollow.
Marisol clicked the rifle shut and leaned it against the wall.
“We got lucky today,” she said. “Too lucky.”
“How do you figure?” Blaze asked.
“Six of them dead,” Marisol replied. “That doesn’t happen unless something’s off.”
“They were careless,” Graycloud said. “Thought we’d break easy.”
Marisol snorted. “Maybe. Or maybe they wanted to spook us . . . drive us into a trap.”
She glanced at Blaze.
“You’d know something about walking into traps, wouldn’t you?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Blaze asked.
“You froze up,” she said. “When the first shot hit your horse. You were under her long enough to get killed three times over.”
“I got free,” Blaze said.
“After Graycloud and I took half of them down,” Marisol said.
Blaze’s hands clenched on his knees. “You think I don’t know that?”
“I think you got a lot of heart, kid,” she said. “But heart ain’t enough when men are shooting at you.”
It was tough to hear. Blaze thought he was proving himself every day. Why couldn’t Marisol see that? It wasn’t like she was that much older than him.
They were practically in the same boat. They were going after the same thing.
Graycloud’s voice broke through the tension. “He is learning.”
“Learning gets you killed fast out here,” she replied without hesitation.
“Then I’ll learn faster,” Blaze said.
Marisol’s eyes met his in the dim light of the abandoned cabin. “That’s what you said before.”
“And I meant it,” Blaze said. “You think I want to be a burden out there? You think I like watching people fight my battles?”
“I think you’re too scared to pull the trigger when it counts.”
That hit him hard. Blaze opened his mouth, then shut it again. His jaw worked as if he were chewing gravel.
“I hit one of them,” Blaze said finally. “I didn’t miss.”
“You wounded him,” Marisol said. “You could’ve finished it, but you didn’t.”
“I didn’t need to,” Blaze replied. “He was down.”
“You think he’d spare you?” she asked. “You think Wilder’s men would hesitate to kill you if the tables were turned?”
Blaze’s hands trembled again, though he tried to hide it. “Killing ain’t the same thing as surviving.”
“Sometimes it is,” Marisol said. “And until you see that, you’ll keep getting in our way.”
“Enough,” Graycloud said. His tone was low, but it carried weight. “He is not one of them. Don’t treat him as if he is.”
When Marisol got to her feet, she began to pace. “You’re right,” she said, sighing. “He’s not one of them. But if we’re going to take Wilder down, he needs to start acting like someone who can shoot a man without blinking.”
“You ever kill your first man, Marisol?” Blaze asked.
She froze mid-step. “Don’t twist this.”
“I’m not,” Blaze said. “I’m asking.”
She turned toward him. “Yes. I did.”
“And did it come easy?” Blaze asked.
“No,” she replied, her face hardening. “But I didn’t let that stop me from doing what needed to be done.”
“Each life taken stays with you,” Graycloud spoke up from his spot. “Whether it’s your first or your fiftieth.”
“Don’t start with your riddles,” Marisol muttered.
“They are not riddles,” he said. “They are truths you’d rather not face.”
The fire popped. Outside, the wind scraped over the stones. The sound filled the silence that followed.
Blaze reached for his canteen and took a long drink. It hurt to swallow.
“You two have been doing this longer than me,” he said. “Hunting men. Fighting.”
Marisol sat back down, resting her elbows on her knees. “Long enough to know what it costs.”
He watched her in the firelight. He thought of the scar on Marisol’s jaw and the way her hands reddened when she reloaded . . . as if every pulled trigger had a name.
He thought of Graycloud’s quiet exterior and the way the tracker’s eyes went distant when he mentioned his uncle, as if he were walking that old trail again.
Both had given something that couldn’t be counted in coin: faces, names, mornings that would never come back. The thought steadied him and made the promise feel less like his alone and more like a debt shared between them.
“We will make sure he pays for it,” Blaze said.
He stared into the fire again, seeing Wilder’s face there: cold, smug, and laughing the day his father died.
“He will,” Blaze said. “I swear it.”
Graycloud leaned forward. “Then you must learn to kill with purpose. Not rage. Not fear. Purpose.”
“I can do that,” Blaze said.
“Can you?” Marisol asked. “Because out there, you don’t get time to think about it. You shoot, or you die.”
“I’ll shoot,” Blaze said. “When it’s Wilder. I won’t hesitate.”
Her jaw tightened. “You better not.”
A gust of wind rattled the shutters on the outside of the cabin. Blaze found a rotting plank of wood by the hearth and threw it on the fire. Sparks spiraled up like tiny ghosts.
Marisol went to the corner of the cabin and sat down with her back against the wall. “We’ll ride at dawn,” she said.
“Where to?” Blaze asked.
“Red Mesa,” she said. “I heard that Wilder’s men pass through there to resupply. If we’re lucky, we’ll catch a glimpse of him.”
“The tracks we followed before led south,” Graycloud said. “Toward Red Mesa. He’s consolidating. Something is coming.”
“Then we’ll find out what,” Blaze said.
Marisol didn’t answer. She just stared into the fire.
After a while, Blaze got up and went outside. The night was cold enough to sting his lungs. He stood looking at the stars. They were wide over the mountains. The place was so quiet, he could almost hear Nancy’s hooves again. It was the rhythm that had carried him across half of Nevada.
He knelt in the dirt and thought about her again. About how he found her after the fire. She had survived so much, but she couldn’t survive Wilder’s ambush.
He stayed there for a while, until the cold bit through his jacket. When he went back in, Graycloud was sitting by the embers. Marisol was on the other side of the cabin with her arms folded and her chin tucked close to her chest.
It looked like she was asleep.
“She was too hard on you,” Graycloud said.
“Maybe she’s right,” Blaze said. “Maybe I’m not cut out for this.”
“She sees your fear because she remembers her own,” Graycloud said. “Don’t hold it against her.”
Blaze furrowed his brows. He didn’t like anybody thinking he was afraid. He wasn’t, was he?
If he had been afraid, he would have never made it this far.
“I don’t,” Blaze said. “But I can’t let her keep thinking I’m weak.”
“Then show her strength,” Graycloud said. “Not by killing, but by surviving.”
“You sound like you been through this before.”
Graycloud smiled faintly. “Everyone has. The first time you point a gun at a man and see his eyes staring back, that is when you learn who you are.”
“What did you learn?”
“That I do not enjoy killing,” Graycloud said. “But I do it when I must.”
The Indian rose and placed a hand on Blaze’s shoulder. “Try to get some rest. You will need your strength for tomorrow.”
Blaze nodded, lying down on the rough floorboards. He could hear Marisol’s slow breathing across the room. The fire had burned low, casting soft shadows.
He closed his eyes, but his mind wouldn’t quiet. Every shot from earlier in the day replayed in his head: the snap of rifles, the scream of his horse, the way his hands had trembled when he drew his revolver.
That was when he thought of his father and the way he’d stood in the doorway years ago with his gun in hand. He knew something was coming. Even then, he’d looked so sure of himself. So unafraid.
“I’ll get him, Pa,” Blaze said. “I swear I will.”
The wind moaned through the cracks again, as if the hills themselves heard him.