Chapter 37
“Well,” Wilder said softly, the words dripping with a smile that didn’t touch his eyes. “Didn’t think you had the stones to come walkin’ in here.”
“Didn’t figure you’d still have a place to hide,” Blaze replied.
They had been in this mine for what felt like hours. As the chaos continued around them, Blaze and Wilder found themselves in a different part of the mine. It was difficult to navigate. It felt like they were lost.
Everywhere Blaze looked, he saw death. The faint popping of gunfire outside reminded him that more enemies were behind him.
For now, at least, he could take care of this one. The man who started it all.
Wilder chuckled. The sound was low and humorless.
“Reckon you think you’re brave . . . standin’ there all puffed up with dust on your coat and blood on your boots,” Wilder went on. “But brave ain’t what keeps a man alive, son. Smarts do. You didn’t get that from your old man, did you?”
“Don’t talk about him,” Blaze said.
“Why not?” Wilder’s grin widened. “He was a legend once. Least he thought he was. Funny thing about legends . . . they don’t last.”
“I said don’t,” Blaze repeated.
“Oh, but I will.” Wilder stepped closer, boots grinding against the rock dust. The lamplight caught the scar across his cheek, and his shadow loomed long on the wall. “You know what your pa was to me? A thief. A liar. A man too proud to share what he stole. You really don’t know, do you?”
Blaze’s jaw tightened. His revolver hung in his hand, the hammer half-cocked. “I know he was better than you.”
Wilder laughed again. “Better? He was me before me. Only I was smart enough not to trust friends.”
He reached into his coat and pulled something folded and brittle with age. He flicked it open and held it toward Blaze.
“You oughta see this,” he said.
“What is it?” Blaze asked.
“Truth,” Wilder said.
Blaze stepped closer, just enough for the lamplight to hit the paper. It was yellowed, creased, and torn. A wanted poster . . . faded ink, black letters. The face staring back at him was his father’s.
Though he saw it on paper, it was still hard to believe. Blaze fought the truth. A part of him did not want to give in.
“Name’s different, sure,” Wilder said. “Went by ‘Jack Carrow’ back then. Hell of a shot. Hell of a liar. Rode with me for near two years.”
“You’re lying,” Blaze said quietly.
Wilder grinned wider. “Ain’t got the wit for lying that long, son. Ask any man who wore the brand back then. We robbed the Wells Fargo train outta Laramie together. Split the take . . . gold, bonds, silver. But he got greedy. Thought he’d run with it.”
“That’s not true,” Blaze said. His hand shook just once, barely.
“Oh, it’s true,” Wilder said. “He begged just before I killed him, too. Told me about his wife, his boy. Said he was done with the outlaw life. But there’s no leaving once you take blood money. Not clean, anyway.”
“Shut up,” Blaze said.
“I watched him die, right in the dirt,” Wilder went on. “Put one in his chest, another in his back when he tried to crawl away. You were, what, ten? Twelve? Guess he never told you the part where he was scum, same as me.”
“Shut up!” Blaze shouted.
“And your mama,” Wilder continued with a smirk on his face. “She knew, didn’t she? She didn’t marry no ranch hand, boy. She married a thief trying to hide from his own sins.”
Blaze’s knuckles went white on the grip of his revolver. He didn’t know how much more of this he could take.
“You talk about her again,” he said, voice low and even, “and I’ll send you to meet him.”
“Maybe you should,” Wilder said, spreading his arms. “Maybe it’s your fate. You can’t wash off what runs in your blood, boy. That outlaw stink don’t fade. You’ll end up just like him . . . stealing, shooting, and then dying in a hole.”
“I ain’t my father,” Blaze said.
“You are,” Wilder said. “You just don’t see it yet. Look at you . . . out here killing men, same as we did. You think that’s justice? It’s greed, plain and simple. You are wearing it proud now.”
Blaze’s voice was barely a whisper. “You don’t know a thing about me.”
“I know enough,” Wilder said. “You came for revenge, same as he did. Same mistake. You think patience wins a gunfight? Luck does.”
“You’re wrong about that,” Blaze replied, lifting his eyes.
“Oh?” Wilder tilted his head. “Then tell me, preacher’s son, what’d your old man teach you before I put him down?”
Blaze looked him straight in the eye. “He taught me to wait.”
The moment hung between them, heavy as stone.
Then Wilder moved.
The lamplight flared as his pistol cleared leather. Too fast for most men, but Blaze was already steady, already centered. The world narrowed to breath and sight and to the rhythm in his chest.
He didn’t flinch. He didn’t think.
He just waited. One half-second, long enough for Wilder’s barrel to line up, for the glint to flash . . . and then he fired.
The sound cracked through the tunnel like thunder.
Wilder’s shot went wide, shattering a lantern on the far wall. Blaze’s bullet hit home, center of his chest.
The outlaw staggered back, gasping. The lamplight wavered, flickering across his face as he looked down at the spreading red on his shirt.
“You . . .” he wheezed. “You got his eyes.”
“Maybe,” Blaze said. “But I ain’t got his sins.”
Wilder stumbled against the wall, knocking over crates. Gold coins spilled across the floor, rolling and ringing in the dust. He laughed, choked, and coughed blood.
“All that gold,” he said. “Ain’t worth a damn now.”
“No,” Blaze said quietly. “It ain’t.”
Wilder’s hand twitched toward his Smith & Wesson again, but his strength was gone. He slid down the rock wall and hit the ground hard, legs folding under him. His pistol clattered from his fingers.
He looked up one last time.
“You’ll never change it,” he gasped. “Your name . . . his name . . . they’ll remember what he was . . . what you are . . .”
Blaze raised the revolver. “Maybe. But they’ll remember you worse.”
He fired once more.
Wilder’s head snapped back. Silence followed.
The only sound left was the soft clatter of gold coins settling into the dirt.
Blaze stood still, breathing slowly. The gun’s smoke drifted around him in thin blue threads. He lowered the weapon, thumbed open the cylinder, and saw one round left.
The wanted poster lay nearby, half-buried in dust. He crouched and picked it up, staring down at the face of the man who’d raised him . . . different name, same eyes.
“You lied to me,” he whispered. “All this time.” His fingers trembled once, then he folded the poster and slid it into his coat pocket. “Guess it don’t matter now,” he said.
Behind him, the tunnel dripped and creaked. Somewhere deep within the mine, timbers cracked, echoing like distant thunder. But Blaze didn’t hear it yet. He just stood there, staring at the dead man and the gold scattered like fool’s light across the dirt.
He holstered his revolver, exhaled through his teeth, and shut his eyes for a long moment.
“Patience wins a gunfight,” he muttered. “You were right, Pa. But to hell with you for everything else.”
The lamplight flickered again, dimmer now. Shadows stretched over the rocks and bodies. The air trembled faintly. It was the first hint of the coming collapse.
Blaze looked up toward the entrance, where faint daylight spilled down through the smoke.
It wasn’t over. Wilder might have been dead, but Robert Kane wasn’t.
“Rachel,” he whispered.
Then he turned, boots crunching over the coins, and walked toward the sound of cracking beams.