Chapter 29
A Dangerous Quiet
Eli rode behind her on the same led horse, wrists tied but not as tight as hers. Boyd hadn’t bothered to bind his hands to the horn—he didn’t consider a skinny ranch kid worth the trouble. The rope around Eli’s wrists was enough, Boyd figured.
He wasn’t watching the right danger.
Tessa glanced back as the horses picked up a slow climb through the narrow cut.
Eli’s face was pale under the dust, a scrape on his cheek from where he’d hit the ground.
His curls clung to sweat at his temples.
His boots hung uneven in the stirrups—one twisted, one straight—and the way his breath came in short, shallow bursts told her he was hurting.
“You all right?” she whispered.
Eli nodded fast, then winced when the movement pulled the rope around his wrists. “I—I followed you,” he breathed. “I thought—I thought if I kept you in sight—Sam and them would find the tracks—I tried.”
“I know,” she said softly. “You did good. They’ll find what you left. You hear me? They’ll find us.”
He swallowed and looked down. “I’m sorry I got caught.”
Something twisted hard under her ribs. “Eli Fletcher, don’t you apologize for caring about people.”
He didn’t answer, but she saw his shoulders ease, just barely.
Behind him, Red rode with his rifle across his lap, watching them like a man itching for an excuse. Deke brought up the rear, heavy in the saddle, his eyes on the edges of the ridge instead of the trail. He knew this kind of land. Men like him always did.
The sun was slipping lower, burning itself out orange against the stone.
Boyd sniffed the air like he could smell the place he wanted to reach.
“Tessa,” Eli whispered again, voice even smaller than before. “I left plenty of sign. Boot marks, drag marks where they pulled me. And the gelding ran when I let go—he’ll go home or go find Sam. They’ll know.”
“They’ll know,” she said.
“Do you think—” He dipped his head as if afraid the outlaws would hear. “Do you think we could run? You’re tied, but… but if I got hold of the reins…”
His voice trembled with both hope and fear.
Hope cut louder.
Tessa looked down at the rope anchoring her wrists to the saddle horn. Too tight to slip. Too short to steer. Her sorrel was steady under her, but scared enough to spook if she tried something bold.
Her gaze flicked to Eli.
Slight slope up ahead.
Wind picking up.
Everything balanced on a knife-edge for one terrible second.
Then Red barked a laugh behind them. “Hear the kid whisperin’? I swear if he makes one move, I’ll—”
Eli stiffened.
Tessa’s voice came sharp and low. “Don’t.”
It was enough to make Red grin again—ugly, yellow-toothed—but he didn’t finish the threat.
She leaned back in the saddle, angling her voice so only Eli could hear. “Listen to me. Not now. Not yet. Boyd’s meaner than the other two put together, and he’s close to crackin’. You move wrong; he’ll shoot you just to see me break.”
Eli’s eyes flicked to Boyd’s back. She was right.
He saw it too.
“So, what do I do?” he whispered.
“Stay still,” she said. “Look scared if you have to. Let ‘em think you’re no trouble. And if I tell you to grab the reins?” She swallowed. “You do it fast and without hesitatin’.”
Eli nodded once, his jaw trembling.
Boyd slowed his horse at the top of the rise and surveyed the land ahead. The shadows pooled deeper through the next maze of cuts, cliffs rising jagged on both sides like a throat swallowing them.
“Where to now?” Boyd asked, turning to Tessa. “This look familiar?”
Her stomach flipped.
Not from fear—though there was plenty of that—but from the weight of the lie she was about to drop into the hands of a man ready to explode.
She kept her face blank. “There’s a dry wash past that ridge. Gus used it once. I think.” She added the uncertainty deliberately, just enough truth-laced hesitation.
Red snorted. “She thinks.”
Boyd’s gaze sharpened. “We’ll see.”
He nudged his horse forward.
They wound down through a steep, narrow chute—barely room for one man at a time. The walls closed in on either side, stone scarred by old water, shale slipping under the horses’ hooves.
Tessa’s heart beat slow.
Counting every turn.
Every false trail she’d lead them down.
Eli whispered, “Boyd’s mad. I can tell.”
She didn’t sugarcoat it. “He’s worse than that. He’s desperate.”
“Why’s he thinkin’ you know where the money is?”
“Because he needs someone to blame,” she said simply. “And Gus talked too much when he was drunk.”
A stone rumbled somewhere up the cliff—a small rockslide loosening as the day cooled. Red flinched. Deke swiveled toward the sound, hand on his holster.
Eli started to turn too.
“Don’t,” Tessa whispered. “Eyes front. Let them worry.”
Boyd called down the chute, “Pick it up! I want camp before full dark!”
His voice carried a jagged edge.
He was cracking.
Tessa could feel it.
They reached the bottom of the chute and the world opened slightly into a bowl-shaped basin—still shadowed, but wider. Enough space to make camp. Enough room to fight. Enough danger that Tessa’s skin prickled with warning.
Boyd stopped. “Here.”
Red dragged Eli off the horse none too gently. The boy stumbled but stayed on his feet. Deke took the sorrel’s reins from Tessa’s horn but left her tied.
“We camp,” Boyd said. “First light, we ride again.”
Tessa felt Eli’s gaze find her.
The question in his eyes.
The fear.
The trust.
She whispered the only thing she could give him tonight.
“Hold on.”
Because morning would bring the lies she needed to spin.
And the deeper she dragged Boyd Carver into the wrong country, the closer Sam, Reed, Rafe and Pike would be to closing the trap.