Chapter One

Lafayette County, Arkansas 1848

They only had one shot at this.

The light was beginning to stretch across the land, and soon enough, the sun would bathe the scene in daylight—which meant the coming wagon would spot the ambush, regardless of the tall grass.

Barrett shifted his weight as his stomach growled. He stood taller than most, with a lean but muscled frame. His dark, shoulder-length hair fell in loose waves, framing a rugged face and the beard shadowing his sharp jaw.

He waited, crouched behind a cluster of scrubby mesquites, fingers clenched around the worn stock of his Springfield rifle. The scent of sagebrush mingled with the musk of horses and a faint undercurrent of gunpowder.

Thunder, Barrett’s horse, snorted softly.

How does Silas expect this ambush to work, anyway?

Yes, the outlaws were hiding, but no grass would hide horses, of all things, no matter how tall. Was Silas just expecting the wagon not to notice them?

Then again, maybe Barrett was being too hard on the old man. The saddles wouldn’t be visible from that distance—not yet, anyhow—so there was always a chance the travelers could mistake them for a wild herd. In any case, the gnawing hunger in Barrett’s belly had been enough to convince him to go along with this plan, however reluctantly.

Barret eyed the sun peeking over horizon. None of that’ll matter if the wagon doesn’t show up soon.

“This is it, boys—the chance y’all been waitin’ for.” Silas crouched a few feet away from Barret, speaking quietly so only his men would hear. “We hit ’em hard, and we hit ’em fast. No mess. No mistakes.”

Time and sin had weathered the old gang leader, leaving a roadmap of deep lines and scars on his face, which his graying beard did little to hide. Though not the tallest, Silas made up for his lack of height with sheer presence; the air around him always felt charged—like the dense, buzzing hush in the atmosphere just before a storm.

Barrett clenched his jaw. Sure, the thought of the gold glinting in that wagon excited him; after filling his stomach, he could send the rest of his share to his mother. Hopefully she’d have the presence of mind to hide it from that man—Barrett would never refer to him as ‘father’ again—but it would do her and Barrett’s siblings a lot of good.

The problem lay in what taking this gold meant: one step closer to the ledge, deeper into this sordid life.

The men around him fidgeted incessantly; Jed fingered the visor of his wide-brimmed hat, while Nate spat a stream of tobacco into the dirt and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. The eager hunger for a fight pulsed from them, but Barrett could see the fear on their faces and the way their eyes darted around constantly, hands hovering near their holsters.

Barrett shook his head. Maybe inexperience or bravado kept him from seeing it, but for the life of him, he couldn’t figure what had them so scared. They’d been following the Conestoga wagon train for weeks now. The wagon they were about to attack wasn’t even guarded, having diverged from the train to trade alone in the next town over.

Don’t they realize what an easy target they are?

Silas shuffled to Barret’s side. His eyes flickered with a predatory fire, his calloused hand near his holster as usual. Violence came as second nature to Silas, born of the restlessness coiled inside him. Like a rattlesnake waiting for an excuse to strike.

“You ready for this, Steele?”

Barrett nodded.

Silas turned to the others. “What about you, Jackson? Carter, Dalton, McGraw? You ready?”

Every outlaw present nodded.

“No one backs down, you hear me? Not for anything. We show weakness, and it all falls apart.” Silas eyed Barrett. “No hesitation.”

Barrett maintained a neutral expression, but a knot pulled tight in his chest. He’d noticed a shift in Silas’s behavior over the last few months. Where their leader used to be swift and predictable, he was slowly becoming … restless. Aggressive. A punch there, a kick here … The fact that the last few raids had gone sideways certainly didn’t help.

Honestly, Barrett would likely go looking for a different gang after this. Empty belly aside, he didn’t want to be around when Silas did something that couldn’t be undone.

The worst part was that no one else seemed to have noticed. Sure, Jed had nodded a little too quickly, the brim of his hat barely concealing the sweat beading on his brow, while Nate muttered something about needing a smoke, his hand trembling as he fished for the makings. But those nerves concerned only the ambush; why no one cared about the way Silas had been acting, Barrett had no idea. Maybe they just don’t see it.

“Barrett, you hear me?” Silas’s voice struck him like a lash.

Barret frowned. “I hear you.”

Looks like my idea to vamoose is coming at just the right time.

Silas had definitely picked up on his unease. Didn’t really matter, though. Barrett wasn’t here to play hero or martyr; if the others wanted to follow Silas to the gallows, that was their problem.

The sound of wheels groaning against dirt echoed from the road as the wagon finally crept into view. The iron bands around the wheels glinted faintly as the horses trudged forward. A driver slouched on the bench, the outline of other figures visible beneath the canvas cover.

Silas raised his arm.

The first shot split the air with a loud crack.

The horses pulling the wagon reared, their harnesses jerking as their hooves scattered clouds of gravel. A second shot saw the driver toppling from his seat, clutching his shoulder as blood bloomed through his shirt.

Barrett jumped onto Thunder’s back as the rest of the gang mounted up and galloped to the wagon.

Jed reached the wagon first, his pistol thrust forward like a spear as he tore back the canvas flap. His wiry frame looked almost snake-like beneath the loose fabric of his dirt-streaked duster. His sharp face bristled with angles and shadows, his thin mustache doing little to soften the cruel twist of his smirk.

“Out!” he shouted, spittle flying from his lips. “Now! Bring it all out!”

A woman’s cry spilled from the shadows behind the canvas, and hurried whispers followed. Barrett reined Thunder in behind Jed as the canvas rippled with movement within. The rest of the gang spread out around the wagon to watch for anyone trying to be a hero.

Silas hung back. With how he’d been acting, Barrett wondered if that wasn’t a good thing.

“Gold—all of it! Now!” Jed pushed his rifle inside. “Unless you want to see what happens if you don’t …” His hat sat low over his brow, but it didn’t conceal the gleam of his beady eyes. A smirk seemed permanently etched into his lips, the kind that promised trouble.

Barrett’s fingers tightened around his rifle. His heart twisted at the sight of the woman clutching a wooden box to her chest as she emerged. The whites of her eyes gleamed like the full moon as her pupils darted between Jed and Barrett. A broad-shouldered man appeared behind her, his head lowered, arms raised in surrender.

The woman looked too young to carry such terror in her wide, pleading eyes. Loose tendrils of auburn hair had slipped from the bonnet tied around her head, framing a face pale with fear. Her wrinkled dress, no doubt once neat and respectable, bore streaks of dust from travel.

The tan on the man’s face could only have come from years of working under the Texas sun. He slouched as if the world had finally broken him, but he couldn’t hide the raw anger burning in his tired eyes.

The box clattered to the dirt when the woman’s trembling arms gave out.

Jed sneered and leaned over, snatching it up, then flipped it open. Gold coins gleamed inside, catching the weak light of dawn.

“This all of it?” Jed demanded. “You’d better not be hiding anything else in there.”

The woman stammered, glancing toward the wagon as the man opened his mouth, perhaps to protest, but Jed silenced him with a quick raise of his pistol.

Barrett adjusted his grip on the rifle. Watching this made a spring coil in his chest. There was no need to harass these people now that they had the money.

Silas dismounted and circled the wagon like a vulture, ordering Nate to climb into the back of the wagon and root through crates and burlap sacks like a truffle hog. Nate was broader than Jed, stocky and thick boned, and Silas often leveraged his bulk to intimidate their victims.

“Nothing else here …” Nate chuckled and pulled out two children. “Except these two.” His jaw clenched in a hard line, as if to keep his fear clamped behind his teeth. Perhaps the desire to hide that fear was driving him now.

The woman gasped, reaching out to the kids, while the man rushed Jed—only to get a rifle in the face for his effort.

“Yer holdin’ out on us.” Jed loomed over the woman, sneering. “Wouldn’t be hidin’ them kids if you weren’t, now, wouldja?”

“Leave her alone.” The words escaped Barrett’s mouth before he could stop them.

Jed’s head snapped toward Barrett, his movement arrested like a wolf interrupted mid-pounce. “What’d you say?”

Oh well … In for a penny … “We’ve got what we came here for. No reason to go messin’ with ’em.”

“Get off it, Barrett, we—”

The crack of a gunshot ripped through the air, and Barrett turned just as Nate staggered, clutching his side as red seeped through his shirt.

The driver, who’d been slumped in the dirt with no indication that he could move, let alone shoot, knelt by the wagon with a pistol clenched in his shaking hand. The muzzle smoked faintly, trembling as if he barely had the strength to hold the weapon.

Silas drew his revolver in one fluid motion. “Damn fool!”

The crack of his shot followed a heartbeat later, and the driver’s head snapped back, his body crumpling like wet canvas onto the earth. Blood pooled onto the dirt beneath him.

Silas turned to glare at the family, a vein bulging on his forehead.

Barrett did not like the look of this. He took a step forward. “Silas, don’t—”

Silas fired, and the other man fell into the dirt with a hole in his forehead. The woman screamed as she threw herself over the two small forms huddled against her.

Barrett jumped off Thunder and charged toward Silas. “Silas, stop!”

Another shot cracked through the air, and the woman’s scream was cut off abruptly as her body went limp. One of the children shrieked, the sound stabbing through Barrett’s chest like a blade.

Why was everyone standing around, looking like this was the most normal thing in the world?

Then again, am I any better?

Barret could’ve fired at Silas instead of running toward him, but he knew he’d never leave alive if he had. Yelling at your leader was one thing; killing him was another.

At least the worst is ov—

Another shot rang out, sudden and sharp. A heartbeat later, its twin answered, and two small bodies fell to the dust.

Silas had just killed children.

Barrett’s knees hit the ground before he even realized he was sinking.

Acid clawed its way up his throat, and he doubled over as the meager contents of his stomach spilled onto the dry ground. Each heave wracked him, sharp and hollow, his stomach wrenching as if it could expel the guilt and horror along with the bitter taste.

The bile vanished into the dirt, disappearing as quickly as the lives Silas had just extinguished.

Barrett’s rifle hung loose in his hand. His pulse hammered in his ears, drowning out everything around him. He wanted to move—get up, ride away, do something—but his body refused to obey. The stench of death and gunpowder clung to the air, mingling with the sour bite of vomit in his mouth.

He couldn’t stop staring, even though every instinct screamed at him to look away.

The man’s crumpled body. The woman, slumped over the two small forms she’d tried to shield. The little boy’s limp arm still clung to the woman’s dress, his fingers too small to make a fist.

Dark pools gathered beneath them, spreading slowly, and the parched earth drank it all.

The scene refused to vanish, no matter how hard Barret tried not to look.

His hand clenched around the rifle stock, his nails digging into the wood. It didn’t stop the tremor that ran through him, deeper than regret or disgust. The knot in his chest squeezed and squeezed, and Barrett wasn’t sure if it would ever let go.

Silas’s voice broke through the haze, barking orders as if the slaughter hadn’t just unfolded. “Load it up! Now!”

The words snapped like a whip, pushing the others into motion. Barrett didn’t look up, but he heard the scrape of boots against dirt, the shuffling of crates, the clinking of gold coins being divided among saddlebags.

They moved like this was just another job, another score. Jed muttered under his breath, his boots crunching as he stalked past the bodies without a second glance. They didn’t care. Barrett, however, cared …

And he’d done nothing about it.

Chapter Two

Near Weatherford, Texas 1860

Two weeks since his release. ‘Freedom,’ they’d called it.

Doesn’t feel like freedom.

Twelve years in prison had left scars on Barrett. Deep ones that still pulsed in his soul like a brand. All the hours he’d spent in that little cell, facing the darkest parts of himself, reliving every choice that’d led to that fateful day. The deaths. The screams. The sins staining his hands that no amount of scrubbing could erase.

The glassy eyes of the dead children still stared at him in his dreams.

Barrett adjusted his hat, trying to shield his eyes from the sun—and the memories that refused to stay buried. He’d made a promise to himself in those long, lonely years behind bars. He’d never let greed or desperation twist him into something he couldn’t face in the mirror.

Never again.

He wasn’t far from Weatherford now, where he planned to stop for the night before moving on to the ranches beyond and the isolation he craved. Those ranches were far out, hardworking places that didn’t care who you were or where you came from, long as you pulled your weight. That, he could do. For all the weight he’d lost to poor meals and hard labor, he still had more strength than his looks indicated. He could handle a hard day’s work on a ranch.

Barrett’s dark hair bore streaks of travel dust, and his beard had grown wild during his weeks on the road. His green eyes, once filled with restless fire, now carried ghosts, the kind that came from staring at the past too long.

Barrett adjusted his position in the saddle, his fingers brushing the reins absentmindedly.

Shadow, his new horse, was steady and reliable, a sleek, coal-black mare with an alert stance. Barrett appreciated that more than he could express, especially during the last two weeks of non-stop riding. Shadow had never once given him attitude, despite the pace he’d put her through.

She was no Thunder, though. He’d had to leave the poor horse behind when he was arrested—another casualty of the life he’d chosen. Barrett didn’t know where Thunder had ended up. That was the worst part: the not-knowing.

Miss you, old boy …

Thinking of Thunder pulled Barrett back right to the day it had all gone wrong—the robbery, the dead, and Silas.

When the law had come down on them, Barrett had done what he could to make things right. He’d given up Silas’s name and accepted all the crimes they’d charged him with, even the ones he hadn’t actually committed. He’d just wanted the madness to stop, for the children to let him sleep.

Whether through a stroke of luck or divine intervention, Barret had no idea, but he hadn’t been sentenced to hang with Silas.

Now, he was free.

Shadow snorted, and Barrett eased up on the reins. The mare tossed her head, her sleek coat catching the last golden rays of the setting sun.

Barrett patted her neck. “At least I have you, girl.”

Ahead, the road dipped and curved, disappearing into a shadowy grove of mesquites. As Weatherford drew near, Barrett’s chest ached. Even after all the time on the road, all the reflection, he wasn’t ready for human contact again.

Then again, he didn’t need to be ready. Not really. This would be the start of a new life. A life of repentance, solitude, and penance. The only person he’d be forced to interact with was the ranch owner, to find out his duties for the day.

That’s more than enough.

“Just a bit farther, Shadow.” He rubbed her mane. “Then, we’ll both get some shut eye.”