Chapter One

Western Trail, North of the Brazos River

1885

The herd moved slowly under the morning sun, a sluggish river of hides and horns wending north beneath a hard blue sky. Dust clung to everything—boots, bridles, mustaches—filling lungs and dusting coats.

Jed Kane rode ahead, scanning a draw to the east, where a dry creek bed wound through salt cedar. His black Saddlebred, Levi, picked his way over the brittle ground with instinctual care.

Behind him came Rhett Callen and Harlan Rowe, their horses trailing at an easy lope. Rhett chewed a blade of grass like it owed him money, hat tipped low. Harlan, ruddy and large, whistled some bawdy tune only he knew the notes to.

“Reckon this is our last run,” Rhett said.

Jed didn’t meet his eye. “You’ve said that every drive since Kansas.”

“This time, I mean it. Railroad’s eaten up every stretch of land east of Abilene, and the train’s coming in faster than a hangman’s noose. Won’t be long before they’re running stock by rail from San Antonio to Dodge. No need for us no more.”

Jed adjusted the bandana over his nose as a gust stirred dust from the herd. “They ain’t killed the trail yet.”

“Not for lack of trying,” Rhett muttered.

Harlan caught up, reining in beside them. “You two sound like you’re preparing for your own funerals. It’s a pretty morning and we got near two thousand head movin’ right. No bandits yet, and no broken legs that I know of. Maybe let the West die tomorrow, huh?”

Jed grunted. He wasn’t in a joking mood. He hadn’t been in a long time. Rumor was, a man named Clyde Garrison had petitioned the territorial council to privatize a stretch of public range.

Privatize. Jed hated the word. It meant barbed wire and land claims and armed men throwing punches over creeks they didn’t own. The old way—his honest, open trail—was vanishing, fenced off inch by inch.

He turned in the saddle. “You seen any new wire last few miles?”

Harlan shrugged. “Not since Belknap.”

“Good. Let’s keep it that way.”

They rode on in silence for a while, the wind dry and mean across the plain. Jed let the stillness settle over his thoughts. This life, these wide horizons, was all he had left. After the war, after losing his wife and children, after everything. Jed knew it was this or rot—and the trail didn’t care what you’d done, so long as you did your job.

Rhett cursed, tugging his horse up short. “You see that?”

Jed followed his gaze toward a low ridge. Thin strands of metal caught the light, stretched tight across a gap between two limestone outcrops.

Jed’s jaw clenched. “Wasn’t here two weeks ago.”

Harlan rode ahead to get a closer look, dismounted, and squatted near one of the posts. “This ain’t ranch fencing,” he called. “There’s no grazing in this basin—it’s too dry. Somebody’s blocking passage.”

Rhett spat in the dirt. “Ain’t no accident. That’s deliberate.”

Jed swung down and walked the fence line. It cut across a narrow funnel in the landscape, a natural pass they’d counted on for grazing and water. Without it, they’d be pushed east, into thinner land with fewer streams and twice the rattlers.

He turned slowly, scanning the hills, his heart hammering with cold, focused fury. “Someone knew we were coming this way.”

Harlan rubbed the back of his neck. “Some local cattle baron staking out a new claim?”

Jed shook his head. “No notices posted—and they picked the exact mile that bottlenecks into Wilson’s Creek.” He nodded at Rhett. “You’re right—this ain’t no coincidence.”

Rhett looked off westward. “That’s four new fences in three months, all on the trail. The damn railroad companies’ fingerprints are all over this.”

Jed stepped up to the wire and glared at it like it had insulted him. The steel glinted—new, sharp, strung tight.

He pulled a pair of wire cutters from his saddlebag.

“Whoa,” Rhett said. “You sure about that?”

Jed met his eyes. “You want to turn back? March two thousand head through fifty miles of dry, rocky scrub?”

“No. Just saying … we cut that, and we’re sending a message.”

“Good.”

The wire snapped with a metallic twang. Jed cut two more lengths, rolled the ends, and tossed them into the dust.

Harlan gave a low whistle. “Trail boss declares war.”

Jed rolled his neck. “This trail’s fed towns, supplied armies, built homes. Before any of those bastards came sniffing for profit, it was ours. The minute we start asking permission to move through open land, we’re finished.”

He didn’t mount up right away. Instead, he walked a few paces from the trail, boots crunching over shale and mesquite root. He crouched beside a patch of dry buffalo grass and traced his fingers over the cracked earth.

The others watched from the saddle as dust curled around him.

There had been a time when this stretch of land could feed a hundred head, easy, back when rains still came like they meant it. Jed’s father had brought him through here once; they’d been trailing only sixty head then—more of a family push than a full drive. He couldn’t have been more than fifteen, but he remembered the shape of it: the cut in the land, the ironweed blooming in the gully, the way the sky opened up past the ridge as though granting permission to keep going.

That had been before the war. Before barbed wire. Before every mile had a price tag.

He stood slowly, dusting his gloves, and wandered past the fence toward a narrow rise of stone and brush, where a half-buried cedar stake jutted from the ground. Weather-beaten, half-rotted. Not recent.

He knew it by memory.

Jed knelt beside it, pushed aside a tumble of loose rock, and found what he was looking for: a rusted length of chain, wrapped three times around the stake and secured with a rusty iron clasp. It had nearly been swallowed by dirt and time, but he’d left it there, years ago, when he was still young enough to believe things didn’t change unless you let them.

Back then, he’d marked this pass for his family—his wife, his father, his uncle—a reminder that the trail didn’t belong to anyone—brand, company, or army—just the land, and men with grit enough to cross it.

He stared at the chain, not sure what he’d expected to feel.

After a long while, he reached into his coat and pulled out a small leather pouch nearly black with age. Inside were a few things he carried but never used: a wooden ring his daughter had carved, a fragment of bullet-dented brass from Shiloh, a coin with no face left, worn smooth from years in his palm. He added something else now: a bit of broken wire, still sharp. After folding it in with the rest, he pulled the cord tight again.

He tucked it away.

When he rose, he felt different. Not calm, exactly, but settled. He scanned the ridge one more time, not searching for enemies now, but ghosts.

Then, he turned back and walked toward Levi, every step sure.

Rhett pulled his hat lower. “So what’s the play?”

“We drive through. Quick as we can. If they show themselves, we talk—or we don’t.” Jed nudged Levi forward. “Let ’em come. I got plenty to say.”

They passed through the broken fence and kept riding, flanking the herd’s head. The cattle lowed, uneasy. The sky overhead felt hotter than it had an hour ago.

They cleared the fence line by midday and pushed the herd into a wide, open basin that sloped gently down to the northeast. The air smelled faintly of ironweed and mesquite, but the dry breeze held no scent of water. Jed kept his eyes trained on the far hills, where Wilson’s Creek was supposed to run.

“Should’ve been clear through here,” Rhett muttered, riding beside him. “Every map, every journal says this land’s open range.”

“It was,” Jed said.

They dropped into a shallow cut in the land, and the cattle funneled through it, hooves kicking up dust that clung to their hides like smoke. The others kept pace, Harlan riding point on the far side, hollering and cracking his quirt to keep the longhorns from bunching up too tight. The man had a quiet edge to him—ex-railroad, some said, though Jed had never asked. He worked hard and spoke little. That was enough.

Behind Harlan came the rest of the hands: Jody, with his crooked smile and busted shoulder, Saul and his wiry, tobacco-stained frame, and a few young’ins with them.

They crested the ridge slowly, letting the herd catch its breath in the saddle of the basin. The wind lifted the sweat off a man’s neck. Rhett took off his hat and slapped it against his thigh, sending up a puff of dust.

Harlan, still squinting at the trail ahead, said, “Tell you what—if I live to see another fence, I might just start shootin’ out of habit.”

Jed didn’t smile, but Rhett huffed a short laugh.

“You shoot slow,” Rhett said. “By the time you draw, the fence’ll have bought a second plot of land and hired a lawyer.”

Harlan turned in his saddle. “You wound me, Callen. This hand’s plenty quick when it needs to be.”

“Quick to steal the last of the coffee,” Rhett muttered. “Quick to disappear come washday.”

“I’m preservin’ my strength,” Harlan said. “Gotta ration what little a man’s got left once he hits our age.”

“You ain’t old,” Rhett retorted. “You’re just winded.”

Harlan pointed at him. “Winded and wise. Unlike some folk, who chew on prairie grass like it’s plug tobacco.”

Jed didn’t join the fun, but the edge in his shoulders softened.

“Truth is, boys, we ain’t got too many of these rides left. Five years from now, ten if we’re lucky, there won’t be cattle drives at all. Just engines whistling and steam rolling past what’s left of the dust.”

Jed looked out over the low basin, where the herd moved in slow waves. “Maybe.”

Harlan shook his head. “Not ‘maybe.’ You know it. We’re ghosts in a dying story. Some city boy’ll write it down one day, sell it to the papers, and get the half of it wrong.”

Rhett scratched his jaw. “And yet here we are. Dust-choked, sunburnt, and down one good pass.”

Harlan leaned back and cracked his neck. “Sure, but let’s not pretend we’ll be around long enough to watch the last nail driven in. You ask me, this land’ll outlive all of us. Maybe it needs the fences. God knows the wind won’t stop blowin’ just ’cause no one’s left to curse it.”

Jed finally turned in the saddle. “You think we just lie down then? Let ’em carve up every inch of range ’til nothing’s left but property lines and court orders?”

Harlan shrugged. “I think we’re tired.”

“Well, I’m not,” Jed said, “and I ain’t alone. You seen the rail cuts outside Lampasas? Somebody tore out twenty yards of track with black powder. Heard of four fences down near San Saba, too. That wasn’t cows. That was men.”

Rhett’s eyebrows rose.

“People are pushing back,” Jed said. “Cowboys, ranchers, drovers. The old ways ain’t gone yet. Not if we fight for ’em.”

Harlan let out a long breath and glanced eastward. “Reckon we’d better make sure we don’t miss our place in this grand old story, then.”

Jed nodded once. “That’s the idea.”

The march north was brutal. Heat shimmered off the ground like oil. The cattle bellowed and stumbled, hooves pounding the earth in a slow, uneasy rhythm. Harlan rode, silent as ever, eyes always scanning the horizon. Jed watched the ridge grow closer, black and jagged against the amber sky.

Jed spat in the dirt and continued on. Danger he could manage; the world, he couldn’t. Things were changing all too fast, and he wasn’t about to let his world die without a fight. If he must go, he would—but he’d do it kicking and screaming.

The trail might be bent, but it would not break, and neither would he.

Chapter Two

Robinson, Texas

1885

Fried bacon grease coated the air like a film, clinging to the faded curtains and sun-warped wallpaper of the Dusty Bell boarding house. Morning light poured through the open window, painting the breakfast table in slanted streaks of gold.

However, Maeve barely noticed the sunlight or the plate cooling in front of her. She hadn’t slept right in days. Even with a mattress under her and a roof over her head, her body curled like she was still bedded down in a lean-to, waiting for danger to whistle through the dark. Her mind circled the same thoughts over and over, all sharp edges and dead ends: Clyde, the fire, the way her husband’s face had looked in the last light.

The town was too still. It was too easy to hear her thoughts echo. She’d been staring at the same square of checkered tablecloth for near on five minutes, fork held limply in her hand.

“You gonna eat that?” Silas asked around a mouthful of eggs.

Maeve blinked. “What?”

He nodded at her untouched plate. “You haven’t taken a bite. You’re usually the one making us look slow.”

“I’m not hungry,” she muttered.

She’d woken up queasy, heart skipping like a bad wheel in a wagon rut. Even the smell of bacon turned her stomach, and that never used to happen. Not when she was younger. Not when James was alive. Not when she’d believed hard work could help her outrun the things that hunted her.

“You’re worried,” Ivy said gently, her eyes sparkling behind creased eyes. She reached across the table and touched Maeve’s hand, her fingers soft and callused at the same time. “I can see it all over your face, Mae.”

Maeve tried to summon a smile, but it faltered on her lips. “Just impatient, that’s all.”

Silas, Ivy, and Maeve had been holed up in this sleepy little town for three days now, fighting restless sleep, constant checking of the street, of scanning every horizon for dust trails and hoofbeats. But no sign of the cattle drive. To Maeve, the two of them may as well be parents. They were certainly as protective; she felt their eyes on her almost all the time. While it brought Maeve comfort, she was starting to feel like she couldn’t breathe.

She needed to keep moving. She needed to get out of this town. What Maeve needed, most of all, was for the trail boss to finally appear.

“They’ll come,” Ivy said. “They’ve probably run into some snarl or another. Weather. River. Bandits. God knows what.”

“Don’t say bandits,” Silas grumbled. “Last thing we need is you giving Maeve more ideas to fret over.”

Ivy’s brow pinched. “She’s not fretting. She’s planning. Just like she always is.”

Maeve gave Ivy a look—half grateful, half scolding—but the truth hung between them like smoke—visible, choking, inescapable. She was planning, but fear had its hooks in her too, dragging behind every thought like a netful of stones.

Maeve looked away, grateful and guilty all at once. They shouldn’t be here. Not Silas, with his bad knees and stubborn pride, nor Ivy, who’d seen her share of evil, yet still kept the light of God within her. They should’ve stayed back in Lampasas, where things were quieter. Safer. The old ranch hand and his wife, formerly her family’s cook, owed Maeve nothing now; the ranch was gone, so there was no more land to work, no jobs to take.

Still, they’d never leave her, not after everything that had happened. Silas had looked her square in the eye and said, “You’re family. That means we don’t let you walk into hell alone.” And Ivy, bless her, had already packed by the time Maeve tried to argue.

Guilt itched in her like a fresh mosquito bite. She hadn’t asked them to come, but she hadn’t stopped them, either. She couldn’t repay that kind of loyalty. She wasn’t sure she could keep them safe, either, but they’d never have let her go alone.

Silas leaned back in his chair and poured more coffee from the cracked ceramic pot. “That trail boss’ll show. Ain’t a cattle drive this side of Texas that don’t pass through Archer Springs. He’s coming.”

“He’s late,” Maeve said.

“Hell, so are we, depending how you look at it.”

She shoved her fork into a piece of bacon, chewed without tasting. The meat felt dry in her mouth.

If she didn’t get on this trail—if something went wrong, if the trail boss never showed, if her information about the drive turned out to be wrong—then it would all be for nothing: selling the last of her horses, giving up the land, the humiliation of watching Clyde Garrison take everything James had died to protect. That night still clawed at the back of her mind: the smoke, the fire, her boots thudding across the barn floor as she screamed her husband’s name.

She blinked hard. Ivy was still watching her.

Then, shouting. Hooves. Wagons.

All at once, the horizon cracked open, the noise and dust and heat of the trail pouring into their quiet little corner of town.

Maeve stood up so fast her chair left scrapes on the floorboards. She rushed to the window, heart thudding.

A line of longhorns stretched out like a rope of moving flesh. Riders flanked the herd, weaving between wagons and pack mules. Whips cracked, dogs barked, and horses snorted steam into the sunlit morning. It was loud, chaotic, alive.

“They’re here,” she breathed.

“Told you.” Silas pushed up slowly from his chair. “Come on, Ivy.”

Maeve was already crossing to the bureau for her hat.

Ivy stood, one hand on Silas’s arm for support. “Maeve,” she murmured, “remember what you came here for.”

Maeve nodded once. “I do.”

She reached the bureau and grabbed her hat, leaving the last of her hesitation in its place.

“You two wait here,” she said. “I’ll handle the introductions.”

“You sure?” Ivy asked.

Maeve nodded. “I’ve got this.”

As she left the boarding house, heat slapped her like an open palm. A gust of wind carried the smells of sweat, horseflesh, and churned earth to her nose. The air trembled with movement: cattle grunting low in their throats, iron-rimmed wheels grinding against hard-packed dirt, men barking orders in half-sung curses. Maeve moved toward it quickly.

She passed a teenaged wrangler wrestling a stubborn steer, his face sunburnt and flecked with bits of grass. A bearded man poured water over his head from a dented canteen. Another snapped a coiled whip in the air above the herd, sending a ripple of motion down the longhorn line.

Maeve weaved through the commotion, doing her best to avoid the fresh piles of manure as she scanned faces. Cowboys with sun-leathered skin shouted back and forth, some pulling at the reins of skittish horses while others eased chuck wagons into alignment along the edge of the road.

“Where’s the trail boss?” she asked one of the wranglers.

The man tipped his hat back with a grimy finger. “You want Jed Kane. He’s over yonder. Black horse, rides like he ain’t never had his back broken.”

Maeve weaved past a chuck wagon with iron pans hanging from the sides. A young man stood beyond it, toothpick in hand, muttering in Spanish. She gave him a nod; he returned it, slow and measured.

“If you’re lookin’ for Kane, he ain’t far.”

Maeve nodded and picked up her pace, pushing between two carts and past a mule that reared its head as a boy tried to steady it.

Her throat tightened when she saw him—but not the man she’d been hoping to find. Her gut lurched as though she’d seen a snake in the cradle—that same instant, primal understanding: danger.

Clyde Garrison was leaning against a post in front of the general store, as calm and smug as a snake in morning sun. He hadn’t changed much; he still carried himself like the world owed him tribute. His coat was stitched fine, silver thread catching the light. His smile was too wide, and those eyes—dark, sharp, and crawling with secrets—held not an ounce of shame.

He looked up and smiled when their eyes met. “Well,” he drawled. “Ain’t this a fine morning.”

Her fingers itched to draw the revolver beneath her skirt, but she held back.

Not here, not with so many witnesses.

She could swear her heart was pounding loud enough to be mistaken for hoofbeats. She hadn’t expected to find him here. She’d been so focused on the plan. The worst of it was, Clyde was supposed to be behind her. She hadn’t even considered that he might ride the same roads as her.

Or worse, own them.

Her stomach churned. “Leave me be.”

Clyde pushed off the post and took a step closer. “Now, that ain’t any way to greet a man, is it? Especially one who just made you a very rich widow.”

Her hand clenched. “You son of a—‍”

Her vision narrowed. It was more than the rage bubbling hard beneath her skin; she saw the ghost of James, heard the echo of his last words, tasted smoke on her tongue.

He grabbed her wrist and leaned close. “I finally got you,” he whispered, his breath hot against her cheek. “Everything you had … it’s mine now.”

She couldn’t breathe. He said it like he owned her. Like she’d always been his to take. She began to wonder, God help her, if this was what he’d wanted all along. Not land. Not livestock. Just her, twisted up in fear and fury, cornered like a fox.

She yanked her arm, but he tightened his grip.

“James should’ve known better,” he hissed, “than to play with a man like me. What did he think would happen, Maeve? That I’d just let it slide? That I wouldn’t come for you both?”

Her mind was a blur of firelight and galloping hooves. The barn. The shot. James, bleeding in the dirt. Clyde had taken everything but her life—and now, here he was, with the nerve to act like he owned what little remained.

Her jaw locked.

Maeve stood there, chest heaving, fingers trembling just above the gun. Her mind screamed for her to draw it. Just one shot …