Prologue

North Texas, 1867

The cold had teeth. It crept from damp earth, slithered through pines, and settled deep in Ash Morgan’s bones. For two years now, it had dwelt there, an unwelcome guest that had long since overstayed its welcome.

Ash lay flat on a rise, overlooking a dilapidated barn, the scent of wet pine needles and decay filling his nostrils. The stock of his Winchester cooled his cheek, bringing him comfort, yet no joy.

In the hollow below, yellow light bled from gaps in warped planking. Muffled laughter drifted up. Men, full of rotgut and sin, who knew no fear and had no conscience, feasted and drank while the world burned around them.

The raiders who’d turned Ash’s home to cinders and his life to dust.

For months, the need for vengeance had clawed at him, driving him to the bottom of a bottle, where he’d fallen to drown the ghosts of his wife, Martha, and his folks.

Now, with the end in sight, the fire had burned down to a single ember in his gut—one devoid of heat and heavy with certainty that this would end, for good or ill.

Tonight, he’d finally put down the men who’d taken his family from him.

To his right, Colt Rawlins detached himself from a cluster of rocks. The severe planes of his lean face, sharp as an arrowhead, bore several jagged scars from the war. On Ash’s other side, Gideon Barrett shifted his stocky frame and clicked the hammer of his shotgun, his thick mustache framing a pressed mouth instead of a smiling one.

These were his brothers: Colt, who’d pulled him from a tragedy of his own making, and Gideon, whose gallows humor was sometimes the only thing that cut through the gloom. They’d lost their own families to the same greedy grubbers that had sent these raiders to Ash’s land, then bought it in the depths of his drinking.

He hadn’t cared then, but Gideon and Colt had helped him find his drive again.

Ash pushed himself up. Fifty yards—that’s how far he had to go to end this. Fifty yards of open space before he found peace. Fifty yards, and he’d be able to remember Martha’s smile and the fresh smell of his mother’s baking without breaking apart.

He nodded, and they moved.

Ten yards before they reached the door, it swung open, spilling a stumbling man into the dark. As the door shut behind him, he looked up, his eyes growing wide.

Gideon’s shotgun hailed him with a roar that ripped the night apart.

Immediately, Ash sprinted forward and kicked the door. Those inside scrambled for weapons, overturning a crude table laden with bottles and cards.

Ash fired his Winchester.

A man with a pistol went down.

Another shot, and a man reaching for a rifle leaning against the wall crumpled without a sound. A third took down a rickety chair as he fell.

Colt appeared on Ash’s left, his Greener shotgun barking a steady rhythm as Gideon worked his twin Colts from the doorway.

It was over in less than a minute.

Smoke thickened the air, catching the lantern light like a funeral shroud. Whiskey dripped from a shattered bottle. In the center of the carnage, however, one man still stood—a broad man with a blood leaking from his bushy beard—brandishing a pistol.

“Well, I’ll be.” He smirked. “Look what the wind blew in off the prairie. You ain’t lookin’ too prosperous, rancher. Reckon you’re here to settle a score?”

Ash leveled his Winchester, the cold ember in his gut pulsing. “You put my ranch to the torch. You killed my family.”

“A man does what he’s paid for.” The outlaw took a shaky step, gesturing with his pistol. “But if you think I’m the top dog in this fight, you’re barkin’ up the wrong tree. The real devil ain’t never seen.”

“Who?”

“Nobody you’d know—just a long shadow and pockets deep as a sinner’s grave. He wants this land, and he pays us to… convince folks to move on.” He let out a gurgling laugh. “He’s the one pointed us to your spread.”

Ash took a step forward.

Dropping his pistol, the man raised his chin. “Go on! Put me in the ground—won’t make no difference! The time of the sodbuster and the free-range cowboy is over. This land ain’t for men who work it with their hands no more. It’s for men with money and iron will. Men who take it.”

On some level, Ash knew executing this man would accomplish about as much as plucking a single weed from a field overrun with them. But, no matter the outcome, this man had killed Martha.

Ash pulled the trigger.

The outlaw hit the dirt floor with a splat.

Standing there, Ash watched the rifle smoke in his hands, breathing in ragged gasps. He had done it; he’d avenged his family. Any second now, release would come. Freedom from the shackles that’d bound him. Peace. Serenity in justice he’d served.

Any second now …

Then, Ash’s chest emptied of fire and rage, the embers within him washing away down the drain. A hollow well remained behind—an empty basin in which Ash’s ghosts still paced. Martha observed him with a downturned mouth. His mother’s refused to look at him.

Both told him the same thing: this act of vengeance had done nothing to honor their memory, only added another layer of blood to it.

Coming to Ash’s side, Colt placed a heavy hand on his shoulder as Gideon stood in the doorway, glowering.

Ash looked down at the dead man, then around at the wreckage. The dead man’s words rang true: Ash hadn’t dealt with the men in charge—the man in charge—and he likely never would. The faceless monster would forever remain a mere shadow in his nightmares.

Even if Ash found the man, his heart now had a hole in it, and he knew that all the revenge in the world would never fill it.

Chapter One

Late Spring, 1875

South of Fort Worth

From the point of the herd, Ash watched a river of horns and hides meander for a mile behind him: two thousand head of longhorn cattle flowing north in a sea of dun, rust, and brindle. They lowed, thumped their hooves, and left in their wake a pillar of dust high enough to mark their passage for anyone with eyes.

This was life itself—gritty, stubborn, and unrelenting.

Sitting upon a tough buckskin gelding he’d named Smoke, Ash shifted. The creak of worn saddle leather had become as familiar as the ache in his bones.

Eight years he’d been driving herds up the Chisholm Trail; in that time, it had become more than a job. It was penance, salvation. After the war, the fire, and the bottle, the open range had given Ash a reason to draw breath.

He pushed his sweat-stained Stetson back on his head.

The vast land south of the Red River still lay unbroken—the way God intended—but Ash knew what lay ahead.

Each year, the world shrank more and more. Men who’d never felt the sun on their necks or dirt under their fingernails were carving up, fencing, and selling the freedom Ash had found by the acre. Folk with clean hands and dirty money.

Colt trotted up alongside him and reined in his bay, his hawkish features scanning the herd. “They’re moving steady. No stragglers to speak of. The boys on drag are earning their keep.”

Ash grunted in agreement.

For a spell, they rode in a comfortable quiet forged in the crucible of war, tracking raiders and a dozen cattle drives. They understood each other better than most folks could read.

“You’re thinking again.”

Ash shrugged. “A man’s got to think.”

“He ain’t gotta brood.” Colt pulled a pipe from his shirt pocket, sprinkling tobacco into it with scarred fingers. “The trail ain’t what it was, Ash. You know it as well as I do. We’re pushing against a tide that’s already turned.”

“A tide can be held back,” Ash said.

“This ain’t a river overflowing its banks. This is the ocean, and it’s swallowing the shore for good.” Colt struck a match on his saddle horn, held it to his pipe, and took a long drag. Smoke plumed from his nostrils. “Railroad spurs branching out like ivy. Land grants signed in fancy offices back east. And they’re stringing that devil’s rope up faster than folk can cut it.”

At the mention of barbed wire, Ash’s jaw tightened. Those disgusting eyesores scarred the face of the land Ash had come to love. He’d seen what they could do to a panicked steer or horse that didn’t see it in the twilight.

Before he could answer, Gideon joined them on a stocky gray that looked as durable as its owner.

“Well, if you two ain’t a pair of old bulls decidin’ who gets to lead the herd.” He tipped his hat as a grin split his thick mustache. “What’s the trouble? Afraid your bones’ll turn to dust before we see Kansas?”

“We’re talking about the future, Gid,” Colt said.

Gideon let out a hearty laugh. “Colt, we got forty-odd years, and we spent the better part of that sleeping on the ground. The future is a hot meal and a full bottle—anything beyond that is borrowin’ trouble.”

Colt sighed. “You’re making it sound like we got both feet in the grave.”

“The West is bound to change. A man gets old, his teeth get long, and the world moves on. We won’t be here long enough to see the worst of it, I reckon.”

Frowning, Ash shot him a look. Gideon used humor like a shield to keep the ghosts of his own past at bay. Right now, though, his dismissive jest grated.

“This isn’t about us getting old. It’s about a dyin’ way of life. This trail is more than just a beef path—it’s the last piece of something honest.”

“I agree with you, but Colt’s readin’ the sign right.” Gideon’s smile faded. “We can’t fight a railroad with a six-gun.”

“We ain’t the only ones who feel this way.”

“What makes you say that?”

Ash rubbed his chin. “I’ve heard talk—ranchers, cowboys, folks pushed off their own land—they’re fighting back. Cutting the fences the companies put up. Small battles, maybe, but a prairie fire starts with a single spark.”

Colt shook his head. “Fool’s errand, if you ask me.”

Ash sighed. He has a point.

Every time a rancher cut a stretch of wire, the company raised two more and hired guards to shoot on sight. As that raider had told Ash all those years ago, these men had no faces. You couldn’t have a stare-down in a dusty street and be done with it.

Still, even if Colt was right, Ash refused to accept it. To do that would mean admitting that the world, the one that had saved him, had numbered days. That he could truly do nothing to save it.

Ash peered into the distance. “A man’s got to stand for something, or he’s just takin’ up space.”

He spurred Smoke forward a few paces, needing to put some distance between himself and their talk. He traced the gentle roll of the hills, the hazy line of trees that marked a distant creek. For years, he’d trained himself to watch for trouble. A spooked steer, change in the weather, or telltale dust cloud where no riders should be …

Like the one rising against the green of a cottonwood grove a quarter mile to the west, just off the trail’s main track. Too coordinated for grazing animals. Too furtive for honest travelers.

He reined Smoke to a halt, Colt and Gideon following suit.

Distance and the shimmer of heat made it hard to tell who the riders were, but Ash could make it out now. Two—no, three—figures moving along a line of fence posts, metal glinting in their hands.

Rebels.

Ash nudged Smoke with his heels, urging him into a ground-eating lope. Colt and Gideon fell in behind. Charging headlong was a greenhorn’s move, so they rode with a hunter’s caution, using gentle swales for cover. Nods, glances, and shifts in the saddle passed messages between them.

Ash kept his eyes locked on the grove.

These rebels were more than some hot-headed grangers protecting a corn patch. This was a key point of the route, a natural funnel for any herd moving north. Fencing it off declared war against the trail itself, and the railroad companies would’ve known that.

As Ash, Colt, and Gideon cleared the last rise, the scene came into focus: three men with bandannas obscuring their faces. Two wielded heavy wire cutters, snipping through taut strands of barbed wire with powerful jerks. The third stood watch, holding a rifle loosely in a soldier’s grasp.

That man was in the war.

The fence, a series of raw timber posts marching in a straight line across the prairie, now had a fifty-yard gap in its middle. Cut wires coiled on the ground like metallic snakes.

The man on watch saw them and yelled. The other two immediately dropped their tools, swung into their saddles, and spurred their horses into the cottonwood grove. Moving like ghosts, they vanished into the dense foliage in seconds.

Pulling Smoke to a halt at the edge of the trees, Ash rested his hand on the butt of his Peacemaker. He wouldn’t fight rebels if he could help it, but these men had obviously mistaken them for company folk.

He could’ve pursued them, of course, but decided against it. They obviously knew this country, and Ash had two thousand head of cattle to look after.

Not much point in chasin’ down folk just to wish ’em well.

Colt reined in beside him. “They sure knew their business.”

“Yeah.”

Gideon shook his head as he surveyed the severed wires. “They worked faster than a barber on a Saturday night.”

“Good wire?” Colt said.

Gideon dismounted, walking over to one of the cut strands and nudging it with his boot. “Brand new—this fence wasn’t put up on the cheap.”

Ash swung down from his saddle and walked to the gap the men had created. He glanced back toward his herd, the great river of longhorns making their way north. The Chisholm Trail used to be a wide and forgiving path. A promise of open land stretching from Texas to the Kansas railheads.

Now, it was becoming a corridor. A cage without a top.

“Look what we’ve come to.” Ash ran a gloved hand over the splintered top of a post. “Honest folk can’t even recognize each other no more.”

“Don’t blame ’em.” Colt’s eyes followed the length of the fence to the horizon. “Better they insult us by runnin’ than get gunned down by trustin’ the wrong people.”

“That’s what sticks in my craw,” Ash muttered, kicking at a loose clump of sod. “Time was, this trail was the place you found friends.”

The whole business stank. Buying up ranch land was one thing; trying to close the entire Chisholm Trail was another entirely. Sure, the railroad would get to it eventually, but this reeked of money and politics—two things he’d learned were more dangerous than any outlaw’s gun.

“This isn’t just about closing off grazing land. This feels … targeted.” Ash frowned. “Like someone aims to choke this trail until it dies.”

Gideon picked up a pair of discarded wire cutters. They were heavy, well-made. “Whoever these fellas were, they were supplied. This ain’t just anger, Ash. This is organized.”

Ash stared at the empty grove where the rebels had vanished. “A prairie fire starts with a single spark,” he’d said. But what if this was an arsonist’s work, a fire set deliberately to burn away the old world and make way for the new? The raider’s words from all those years ago came back to him once again.

“This land ain’t for men who work it… It’s for men with money and iron will. Men who take it.”

Deep unease settled in his gut, cold and heavy as a stone. He had a bad feeling, the kind that whispered on the back of his neck and told him that the hardships he’d known on the trail—storms, river crossings, stampedes—were nothing compared to what was coming.

This is bigger than a few miles of fence.

“Who in blue blazes has the power and gall to strangle the Chisholm Trail?” Ash looked north, toward Kansas; the trail ahead suddenly seemed longer and darker than it ever had before. “And why?”

Chapter Two

Late Spring, 1875

Fort Worth

The waiting poisoned the hours. It seeped into the day, turning the blistering Texas sun into a personal torment and the grit of Fort Worth into a fine powder that coated Abby’s tongue and soured her thoughts.

For three days, they’d camped on the scrubby outskirts of the settlement, an island in a sea of noise and dirt, waiting for the Western Trail to materialize. Three days of watching the horizon and listening to the distant clang of a blacksmith’s hammer and the raucous laughter spilling from saloons she would never enter.

Time was slipping away, and Abby was stuck between the ruins of her past and the uncertainty of her future.

Abby watched Levi from the shade of their Conestoga, a heavy, canvas-topped wagon with oversized wheels. She’d been reluctant to buy it—it looked more like a monstrous canoe than a wagon—but Levi had insisted its curved design would keep their supplies from jostling as they traveled, and ultimately, she’d relented.

He’s never led me astray before.

Sitting on an overturned crate, the old ranch hand methodically worked saddle soap into a worn piece of harness leather. His hair had gone more silver than brown, and he favored his left leg, but he moved just as steadily as he always had over the thirty years he’d worked her family’s ranch. His leg had been bothering him for the better part of the year, but he’d never complain. Not Levi.

Humming, Willa stepped out of the wagon and wiped her hands on her apron. Her face, a roadmap of kind wrinkles and sun-weathered wisdom, settled into a frown as she fanned herself with a corner of her apron.

“This heat could cook a lizard in its own skin!”

“Sure could,” Abby said.

Willa looked at her. “And you look fit to boil over, child. Staring at an empty road won’t make that trail appear any faster.”

Abby forced a brittle smile onto her lips. “I know, Willa. I’m just impatient.” She wouldn’t tell Willa that the waiting was corroding her from the inside out.

Levi and Willa should’ve been enjoying their old age, sitting on the porch of their cabin on the ranch, watching the sun set over the rolling hills that had been their whole world. Instead, she’d dragged them into dust and uncertainty—and for what? Just because she couldn’t let go of them?

Yet they’d followed her without a single question, selling their few possessions and packing their lives into this one wagon. Honestly, she felt like a brigand, stealing what little peace they’d had.

“We’ll get to Kansas,” Levi said with a steady rumble that had calmed spooked horses and frightened children for long as Abby could remember. “The Lord provides.”

I’m not so sure.

Abby’s faith had been one of the many casualties of the past two years. Her husband’s wagon had mysteriously lost a wheel on a flat road, the bank had called in debts she never knew existed, and Cal Rowen had appeared like a smiling vulture, offering her pennies on the dollar for land her father had broken his back to claim—the very land she and Thomas had poured their dreams into.

Not much faith to keep after all that.

She stepped away from them. “I need some air. I’m going for a walk.”

Willa’s expression softened. “Don’t go too far, y’hear? This settlement is full of … well, full of town.”

Levi looked up and nodded.

Reaching into the wagon, Abby retrieved her gun belt, then strapped it around her waist. She sighed as the familiar weight of the Colt Peacemaker settled on her hip.

Thomas had rarely worn the gun, preferring the quiet strength of his hands and power of a well-reasoned argument. After his death, though, Abby had cleaned it, oiled it, and learned its every mechanism until it felt like an extension of her own arm.

It was all she had left of him.

Walking away from the clamor of the settlement, she headed to a secluded arroyo long-forgotten rains had carved out. The air thickened with the scent of sunbaked earth and creosote as the noise of Fort Worth faded to a dull murmur. Only a lone cicada buzzed.

This place served as her church now, one of solitary ritual.

She produced three dented tin cans from a burlap sack, paced twenty yards, and set them carefully on a flat-topped rock, their metal glinting in the harsh sunlight. Returning to her spot, she drew her Colt.

For a moment, she just stood, breathing. Sometimes, she savored this part more than the actual shooting. Sure, blowing cans off was cathartic, but this moment of calm always brought a measure of peace.

Other times, of course, she just craved the boom.

She raised the pistol steadily, narrowing her gaze down the long barrel, then inhaled, held the breath for three heartbeats, and squeezed the trigger.

The crack shattered the afternoon’s stillness, and the leftmost can leaped into the air, spinning end over end before landing in the dust with a muted clatter. She cocked the hammer, shifted her aim, and fired again.

Ping! The second can danced off the rock. The third followed a second later.

Three shots, three hits. Good.

As the acrid and strangely clean scent of gunpowder filled the air, a fraction of her frantic energy subsided. She reloaded the empty chambers with cartridges from her belt, imagining Cal Rowen’s face—his condescending smile and emotionless eyes.

“A fine piece of shooting, Mrs. Rhodes. Truly.”

The familiar voice had come from behind her, smooth and laced with a chilling amusement.

Abby froze, her blood turning to ice in her veins. Slowly, she lowered the Colt and turned.

Cal Rowen stood twenty feet away, leaning against a gnarled mesquite tree as if he owned it.

He wore wealth like armor: a tailored dust coat over a fine linen shirt and expensive leather boots coated in a layer of trail haze. Though small and wiry, he radiated a kind of predatory stillness that made him seem to take up more space than he did. A polite smile touched his lips, but never reached his eyes, the color of a winter sky.

Abby kept the gun loosely at her side. “What do you want?”

“Merely admiring your skill.” Pushing off the tree, he took a slow step toward her. “It’s a comfort to know my property was once in such capable hands.”

“Ain’t your property,” she spat, the words tasting like bile. “You stole it.”

“Stole?” He feigned surprise, placing a hand over his heart. “My dear Abby, I possess a signed deed with your name on it. A perfectly legal transaction. You were in debt, you needed cash—I was simply a benevolent neighbor, helping in your time of need.”

He took another step. The space between them closed in, and every instinct screamed at her to raise the pistol. He was a snake, and she’d let him get too close.

She scowled. “You’re a liar and a thief. You made the whole doggone thing happen!”

Rowen’s smile widened. “Accidents happen every day on the frontier. Wagons break, men get careless. Your husband was a good man, but he was a dreamer who didn’t understand the nature of progress.”

“Which is what?”