Prologue

Mercer Ranch, Gainesville, Texas — 1853

“You’re gonna spook him, going straight for him like that,” Luke Mercer watched as his best friend, Knox Delaney, tried his best with the new cobalt gray stallion. Luke, all of fifteen years, could see that it wasn’t going to end well.

“What do you mean? This one won’t get fritted over anything. He’s got more spirit than a ranch hound!” Knox laughed in that way he had—all teeth and noise like he didn’t have a care in the world. It was one of the things that Luke liked about him, in truth, but sometimes Luke knew his friend—like the young stallion—had more courage than he had sense.

“That’s what I mean,” Luke said, echoing the way his father would talk and suddenly realizing that his father was a better horseman than Knox’s parents were. The thought made Luke feel uncomfortable, like he was being disloyal to his friend.

Knox had invited Luke over to take a look at their new horse, who was barely older than a gelding in Luke’s eyes, and still just as skittish. They had chosen the spot well, a grassy meadow a little way out from Luke’s family ranch with enough open space that they could give the new horse its head when they wanted to.

The sun was baking hot above them in an azure blue sky, and there was nothing but the cry of white-tailed eagles between them and the open plains.

“Nah, easy there!” Luke called out. Knox held the gray on a too-long leash. And he was walking eagerly towards the horse, meaning to mount without giving the horse a moment.

Luke stepped forward, but the damage was already done. The gray rolled its eyes, rearing up and kicking at the air.

“Whoa!” Luke jumped forward, grabbing his friend by the shoulder and dragging him back a moment before the gray’s hooves could make a pretty dent in his friend’s brainpan. Both children hit the grass with a heavy thump, rolling as the cobalt gray jumped away, now without anyone holding its rope leash, and bolted.

“Darn it!” Knox said, sitting up as the horse turned and disappeared, straight back the way they had come towards the Delaney stables.

“It might stop by the stream. We could catch it there,” Luke said doubtfully. A shadow of worry furrowed his brow. If this had been his horse, then he would expect at least a hard talking to from his father, if not a stripe across the backside for being so careless.

To his surprise, his friend looked at the disappearing dust set up by the gray, groaned, and burst out laughing once more.

“Ah gosh, there goes my hope for some apple crumble tonight. Come on, if I take you with me, Pa will go easy on us,” Knox winked conspiratorially and then playfully shoved Luke on the shoulder.

“Really?” Luke wasn’t sure he believed this assessment either. The Delaneys and the Mercers were neighbors and firm friends, but Luke wasn’t sure that friendship extended to covering each other’s mistakes.

“Yeah, Pa knows he needs your dad against the Comanche. He’s planning on asking your old man to lend him some ranch guards this summer,” Knox shrugged.

Luke made an agreeing noise. That made sense, at least. The local Indians, the Comanche, had raided a couple of the nearby families last summer, and there was no telling where they would strike next. He remembered nights when riders would arrive at the Mercer yard in the middle of the night, and suddenly his father would be all tight, controlled fire—grabbing his long rifle and riding out.

“You reckon they’ll come this far north though?” Luke asked. The Indian attacks were still a thing that belonged over the horizon and far away, something that happened to other, unfortunate people. He had never even seen smoke on the horizon.

“What, up here?” Knox, taller than Luke by an inch and older by three months, looked appreciatively at the hills and distant line of aspens, as if he could read the bird sign in the sky like the old trappers that passed through this way just this winter gone.

“Nah. Not this close to Gainesville. My pa said a Marshal was coming to the town soon, and I don’t think even the savage Comanche will want to mess with them!” Knox said lustily, before breaking into a story he’d heard of the U.S. Marshals, and how they crisscrossed the United States to track down infamous outlaw gangs. Luke wasn’t sure who was quite meant to be the good guys in Knox’s telling, as his friend seemed equally as excited about the doings of the Younger Gang as he was the U.S. Marshals.

His friend was busy describing one particular shoot-out when the smell of smoke crossed Luke’s nostrils.

He looked up to see a ribbon of black rising into the sky, in the opposite direction to the Delaney ranch and the escapee colt.

Huh? His father hadn’t mentioned he was having a bonfire.

Something squirmed in Luke’s belly. A feeling of unease, brought on by their recent chatter.

“I’m heading back home. Pa might need my help with that fire—” Luke was saying—when he heard the first scream.

It was a thin shriek, and he almost mistook it for the cry of an eagle. But it wasn’t.

“Ma!” Luke burst into a sprint, his heart pounding in his chest.

No. What had happened? What had gone wrong?

Knox burst into a run right after him. Although his friend was usually quicker on the flat, this time concern added speed to Luke’s legs. He tore through the grasses, reaching the edge of the meadow and skidding into the creek bed that would lead him back home.

“What is it. Luke? Do you think it’s—” Knox’s voice was breathy.

But Luke didn’t think. He couldn’t think about what it was. The trees of the creek muffled the sound of battle, but they were still audible. Gunshots cracked the air, followed by another short, cut-off shout.

“Ma! Pa!” Luke called out. He cursed his legs for not running faster. What had he been thinking, taking the afternoon off to look at the Delaneys’ new horse? He was the eldest Mercer child. He should have been at home, tending their own horses, and keeping an eye on the property…

“Oh, spit!” Knox gasped as soon as the two boys clambered out of the edge of the creek and saw the gentle rise to what would normally be the Mercer ranch.

His family was proud of their home, and both of Luke’s parents had toiled to build the two-story timber-frame house on the brow of the hill. It overlooked the plains to the north and east of them, and the lick of lime-wash paint to the eaves shone in the midday sun.

Or it would have done—had it not been curling with black smoke.

“Pa! Ma!” Luke cried out. There were figures up there, dashing about in front of the house. Luke was running over the lower paddock, straight towards them, before he even knew what he was doing. All he knew was that he had to get there as soon as possible. He had to find his parents, no matter what.

“Watch him! There—the kid!” A gruff voice shouted. Luke saw a man about his father’s age with a wide brown mustache, and a thin, ragged blue jerkin pulled over a sturdy, padded brown one. The man was on a horse, and he had a pistol in his hand.

“Pa! What have you done with him? Where’s my ma?” Luke yelled. His mind was in disarray. He couldn’t believe his house was burning. He felt the ground shift under his feet as his whole life changed around him.

There were shapes on the floor. Luke could not call them people. They were humped mounds that a part of him knew were bodies. Some of them had shirts that Luke had never seen before, and beads hanging down their chest like armor.

“Indians!” Luke gasped. His gaze went to two more bloodied forms on the ground, right by his front step.

No—

“Got him!” Strong hands suddenly grabbed Luke by the arms and lifted him in the air, hugging him close. He had been grabbed by a man who was strong and wouldn’t let Luke struggle.

“Let me go! I want to see my pa! Let me go!” Luke bawled.

“Shush, tyke. You don’t want to see any of that. Not yet, anyway,” the man said gruffly, dragging Luke away from the bodies at the front of his burning house, away from the smoke, and towards the man with the mustache and the blue, ill-fitting jerkin.

It was only then that Luke noticed the star on the man’s chest. He was a lawman of some kind, but Luke didn’t recognize him. Was he here because of the Indians?

“You must be Luke Mercer,” the man with the star on his chest was in front of him, looking down from his horse. He flickered a look over Luke’s shoulder and the other man who held him fast. “And by my reckoning, that makes you Knox Delaney. We’ve sent a man to your ranch, too.”

The man’s eyes returned to Luke. He looked serious and somehow terribly sad as he leaned towards him a little.

“Now listen up, Luke Mercer. I’m U.S. Marshal Patterson, and we’ve been following a Comanche war band, but we got here too late for your family. Your ma and pa are dead. That makes you the man of your household now, d’you understand?”

Luke blinked. He didn’t understand. How could this happen?

The man’s eyes were still on him. “You got somewhere else you can go? More family in Gainesville?”

Luke shook his head. It had only ever just been him and his parents. No uncles, no aunts—just them.

“He’ll stay with us. For as long as he has to, or forever, if he wants to,” Knox’s voice sounded from somewhere out of sight.

Forever? But what about the ranch? Luke thought woozily. Nothing was making sense. But where else would he go? In truth, he and Knox were as close a thing to brothers as anyone.

“That’s settled then. Your pa will have some paperwork to fill out, I’m sure. But this land is still his, and will be when he comes into his maturity. You tell your pa that,” the Marshal said to Knox, who swore that he would.

Luke and Knox were led to a horse—and just like that, Luke Mercer became an orphan and foster child of the Delaneys of Gainesville, Texas.

Chapter One

Somewhere outside Manassas, Virginia — 1861

The scream of gunshots ripped through the air, and black smoke fouled the air.

“Back—back! They’re coming in quick!” Luke heard their captain shout. Their officer was a local Virginian man by the name of Jackson, who looked barely older than either Luke or Knox was.

But they were all Confederates. That was one thing that they had in common. The call had gone out, and the flag of resistance had been raised. Luke and Knox had been among many to hear the call and sign up, leaving the distant plains of Texas to defend the South in this eastern seaboard state.

Only now, Luke didn’t see a whole lot of defending going on. All he saw was panic and fear.

Their leader, General Beauregard, was about to march on Washington, but the Union had quickly marched to find them here, at Bull’s Run. Everyone said that the Union Army couldn’t hold them, that the Confederates had the greater numbers and passion. But this morning, the Union had done something no one had expected. They had launched an early offensive…straight at the position by the muddy, shallow river where Luke and Knox’s unit were stationed with the Virginian Infantry Army of the Confederacy.

“The position won’t hold!” Captain Jackson shouted, and a moment later, a sound like an angry hornet slapped him to the ground in a spray of blood.

“No!” Luke heard Knox shout. His friend was crouching just a few meters away, in their stand of thin birch trees that were too young and too spidery to offer any cover or concealment. In front of them, the ground was a churned-up mess of water and mud. The water here ran just a few feet deep, and the movement of troops, horses, and carts had turned the entire surroundings into a sludgy marsh.

There was the constant crackle of gunfire, shouts, and the thunder of horses’ hooves.

“It’s the Union cavalry. They’re coming straight for us!” Knox shouted.

Luke lifted his head as another wasp-like bullet snapped past. He didn’t know how many times he had heard bullets in just the space of a day. He couldn’t even flinch at them anymore. The older soldiers—the ones who had served in the Revolutionary War—said that you never heard the bullet that killed you anyway.

He fired his long-barreled rifle back at the fury of hooves and dark shapes that were pounding towards them. He wasn’t sure if he had hit someone, but he thought he had.

“It’s no use!” Another soldier shouted to his right. The man jumped up, turning to the hill at their back, but didn’t even get two steps before he, too, was cut down. Luke watched in dull shock as the man hit the floor, his mouth still open and his eyes staring straight at him. It wasn’t just the cavalry; there had to be snipers or scouts or marksmen covering the Union attack.

“Knox!” Luke knew he had to make a decision. Their line was already ragged, and they had nothing that would stop the cavalry from splashing straight through the low mere. They had been ordered to hold this position, but they hadn’t been given any orders on what to do if their officers were killed.

“We can’t make it. We have to go. I’ll cover you,” Luke said, twisting his head to shout at his friend…

And that was when the one he didn’t hear got him. For a moment, it felt like he had been kicked by a horse, because something too big to be painful slammed into his shoulder and thumped him into the mud. His ears instantly whined with a high-pitched ringing, and he could see black smoke and the smallest patch of blue sky.

“…Luke…”

“LUKE!”

Knox’s face hovered into view, at the same time as his voice burst into Luke’s ears. His friend had dirt all over him, but Luke could see his friend’s chestnut eyes and his wide mouth. His friend had curlier hair than Luke did, a fact which Luke knew sent the girls wild, but now his friend’s hair was plastered to his face with sweat. Knox was shouting, saying something that Luke couldn’t quite make out.

“—up!” Knox gasped, grabbing Luke by the waist and hauling him to his feet.

“Ach!” Pain speared through Luke’s shoulder.

“I’ve been shot?” he said.

The sound of the horses was only louder now, but Luke couldn’t turn to see how close they were. The gunshots were becoming just occasional cracks.

“Of course you’ve been shot, cotton-brain! Now pick up your knees!” Knox shouted. His friend manhandled him, half-carrying, half-supporting him as they stumbled through the muddy trees and up the incline.

Luke had never been shot before. In all honesty, he had expected it to hurt more, or rather to carry on hurting like the time he had broken a finger when he fell from the Delaney barn roof. What he felt now was not the constant sharp tear of that pain, but rather a dull bruise of an ache on his left shoulder.

And warmth. His left arm felt warm. Did that mean he was bleeding to death?

“Leave me.” He gasped and tried to struggle against his friend, but the slightest movement sent another shiver of ache through him. “Leave me with a pistol, and I’ll cover you.”

“Don’t be a fool, I’m not going to leave you in the mud. You wouldn’t do the same to me, would you?” Knox said and continued to shove and pull him uphill.

Luke realized that his friend was not going to listen to him and knew exactly what Knox’s tone was like when he had made up his mind. Luke thought he knew Knox better than even his own parents did. For the past six years, ever since that fateful day on the Texan plains when the Comanche had attacked, Luke had lived with the Delaneys and had become a second son to the family. They had even talked about merging their ranches—or at least letting down some of the fences so they could run a larger herd.

But then the war had broken out, and both Luke and Knox had known exactly what they would have to do. They were two proud sons of the South, and they never really had any other choice, did they?

“Couldn’t you have eaten a bit less, Mercer?” Knox growled with the effort, although Luke knew that Knox was actually the one of them who was the larger.

“You’re just unfit,” Luke hissed. He knew what his friend was doing. He was trying to make him laugh. Or at least take his mind off the imminent slaughter.

“Look, we’re almost there. Our reserves will be streaming towards us. We’ll be heroes.” Knox panted.

“Heroes for what? Getting shot?” Luke offered. He did his best to stumble forward. They could hear the sounds of cavalry bugles behind them now. When he twisted his head (to another gasp of pain), he saw that the cavalry was slowing as their steeds started to splash across the water below.

“Okay, I’ll be a hero. Carrying my buddy through hell and high water to safety. You’ll be the poor wounded soldier…” Knox started to laugh, which Luke thought was ridiculous at a time like now. But this was a very Knox thing to do, wasn’t it?

Knox took a breath, probably to tell him exactly how great a medal was going to look on his mantelpiece back home, but instead of saying that, he let out a quick huff instead.

His friend pitched forward in that instant, spilling Luke alongside him.

“Ach!” Luke snarled in pain, rolling onto his good side and about to berate Knox for being such a clumsy oaf…but then saw the reason for his friend’s fall.

Knox was lying on his back, looking straight up at the sky, with a bloody hole through his chest. Red was seeping down his blue uniform like spilled wine, and Knox’s eyes were slowly closing.

“No—no—no—” Luke threw himself at his friend, and for a moment didn’t feel any of his own pain. His left arm wouldn’t work, but he slapped his right over the gunshot wound in Knox’s chest and felt the warm pulse of blood there.

“Not you. You can’t go. Not you too,” Luke said. He looked down into his friend’s face, but Knox was already gone. His expression looked confused, but his mouth was still quirked in that slightest crook of a Delaney smile.

Black rage filled Luke in that moment. How could this have happened? What were they even doing here? So many miles away from home? How was he ever going to explain this to Knox’s parents? How were they going to run their ranches together now?

He saw Knox’s pistol at his side. In a heartbeat, he had grabbed it, turning back to point down the low hill and fire it at the crossing cavalry. He pulled the trigger as there was a shout, and a storm of rifle fire over his shoulder.

His reinforcements had come, just as Knox had predicted.

But they had come far too late.

***

That night, Luke was sitting up on a camp bed in the hospital tent of the Confederate camp. The Battle of Bull Run had gone well, by all accounts, apart from a near-disastrous start. Beauregard had abandoned his plans to march on Washington as the Union forces quickly sought to pincer them. Their surprise attack routed several forward units of the Confederate forces, including Luke’s unit, and sent them back towards the main Confederate lines.

But the rest of the Confederate forces had held in time for the reinforcements to come by rain from behind their lines. From what Luke had been told, when these new troops had streamed forward, they had scattered the Union columns ahead of them like leaves in the Fall.

Not that Luke cared about their apparent victory. He had lost his best friend, his brother, and now no cause or victory could make up for that.

It was nighttime, and the hospital tent had finally quietened down, with only the soft snores and the weak whimpers of those wounded who still couldn’t find any respite this night. White-robed nurses and medics moved down the aisle of camp beds, and guttering oil lanterns flickered from the tent beams.

‘My Dearest Sweetheart Lynda…’

Luke looked down at the words he had just written on the piece of parchment that one of the nurses had provided for him. His penmanship wasn’t bad usually, but even though the gunshot hadn’t been in his leading arm, the injury had still made his work shaky.

How was he supposed to write to his wife about what had happened today? It felt like too much news to put into one small piece of paper.

But someone had to tell the tale of Knox’s final, brave act, didn’t they? Knox’s parents deserved that much. Luke remembered the echo of a gruff voice from years ago, when a man with a star on his chest had told him that he had to be a man now; there was no one else.

‘I write to you with the worst of news. The unthinkable has happened. Today I felt the warmth of my best friend’s life flow through my fingers. We have lost Knox—but he died braver than any man I have ever met…’

Something itched at Luke’s eyes. He scrunched his brow and refused the tears that wanted to rise. He would not spoil the ink on the precious paper, and he would not let his darling wife or Knox’s parents see his misery. Instead, Luke forced himself to write about how brave and how funny Knox was, right up until the final moment. Knox had been an easy man to like and had made many friends already in their short time here.

Yes, Luke nodded at his work when he paused, for another wave of discomfort to roll through his shoulder. He took deep, steadying breaths until the pain eased. If it was the least he could do, he would preserve Knox’s memory.

Anger and despair clutched at his chest once again, and Luke lifted his head away from the troublesome letter. Instead, his eyes settled on the scrap of folded paper with the small picture of a simple hand-inked flower in its corner. His wife’s handwriting, My Love, was scrawled across its cover.

Lynda. Relief flooded through Luke’s chest. Everything would make sense once again when he was back with her. Lynda had grown up just a few ranches over, and from the very first time they had met, Luke had been sweet on her. He thought of her hair, the color of corn in full summer, and her soft voice. She was all that he had left now. She was the only thing that made sense in his life anymore.

‘I thank God for having you in my life, dearest wife,’ Luke wrote. ‘I see now that there is no glory in war. No good, and no victory. War only takes from us, and I curse the day that it took me away from you. If there is any good that will come of this, then I pray that it will be this—you and me, together again, with whatever children we are blessed with.’

The smallest smile flickered over his face at that. He would call any boy he had Knox; he was sure of it.

‘I do not know how long this war will last, but I cannot wait until I am returned to you,’ he wrote the final flourish of words at the end of the parchment.

‘Your loving husband, Luke.’