Prologue

Brownsville, Texas, 1867

The familiar scent of Texas earth and sunbaked grass greeted Travis as he crested the final rise.

Home.

After four years of grit and grime, with the stench of death clinging to him like a second skin, he’d finally made it back. The war had ended, but his scars ran deep. Travis couldn’t wait to see Ma’s smile, Tommy’s eager grin, little Clara’s pigtails bouncing as she ran to greet him. He could give Pa a firm handshake with pride.

A rare smile tugged at the corner of his mouth—the first real one in longer than he cared to count—as he spurred Bess, his roan mare, forward.

The ranch house came into view … but something was wrong. Dead wrong.

Strange paint on the porch. Unfamiliar horses in the corral. A stillness in the air heavier than the Texas heat, silence that swallowed the usual ranch sounds.

Each inch he came closer to that house had his war-honed senses screaming disaster.

He dismounted and tied Bess to the hitching post.

“Hold right there, stranger.” A man emerged from the house, wiping sweat from his brow with a red bandana. Stockier than anyone working on a ranch had any right to be, with a hard set to his jaw.

“What’s your business at the Miller ranch?”

“Miller?” Travis frowned. “This is Creede land.”

“You been gone a spell, partner. Ain’t no more Creedes here.” The man spat a stream of tobacco juice near Travis’s boots. “Bought the place, fair and square.”

Travis stepped forward. “Bought from who?”

“The bank. The folks that lived here before … passed.” The man inclined his head at Travis. “Can’t rightly say what took ’em—range fever, maybe? All’s I know is the land went cheap.”

My family is dead?

Travis stared at the house. His home. His future … Gone. Just like that. He’d thought himself lucky to survive all the battles, but it looked like only misery awaited him here.

What was he supposed to do now? What reason did he even have to trudge through his remaining days?

“Look, mister, if you ain’t got no cause to be here, you’d best be movin’ along.” The man waved dismissively to the open range. “This here’s private property.”

The numbness within Travis muted both the man’s words and any rage Travis might have let loose because of them. What was the point of being angry? What was the point of more violence and death—had Travis chosen to shoot the man—when life itself no longer had meaning?

Travis mounted Bess and rode away.

***

“Travis?” Boone looked Travis up and down. “You look like you seen a ghost walkin’.”

Boone Tate had always been sturdy as an oak, but he’d filled out even more during the war. No matter which battlefield they’d been going to or coming from, Boone would always trim his hair and beard on Wednesdays, despite his fellow soldiers teasing him for being a dandy.

We were supposed to have dinner with Ma and Pa tomorrow.

Even as his eyes widened, Boone furrowed his brow. “Travis?”

“Can I come in?”

Boone stepped aside. “You know you don’t need to ask.”

Travis entered the cabin, taking no comfort in the familiar smell of pipe tobacco and woodsmoke. Pacing like a restless dog, he told Boone what’d happened at the ranch. Each word scraped his tongue as it came out, yet finishing the tale only made his lungs burn.

Boone shook his head. “Damn … That ain’t right.” Then, his voice grew dark. “Travis … Ain’t no range fever can take a whole family all at once.”

“I know.”

***

The next day, the two brothers-in-arms rode into town.

The streets bustled with the usual post-war mix of drifters, merchants, and weary townsfolk. Travis and Boone asked about the Creedes, about sickness, any trouble. Whispers began, hesitant at first, then grew louder. Folks remembered the Creede family—they’d been well-liked—but nobody recalled any sickness sweeping through.

They had, however, heard talk of a gang preying on ranches during the war.

“Black Vultures.” Old Man Hemlock, who ran the general store, leaned across the counter conspiratorially. “Meanest bunch you’ll ever cross. Word is, they been plunderin’ all over, takin’ what ain’t theirs and killin’ anyone as stood in their way. Land grabbers, some reckon. Workin’ for rich fellers lookin’ to squeeze out the little man.”

That must be how that Miller feller got our land cheap.

Not a sickness—a gang. Those outlaw bastards thought they could slaughter Travis’s family and get away with it.

They best be ready to taste the trouble they stirred.

***

Over the next few days, Travis gathered others that had lost folk to the Black Vultures: Jed Calloway, a wiry ex-rustler with a shadowed past, whose eyes held a weariness mirroring Travis’s own; Young Sam Reynolds, all elbows and knees, whose belly burned with a fire even war and loss had failed to extinguish; and Zac Benson, loud and quick to brawl, with a thick crow’s nest of dark hair and a scar running down the side of his nose.

“I got news.” Travis leaned forward in his chair in Boone’s cabin, resting his elbows on his knees. “Old Man Hemlock got word from a traveling drummer.”

Zac slammed his fist on the rough-hewn table. “Tell me he knows where them sidewinders are holed up!”

“Rumor is, they’re workin’ the Goodnight-Loving Trail.” Travis tapped his chair. “Hasslin’ cattle drives and the like.”

“Makes sense.” Jed nodded slowly. “Plenty room to shin around and cause chaos. Easy to disappear.”

“We ride after them.” Travis clenched his jaw. “Find ’em and make ’em pay.”

Leaning back, Boone clicked his tongue. “Revenge ain’t a plan, Travis. Can’t just light out on a trail on account of some rumor.”

“The hell I can’t!”

“What if they’re not on the Goodnight-Loving?” Boone raised an eyebrow. “What if they’re clear over to the other side of Looziana?”

“Nah …” Sam rubbed his chin. “It makes sense. I say it’s worth checking out.”

“If you say so.” Boone shrugged. “Just don’t want to miss ’em ’cause we jumped a fence with no rails.”

“Sounds like a good ride to me.” Zac stood and strapped on his gun belt, then grinned. “Who knows? Maybe we’ll have a few good scraps along the way.”

Moving to the window, Travis stared out at the darkening sky, where the stars had begun to prick the vast Texas night. Revenge was a cold dish, but he intended to serve it piping hot.

The trail ahead lay long, but for the first time since coming home, Travis had a purpose. He would find the Black Vultures and make them answer for what they’d done.

He looked back at the men gathered in the room. “I ride at dawn—with or without you.”

Chapter One

McCoy Ranch, Texas, 1867

The worn denim shirt in Etta’s hands still held the ghost of Caleb’s scent: sunbaked earth, a hint of woodsmoke, and the familiar spice of his favorite pipe tobacco. Each fold was a physical manifestation of a painful farewell; they were packing, not just his clothes, but fragments of the life they’d built together within these walls.

“Etta, girl, you simmer down now.” Caleb’s mother, Ruth, wore a map of both joy and sorrow in the fine lines around her kind blue eyes. “Frettin’ ain’t gonna mend nothin’, child.”

“Can’t rightly help it, Ruth. Not today.”

“I know it, honey, but you gotta be strong now.”

“This here was home.” Etta pressed her lips together, refusing to let the tremor in her hands betray her. “My first honest-to-goodness home.”

She placed the shirt in the trunk carefully, as if handling fragile dreams. The faded wallpaper, worn wooden floorboards, the scratches and marks … all testified to the years she’d passed in this house.

Sighing, Ruth settled on the edge of the bed, her calloused hands twisting in her apron. “My heart’s near busted for it, too.”

The orphanage flashed in Etta’s mind: cold, echoing halls, the scent of lye soap that had never quite masked the smell of boiled cabbage, and scratchy woolen blankets; Sister Marguerite, the headmistress, with a face like carved stone and eyes that saw duty, but little warmth, a woman that had instilled discipline but offered scant comfort—just rules and chores. The sister had never been cruel, and Etta sincerely believed that she’d meant well, but neither order nor structure could soothe the gnawing emptiness of being unwanted.

Then, a sun-kissed cowboy with a shy, crooked smile that always reached his bright blue eyes had come. Caleb had seen her, the real Etta, beneath the hardship-hardened shell. He’d brought her to this ranch and into his family. The McCoys had given her a name, roots, and a place in a world she’d never known existed.

“We’ll carve out a new home, girl.” Ruth ran a hand over the quilt on the bed. “We’ll build it back up, stronger than before.”

“I know.” Etta crossed the room and knelt beside Ruth, taking her thin hand in her own and rubbing her thumb over the papery skin. “I been wallowin’ in my own misery. I’m sorry.”

Losing Caleb had ripped a wound in Etta’s soul. Her future had fractured like shattered glass, all sharp edges and empty space. But Ruth and Elijah, Caleb’s parents, needed her to be strong. She’d lost a husband, but they’d lost a son. Etta couldn’t begin to imagine the pain of losing your only child.

And so, no matter how heavy her grief, she had to be there for them. If her childhood in the orphanage had been good for anything, it was this: she’d learned to bend without breaking. She would carry them forward, even though her heart lay empty.

“You’re made of tough stuff, Etta. Tougher’n you think.” Ruth caressed Etta’s hair. “Just like my boy, God rest his soul.”

The sound of heavy bootsteps drew their attention. Etta looked up to see Elijah filling the doorway, his broad shoulders casting a shadow over the room. The lines on his weathered face deepened as he leaned against the doorframe, watching them.

“You two been holed up in here long enough to raise another spread from yellow grass.” A wry smile touched his lips. “Sun’s climbin’, ladies, and them longhorns ain’t gonna herd themselves.”

“Always see the bright side, don’t ya, old man?” Ruth chuckled and stood. “Even when the world’s comin’ undone.”

“Keeps the whole blasted mess from unravelin’ faster, Ruthie-gal.” He winked at her. Then, his expression softened as he looked at Etta. “You holdin’ steady there, darlin’?”

Nodding, Etta got to her feet. “Rarin’ to go, near as I can tell.”

“That’s my girl.” He walked up to her and patted her shoulder. “Let’s get these dogies movin’—Wyoming ain’t gon’ hold still for us.”

Etta followed Elijah and Ruth outside.

The ranch yard vibrated with barely-controlled chaos. Hands from neighboring ranches—faces she vaguely recognized, men who’d offered help in times of need—saddled horses, checked cinches, and coiled ropes with practiced efficiency. Longhorns shifted uneasily, lowing a rumbling chorus in their corral.

Ice gripped Etta’s chest as she looked over the ranch one last time: the weathered barn, split-rail fences stretching across the rolling hills like crooked smiles, the windmill creaking faintly in the gentle breeze.

Every corner of this land held a memory, a fragment of her life with Caleb, a piece of her heart she was leaving behind. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, inhaling the scents of dust, hay, and cattle. Trying to capture the essence of this place.

To imprint it on her soul before she left.

“Etta?” Elijah’s voice drew her back to the present. “Ain’t no sayin’ goodbye, darlin’. Just a ‘see ya on down the trail.’”

“I ain’t so sure.”

“We’ll be back someday.” He squeezed her shoulder again. “That’s a McCoy promise—you can bank on it.”

Etta mounted Belle, her brown-speckled Paint mare, caressing her mane as Elijah and Ruth mounted up beside her. With a nod from Elijah, the hired hands opened the corral gates. The longhorns surged forward in a brown-and-white wave of muscle and horn, their hooves drumming against the dry earth.

As Etta spurred Belle into motion, for the first time that morning, her mind focused on the present.

The rhythm of the ride. The feel of the reins in her hands. The sway of her horse beneath her.

The Goodnight-Loving Trail. Wyoming. Names that had been only whispered possibilities now solidified into a tangible path forward. A new beginning.

***

The first days on the trail unfolded in a relentless rhythm of dirt, sweat, and the constant lowing of cattle.

Belle’s ears flicked back and forth as Etta rode point, guiding the lead steer. She scanned the horizon constantly, senses alert for any subtle shift in the wind or unusual sound that could signal trouble. Elijah and Ruth flanked the herd to keep it in a loose, somewhat organized mass.

One evening, after a long, tiring day in the saddle, they made camp beside a slow-moving river. Around the crackling campfire, Elijah pulled out his harmonica, a battered relic he’d carried for years. He began to play a mournful, lilting tune that echoed the vast landscape and the loneliness of the trail.

Ruth sat beside Etta, mending a tear in Etta’s worn riding skirt, her needle flashing in the flickering firelight.

After the last notes of Elijah’s plaintive melody had faded, he lowered his instrument, a bittersweet smile tugging at his lips. “Remember that time Caleb tried to play my harmonica?” He chuckled. “Sounded like a coyote caught in a barbed wire fence.”

“It was plumb awful.” Ruth smiled, the lines around her eyes softening. “But he tried so hard.”

Etta looked down. The memory of Caleb’s earnest, clumsy attempts at music, his brow furrowed in concentration, cheeks puffed out as he struggled to coax a tune from the instrument, thawed a frozen corner of her heart.

“He had a knack for other things, though.” She looked at Ruth. “He was the best cattleman I ever knew.”

Elijah winked at her. “Learned from his old man—the best there ever was.”

“He’d be spinnin’ in his grave if he saw this.” Ruth sighed. “Us losin’ the ranch.”

Etta nodded, her gaze fixed on the dancing flames. The thought had been a constant, gnawing ache in her chest, a dull throb of failure and loss. Caleb had poured his very lifeblood into that ranch. It had been his dream—their shared dream.

“He’d be grinnin’ ear to ear if he could see you, though, Etta.” Elijah stashed the harmonica in his knapsack. “Pickin’ yourself up and movin’ on. He’d say, ‘That’s McCoy grit, right there.’”

Warmth enveloped Etta. Elijah and Ruth were more than just in-laws; they were her family—the only family she had. She’d do anything, endure anything, to protect them and keep them safe, to keep the dream that they’d someday return to the McCoy ranch alive, even if the vast wilderness seemed to swallow that hope.

“We’ll do it for him.” Etta clenched her fists. “We’ll make him proud.”

Ruth reached out and hugged her. “We will, child. We will.”

***

A few days later, they reached the point where they were to meet their new trail boss and guide for the Goodnight-Loving Trail.

The man waiting for them rode a magnificent coal-black stallion. His broad shoulders imposed on the space around him even from afar. He wore a finely tailored leather vest, polished to a soft sheen, over a crisp white shirt, with a wide-brimmed Stetson on his head.

He exuded an air of effortless authority, of a man accustomed to command; yet his smile, as he drew closer, radiated warmth.

“Howdy, folks, and welcome to the Goodnight-Loving!” he boomed, his voice carrying easily over the din of the cattle as he reined in his stallion. “Name’s Silas McKenna, trail boss—at your service. Figured you must be the McCoy outfit I heard tell of, and I’m pleased as punch to make your acquaintance.”

“Elijah McCoy,” Elijah said, riding up to him, and offered him a hand. “This here’s my daughter-in-law, Etta, and my wife, Ruth.”

“Pleasure to meet you, Mr. McCoy.” Silas shook Elijah’s hand and swept his hat off, dipping his chin toward Etta and Ruth. “Ladies.” His eyes lingered on Etta for a moment longer than courtesy dictated.

Etta stared back.

Clearing his throat, Silas placed his Stetson back atop his head and assessed their herd. “Well, you’ve got yourselves a prime herd of longhorns, I’ll give you that.” He gestured at the wilderness stretching behind him. “No need to fret none about what’s ahead. I’ll see you safe to Wyoming, mark my words.”

Elijah tipped his hat. “Much obliged.”

“You the one been wranglin’ this herd, ma’am?” Silas tapped his nose.

Etta lifted her chin. “Somethin’ wrong with that?”

“Lord, no, not at all!” He chuckled. “Just ain’t every day you see a lady breakin’ broncs and drivin’ cattle.”

“Think I ain’t up to snuff?”

“Fancy a chance show off your spurs?” Smirking, Silas gestured toward the herd. “Come sunup tomorrow, how’s about you take point ’stead of Harlan? We can—”

As if Silas’s words had summoned him, another man crested the hill a dun-colored mustang. He was leaner than Silas, wiry and compact, the angular lines of his face framed by a dark, neatly-trimmed beard. As he descended, Etta saw that his leather chaps were soft from age and use, his faded blue shirt buttoned to the collar despite the heat.

“Harlan, you’re just in time.” Silas clapped the newcomer on the shoulder once he’d ridden up to them. “Folks, this here’s Harlan Graves, the best damn trail guide west of the Pecos. Harlan, meet the McCoys.”

Harlan nodded to Elijah first, then to Etta and Ruth. “Pleasure.” His gravelly voice held a quiet warmth beneath the surface.

He extended his hand to Elijah; then, his brown eyes met Etta’s. He shook her hand firmly, as if to reassure her that he could look out for them.

Etta believed he could; quiet competence and grounded strength emanated from him.

“Harlan’ll show you the lay of the land and get you squared away at camp.” Silas swept his hand toward Harlan. “He’s been leadin’ drives on the Goodnight-Loving for years—knows this trail like the back of his hand.”

Harlan dipped his chin. “Happy to help.”

“Now, Harlan,” Silas said, smiling. “Would you mind too much lettin’ Etta take the lead tomorrow?”

Harlan blinked. “Why?”

Silas winked at Etta. “She says she can handle it, and I believe her.”

Harlan shrugged. “Fine by me.”

Etta nodded.

After that, Harlan and Silas guided them to a spot near a gurgling creek under the shade of some cottonwood trees. It offered a semblance of peace from the bellowing cattle, but sat just within easy reach of the animals, just in case. As they set up camp, both men worked with them while sharing stories of their previous cattle drives up the trail.

An ember of hope ignited in Etta’s barren heart. Maybe—just maybe—this trip will hold more than loss and sorrow.

Perhaps, somewhere out on the Goodnight-Loving Trail or beyond, something beyond grief waited for her, after all.

However, Etta had a feeling that hope could be a dangerous thing on the trail