Prologue

Cassidy Ranch, 1853

The smoke didn’t start small. It started big. High plumes of gray turned dark and ugly in the moments it took seventeen-year-old Trace Cassidy to scramble back to his horse, his heart in his mouth.

Smoke like that had to be a wildfire, didn’t it? Pa had told him that they come in quick when the wind shifts. Trace jumped onto Bella, his fifteen-hand chestnut brown Saddlebred, chosen to be his first horse for her easy temper; she wasn’t generally prone to skittishness.

But there was no wind today, was there? A small, errant voice inside the blond Trace’s head pointed out. A moment later, Bella reared, kicking the air and throwing her head as the smell of burning reached her.

“C’mon, girl—go! You gotta go!” Trace shouted, kneeing the usually tame beast into a fitful spring, before she began galloping over the rich Colorado grasses.

No wind. And it rained last night. Bella’s hooves even kicked up wet clods of soil and grass as they raced out of Little Creek, the thin ribbon of water that wound like a dropped thread across the Cassidy ranch.

No… Oh, no. Trace didn’t want to think about what the smoke meant. If it wasn’t a wildfire, then what was it? Had Pa dropped a lantern in the big barn? No. Trace knew his father to be a strong, mostly silent man who was capable of routing rustlers and Indians and quelling a room of disgruntled Denver men with just a look. Pa would never be so careless—but Frankie or Wade, his younger siblings, might.

What have you done, Wade? Trace snarled into the wind, immediately guessing who the culprit was.

But no sooner had Trace broken from under the cover of the elms and aspens that clustered around Little Creek, than he saw the full extent of the chaos.

It wasn’t just the big barn that was on fire. And this was no wildfire.

Flames consumed the Cassidy ranch house. Red tongues flared out of every window, and the front door was a billow of black smoke. Trace couldn’t even see the roof. The big barn where they stored their hay and feed was a pyre. Even the little barn and the calving shed had flames shooting up their sides.

“What—Pa! Ma!” Trace shouted—just as he heard the first shot.

Trace Cassidy had heard the sound of bullets before. He had shot enough jackrabbits himself and used a Springfield .22 rifle to scare off the coyotes that slunk around the ranch, eager to catch a newborn calf.

Somehow, these shots were different. They were sharper, louder, angrier.

“Mary! Get the children—”

Billows of black, choking smoke obscured Trace’s vision, but it brought with it his father’s strong voice, cut short by the sound of angry yells.

Pa is in there somewhere.

Pa was in danger, and Trace knew at once who was responsible.

The Rattler. The outlaw who was terrorizing western Colorado territory. Pa had tried not to talk too much about it in front of him…but Trace had overheard the name all the same. Trace had heard Pa having talks with Ezekiel Flint, at one of the next ranches over, about this ‘dangerous outlaw who won’t stop!’

Trace kicked Bella to gallop faster—but the smoke and the embers and the screams of cattle stuck in the barns were too much for her. Bella reared up, spittle frothing at her mouth, her eyes rolling, and Trace felt his feet slip the stirrups.

“Whoa—!”

Trace Cassidy felt a moment of weightlessness as he was thrown from the saddle—the moment stretching long in that way that total panic always causes. It was like the time Wade had fallen from the banisters he had been resolutely climbing, or when Trace had disturbed a rattlesnake and it had coiled up right before his eyes.

But just as quickly, Trace was hitting the ground with a heavy thump, and pain shook through his body, making his teeth knock together, and all breath escaped his young body.

Pa. Pa will know what to do.

Black smoke was billowing all around him now, so thick that it was impossible to see where Bella had galloped to, or even the ranch yard right in front of him. There were more sneering shouts coming from the murk—voices that Trace had never heard before.

“Pa!” Trace yelled, pushing himself up before he stupidly took a lungful of the foul air. Soot and dust filled his throat, and he hacked, doubling back over to the ground.

“Pa?” Trace gasped, his eyes streaming now. He could even feel the heat of the flames against his skin, hotter than any midsummer midday.

He had to find him. He had to find Ma, and Frankie and Wade, too. Trace pushed himself into a low run, keeping as low as possible as the smoke washed him with its char and fumes.

Trace ran to where he had last heard his father’s voice, which he thought was at the end of the ranch house. He turned the corner, seeing a tunnel of smoke between the ranch house and the big barn suddenly swirling and—

“Heeyah!”

A horse and its rider burst through the smoke, almost striking him as Trace dove out of the way.

What?

It was no rider that Trace had ever seen before, and he didn’t recognize the coal-black horse either. The man had a Stetson and a kerchief tied over his face. Trace saw flashing hooves and hurled himself to one side—but what stuck in his mind were the bright red riding gloves that the bandit wore, clutching at his reins. In the next instant, the bandit had charged past the skidding Trace and back into the smoke.

And in the man’s wake, there was a huddled form on the floor.

“No. What—what is going on?” Even though he was lying down, Trace knew that form. He knew the cream work shirt that his father wore, and the brighter green neckerchief that was still around his throat.

His father lay in the dirt, and he was stone-cold dead.

Words left Trace. He didn’t scream. He didn’t know how to scream just then. His world had collapsed at the sight of his father’s body, and the sound of the flames around him. For the second time that day, his world slowed almost to a standstill.

Pa was dead. He had been shot.

It was true. They were under attack.

A burst of flames and the sudden explosion of one of the upstairs windows snapped Trace out of his trance. Ma and Frankie and Wade were still out there somewhere in the smoke. He had to get to them. It was up to him to protect them now, wasn’t it?

Trace knew about bandits and outlaws. Pa didn’t like to talk about them in front of Trace and Wade, but one of their occasional cattle-handlers, Mr. Joseph, did. Joseph would tell Trace lurid tales of gunfights out on the Chesholm Trail, or over in the new California territories—entire towns being terrorized by bandits just as famous as the lawmen who hunted them down.

But this wasn’t one of Mr. Joseph’s stories, and Trace realized that Mr. Joseph himself was probably lying dead somewhere on the ranch.

Time snapped back into fast motion as Trace realized he was holding something. Looking down, through streaming eyes, he saw he had his father’s Colt. He didn’t even remember picking it up from the floor, but he knew it was his Pa’s because it had the tooled red leather around the grip.

A gunshot broke through the ever-hungry growl of the fire, and Trace spun around. Before he had taken two steps, the shot was followed by a girl’s high-pitched scream.

“Frankie!” Trace knew his sister’s voice, even when it was twisted with terror.

He ran through the smoke, his father’s revolver feeling oddly heavy in his hand. His shoes hit something, and he almost tripped before he jumped out of the way to skid in the dirt…to see the second worst thing he had ever seen in his life.

His mother lay dead in the dirt, a rifle half-clutched to her side, and her eyes thankfully closed.

Trace felt a low kick of horror in his stomach. His parents were dead. They were gone. There was only him, his sister Frankie, and Wade now.

And he was all that stood between the outlaws and his brother and sister.

“No!”

It wasn’t Trace who screamed—it was Frankie’s voice.

Trace spun back around to see a figure striding through the smoke, dragging his sister, Frankie, by the hair as she kicked and bawled.

Frankie had the same golden-brown hair that Trace did, with the same ragged waves in it that she was always trying to comb out.

“Lemme go!” she screamed, and tried to dig her heels into the dirt, but the man just twisted his hands in her hair.

It was the same man he had seen on the horse. Trace saw the same red leather gloves he had seen on the rider’s reins.

This man had killed his parents. And now he was kidnapping his sister. It was him, wasn’t it? It was the Rattler himself.

“STOP! Leave her alone!” Trace yelled. He forgot his burning lungs and the pain in his eyes. Anger coursed through him as wild as any unbroken stallion. In a flash, he had brought up his father’s gun.

But the bandit either hadn’t heard him over the roar of the fire or didn’t care. He kept on walking, and any moment, he was going to disappear into the smoke.

No.

Trace’s arms trembled, but he knew he couldn’t let his sister be taken from him. He couldn’t let this evil man get away with what he had done.

He pulled the trigger. The recoil of the pistol was stronger than he had expected. Either that or he hadn’t held the gun properly, as his hands were thrown back and he staggered to one side.

“Agh!”

Trace was rewarded with a snarl of pain as the bandit with the red gloves stumbled to one side, letting go of Frankie at once.

I hit him. Trace thought, amazed.

But the bandit had spun around, as fast as a bucking colt, and Trace saw the gleam of steel in the man’s hand. He had a pistol of his own, and before Trace could even lift his aching wrist, there was a loud boom and the dirt right in front of his feet exploded.

Trace let out a yell despite himself; his legs shook as he jumped back.

I’m going to die. This man is going to kill me.

“What we got here, some little grunt wanting to play hero, huh?” the bandit sneered. His voice was rich and deep, but Trace couldn’t see his face past the red kerchief. All he could see was how broad he was, and how he was pointing that pistol right at his chest.

“You…you let go of my sister,” Trace said, but even he could hear the tremor in his own voice.

The bandit cocked his head to one side, regarding Trace for one long moment as the Cassidy ranch burned behind him. Moving with glacial slowness, the man shrugged and nodded to where Frankie was on the floor a few meters away, her face pale and full of fear.

He could shoot her just as quick as he shot at me. Trace realized how stupid he had been for not killing him.

“You caught me a winger there, young pup,” the man said once again in that deep, gravelly voice of his. Trace couldn’t work out if that was a threat or a statement. The bandit’s free hand reached up to dab at his own shoulder, but the man didn’t even flinch when he touched the graze.

“You killed my parents,” Trace whispered. Somehow, even amid the chaos of screaming traffic and the shouts of more loud and angry men around them—clearly this man’s gang—the bandit heard him.

“I did,” the bandit said evenly. He took a step forward, his gun still leveled at Trace.

If his hand moves, I’ll shoot him. I’ll be as fast as those lawmen in the stories…Trace desperately wished.

But then the bandit spoke. “You’re lucky you’re so small. Maybe you’ve got some years to grow big yet, and then maybe you’ll come looking for me. Then we can have a proper chat about today, pup.” The bandit leered at him. “But right now..? You ain’t worth my time. You hear me, son? You ain’t worth my bullets.”

There was a chorus of harsh laughter from the smoke. More figures had stepped forward, flanking Trace. There must have been three, no four, no five more of them. They all had rifles or pistols pointing right at Trace and Frankie.

Had they been covering him the whole time? Could this man have had him killed any moment he wanted? Trace felt a little faint with shock and rage.

“You come find me when you think you’re man enough, pup!” the bandit repeated with a laugh that was echoed by his gang. “But you watch your back, y’hear? Because I’m going to be keeping an eye on you. Maybe I’ll come for you and your sister first, eh?”

The cruel laughter that swirled around Trace made his cheeks burn with shame. He couldn’t raise his father’s gun to shoot now that he was surrounded. This bandit could have done anything he wanted, and that made Trace’s soul burst with guilt.

But Trace clung to one thing. The bandit hadn’t said anything about his younger brother. He hadn’t threatened Wade, either.

Does that mean that the bandit doesn’t know that Wade exists?

“H-yagh!” The red-gloved bandit yelled suddenly, enough to make Trace jump as the bandits whooped and fired their guns into the air—and then they were gone, turning and running into the smoke as the black clouds billowed and bloomed all around them.

“Frankie!” All of Trace’s limbs began to shake at once as he ran over to his sister, grabbing her in his arms, holding her, turning her away from the body of their mother.

“It was so quick, Trace. I didn’t know anything—I smelled the burning and then it was just so quick, Trace.” Frankie sobbed into his arms as Trace pulled her away from the front of the house. He could hear more gunshots and shouts and the sound of hooves stamping on the ground as the bandits left.

“Ma—” Frankie started to whisper.

“Don’t. Don’t think about that. Not now.” Trace said at once. Somehow, it was easier to concentrate on his sister’s shock than on his own. So long as he kept her safe, then maybe something good could come of this…

We have to survive. Me, Frankie, and Wade.

“Frankie, listen to me. Where’s Wade? Where did you last see Wade?” Trace asked, trying to sound as certain and sure as Pa always did.

“Wade…” Frankie blinked her bright eyes, as if suddenly remembering something. “I heard Ma tell him to get to the storm shelter. But I don’t know if Wade got there.”

“Good enough. Let’s go,” Trace said, putting his arm around his sister and clamping her to him as he almost picked her up. The storm shelter was pretty much a pit out beyond the little barn that Pa had lined with wood and put a low wooden roof over, turning it into an outdoor cellar of sorts.

They stumbled out of the smoke, with Trace not slowing or stopping until he had made it past the little barn to where the storm shelter sat on the edge of the lower paddock. The smoke was still around, but the air was a little sweeter out here, and more importantly, there was no sign of the gang.

“Wade? Wade!” Trace called, leaving Frankie to collapse by the side of the shelter and seized one side of it, lifting it with a creak of hinges.

There was a movement from below him in the dark.

“Trace?”

Huddled by the ladder, Trace could see his younger brother’s wide blue eyes, looking just as terrified as his sister’s had. He also had the same wavy blond hair, plastered to his forehead with fear sweat.

Thank heavens. Trace breathed hard. Wade was alive. So was Frankie. They were reliant on him now. There was no one else to save them. He had to find a way to keep them alive through the rest of the night.

Chapter One

Chancellorsville, Virginia, 1863

“General Lee is a blowhard—” Wade said the words too loudly in the cramped carriage. Trace immediately shot him a look.

What are you spotting to do, Wade—get yourself boots up on the ground?

The Confederate carriage they were in jolted on the rutted Virginia track. The branches of overhanging birch and beech trees scraped the top of their carriage, and Trace cast a quick eye around his fellow sons of the south.

They were supposed to be in a red state, but all of Virginia had become a battleground this spring. It was easy to see why tempers were high—and why his younger brother might have misspoken. But the men around them were solemn, hard-eyed. It was hard for Trace to tell if they were huffy with Wade’s nervous titter or just the fact that they were deep behind enemy lines.

Find the enemy. Monitor their positions. Report back. Trace gritted his teeth silently. Being a scout wasn’t an easy job at the best of times…

“I mean, I had ears on General Hoover say as much himself. He thinks Lee’s campaign is crazy,” Wade went on.

Two of his fellow scouts shuffled uneasily in their seats, leaning forward with the air of men who were fit to teach through a fist to the jaw.

“Wade!” Trace hissed quickly. At once, his younger brother blinked and shut up. Wade could be a blowhard himself at the best of times, but he knew when his older brother was mad.

One of the men opposite them cleared his throat, and the tall, good-looking form of Cole Sutton leaned forward. He had black hair and the same green eyes as his sister, Annabelle, and he was one of the fellow Calico Pass Coloradans who had signed up for the war along with Trace and Wade.

He looks the spit of his sister, Trace thought. Well, with a squarer jaw and stubble that was.

“Don’t you pay no mind to our whippersnapper, gentlemen. Wade always had an addle-head!” Cole laughed a little too loudly. Trace felt Wade stiffen in outrage beside him, and so he nudged him hard with his knee. Some of the scouts in this carriage were native Virginians, not out-of-state hayseeds like Trace, Wade, and Cole. Trace figured they had mighty high opinions of the brash, daring, lightning campaign of General Lee.

“Well, maybe you mind him, or I will!” one of the scouts said; a dark-haired, bushy-bearded Blue Ridge mountains guy who looked as though he could split logs with one hand.

Too far.

Trace cleared his throat and sat up a little straighter in the jostling carriage. Once again, the entire transport went quiet as he fixed Mr. Blue Ridge Lumberjack with an eye.

“Trace, don’t—it’s alright…” Wade whispered at once. Even Cole, opposite him, looked wary.

As well, they all might. Trace glared at the man, keeping his chin up, and made sure Mr. Blue Ridge knew that he wasn’t afraid of anyone or anybody.

A second later, Mr. Blue Ridge looked away.

That’s right, Trace thought. He knew he had a reputation among the soldiers, and the recent events at Chancellorsville had only cemented it.

Fourteen enemy kills. Both with rifle shot and close-at-hand, when they had to overrun their position. Trace wondered for a moment where he got it from. How he got to be so good at this.

The fire. The bandit with the red gloves. The image of burning flames swelled in his mind, and he thought he heard an echo of Frankie’s screams. Even to this day, he could smell that black smoke in his nostrils when his mind wandered.

He guessed when you had everything taken away from you, there wasn’t much left, was there? Trace eased back in his seat, his point proven. He nodded at Wade and Cole.

Nothing left apart from these people, of course. Trace had been angry when Wade had followed him into the Confederacy. But his little brother was a wild card, and he was also a young man now. Trace knew there was nothing he could do to stop him once he got his mind set on something.

Apparently, that something was the endless civil war ripping their United States of America apart.

Trace was lost in these thoughts when the carriage suddenly jolted, throwing everyone a little.

“What is that?” Wade hissed quickly, rubbing a hand through his wavy blond hair—the same gesture Trace knew he did himself when he was worried.

“We’re not meant to stop until Bealeton.” Trace’s hand reached for the door to the carriage.

Stopping on the road was bad. They were trying to head north quickly, to then embark on foot towards the last known enemy position. Rumor was they were heading for Gettysburg, but it would take weeks to move their forces that far.

Something must have gone wrong. Trace flickered a glance at the other eight scouts.

“Stay here,” he added tersely. He nodded to Cole to come with him. Trace had known Cole since they were chillun, and Trace would rather have a man he knew the grit of beside him.

“Brother—” Wade, of course, started to argue, but Trace silenced him with a look.

Not you. You think I’m not spending every hour of my day trying to keep you alive? He didn’t say it, but he didn’t have to as Wade sat back, glowering.

Trace was the first out of the carriage, his rifle primed and ready as his boots hit the trail dirt. There were deep ruts in this track through the woods. It was clear it was used for carts, but wasn’t wide enough for two of them.

He turned to the drivers, and that was when Wade burst out of the carriage behind him, hurriedly checking his rifle.

“Little brother, I told you to hold back!” Trace hissed, but a sight ahead of the stalled and uneasy carriage was more important right now.

His brother offered him one of his famous reckless grins. “You take your chances in this life, Trace. Didn’t you teach me that?”

Trace shot him an annoyed look. Yes, he had told him that. But it didn’t mean that you had to run into danger!

There was a tree down across the road. Its white bark was scattered with black nodules. Most of its branches were still intact, but its base had been hacked with fresh ax chops.

Oh no.

Trace was already turning back when he caught sight of their singular driver sitting up front with a damn arrow sticking out of his neck!

“Attack!” Trace managed to holler, just as the first volley of bullets screamed out of the trees.

Trace dove backwards towards his brother, but he was too slow. He saw the bullet take him on the shoulder, throwing him against the carriage with a strangled yell.

“Wade!” Trace shouted. He skidded to his brother’s side, twisting to fire a round into the woods, as figures jumped out towards him.

Hells!

It was mayhem. Trace dropped to his knee beside his brother’s groaning form, discarding the rifle to grab his Colt revolver instead, and firing two shots at the racing men as Cole took out one with his first rifle shot.

By now, the rest of Trace’s scouts were jumping from the carriage, and they had wisely chosen their revolvers for such close combat instead of their rifles. Still, the Union forces had the element of surprise. Mr. Blue Ridge Mountains went down in the first hail of bullets, and Paulo, a young man who had somehow come up all the way from the Mexican border, fell second.

“Hold on, Wade!” Trace snarled. In an instant, he knew they had to break the ambush. And the only way to do that was…

“Yeller-bellied varmints!” Trace howled as he grabbed his rifle in his free hand, diving forward into the mass of oncoming men. One bullet went into a Union belly, and his rifle stock cracked another in the knee, bringing him down.

Trace was surrounded by the Union soldiers. Visions of flame poured through his eyes. He heard the echo of mocking laughter.

‘When you’re man enough, young pup—’

He gave himself up to his fury. Pa had always said he had a temper on him.

And by God, today am I proving it!

Trace whirled, slamming the rifle butt into the fork of another man’s legs before dropping it, firing once again straight up at another. He was surrounded by angry, shocked, leering faces of men he would never know, but he would send to hell for daring to attack his little brother.

“Charge!” He recognized the shout of one of his fellow scouts as he realized he was now on top of one of the Unionists, slamming his head against the dirt before stealing the man’s gun. What happened to his own? Didn’t matter. All that mattered was Wade.

The Confederate scouts had rallied, hitting the Union ambush with their bayonets and pistols and knives. Trace’s unhinged attack had cut a hole through their middle, and a moment later, what was left of the enemy was turning tail and running for the tree line.

“Wade!” Trace pushed the body of the Union soldier off him, lunging to his feet to race back to the carriage. Wade was only a few meters away, lying on the dirt by the side of the open carriage door like a sack of dropped potatoes.

No—

“Trace, lookit!” one of his buddies shouted, but it wasn’t fast enough.

Something hit Trace’s head with all the force of a cannonball. With his eyes still on Wade, Trace fell forward, and into darkness.