Prologue

Black Hawk, Colorado

1868

A jingle of harness cut through the peace of the forest like a knife.

Ain’t no one got any business being up here.

Nolan Pierce paused where he crouched in the small clearing, leaning over the body of the fallen roe deer.

It had been a good hunt. A clean, one-shot kill. Even Nolan had to congratulate himself on the speed of the takedown and the minimal suffering that the animal had endured. Some hunters, he knew, reveled in the chase, thinking trapping a terrified animal made them some kind of big shot. They’d come out here, shooting at anything that moved, believing they were proper men of the frontier.

Nolan wasn’t like those men. He merely did what he had to in order to survive. He’d spent long enough living in the Colorado wilderness to know that there was always something bigger and meaner out there in the woods.

Nolan grimaced, easing back on his haunches, a long coil of rope in his hands. He’d taken his rifle back to his log cabin after the kill, exchanging it for the various supplies he’d need to prepare the carcass before coming back. This deer would feed him for two weeks. A month or more, if he salted and preserved it.

He’d been getting ready to tie the beast’s hooves and haul it up into the branches, fit to begin the grisly work of skinning and butchering it, when the noise had caught his attention.

He narrowed his eyes and shook his long, shaggy blond hair out of his eyes.

More than one. Two, maybe.

Bandits? Lord knew, there were plenty of ornery folk around these days. Ever since …

The war.

For a moment, Nolan’s large, tanned hands tightened on the bone handle of his hunting knife, his arm coming up reflexively in a defensive posture. A momentary feeling of dread rose in his chest, and he inhaled slowly, then exhaled through his open mouth to drive it down.

Even three years later, sometimes an unexpected sound, a stray thought, or the smell of gunpowder would send him right back to those battlefields, where rifle shot had peppered the air like buzzing hornets and the very skies had blackened with the churning charnel fires of man’s folly.

But he was determined that today wouldn’t be one of those times. It was probably just trappers, just like him, though they must be new to the area—otherwise, they wouldn’t have wandered into his hunting grounds.

He heard the soft snort of a horse through the trees and the stamp of hooves as the animals picked up his scent, becoming aware of his presence long before the men astride them would. The breeze carried muttering voices, low and guttural, followed by the heavy thud of boots on the ground and the crackling of bracken and twigs.

Some men don’t know how to move in the wilds.

Shaking his head, Nolan rose slowly, then turned from the little path that led out of the clearing through the stand of Aspen and beyond, to where his cabin stood. He didn’t want to take the obvious route. Instead, he picked his steps, using the careful, sweeping step that a Native hunter had taught him in his second year out here. He brushed aside ferns, his soft calfskin shoes finding the softer moss and wet leaves. He made no sound as he cut back through the woods to head his unwanted guests off before they got to his cabin—and his rifle.

“Gotta be him, all right … lookit here—the man’s gone full native!” Nolan heard one of them say as they approached his cabin. They obviously still had no clue he was nearby, though the nervous snorts of their mounts should have tipped them off.

A second man guffawed, not even bothering to lower his voice, completely oblivious to the fact that the wildlife around them had gone silent.

A low chuckle joined the man’s laughter, and then, Nolan saw them: three men leaving their horses at the edge of the large clearing surrounding his cabin. They wore heavy canvas and leather jerkins, the sort that trailmen or scouts wore.

Or outlaws.

Nolan’s heart beat a notch faster in his chest. He stood under the shadow of a big maple, just a few meters away, yet the fools still hadn’t noticed him. He counted three pistols—one per hip—but they had left their two long rifles on their saddles. Maybe they thought they didn’t need them.

“He’s not home,” one said. He had a thick, curly black beard and wore a checkered red-and-white bandanna around his neck.

“Can’t be far—look, he’s left his iron right there. Remington, too,” said the third man, who looked younger than the others, judging by the pimples dotting the skin beneath the patchy beginnings of his beard. He turned back to the others, and then, his eyes widened in shock as Nolan stepped out from under the maple.

“You fellas looking for something?” Nolan kept his tone casual as he stalked into the clearing.

“Jumpin’ Jehosaphat!” Black Beard gasped, spinning around to find Nolan only a couple paces beside him.

“Easy there, boss!” the man beside him said quickly, raising his hands in mock surrender. Nolan guessed the ladies would consider this man handsome. He had light blue eyes above the scatter of brown stubble shadowing his strong jaw, and a half-smile spread across his face.

Nolan didn’t trust those eyes; the man was smiling with his face, but his eyes remained cold and hard.

“We’re looking for Wolf Nolan, and I’m guessing we found him, right?” Blue Eyes said, sauntering up to offer his hand.

“Stop there,” Nolan barked. He didn’t move to offer his hand in response.

Wolf—so that’s what they’re calling me now.

Nolan felt a flicker of wry humor at that. He’d seen some of the folk in the nearest town, Black Hawk, look at him funny when he rode occasionally for essentials. He’d also heard them muttering behind his back, but had never paid them any mind.

What someone else says about you is none of your concern, as his father used to say.

Still, Nolan had met real wolves. He’d had a pack loitering a whole two weeks near his creek a while back. Now, they were the real masters of hunting.

But it didn’t hurt to have a bit of a reputation, he supposed—especially if it kept people away.

“Who wants to know?” Nolan said as Blue Eyes stopped short, ran a dirty hand through his choppy hair, and laughed, as if the ‘Wolf’ was being ridiculous.

“We heard that Wolf Nolan was the best tracker in Colorado.” Blue Eyes smirked. “Heard that you’d be the man who could trap us a real King Steer of a buffalo.”

Nolan said nothing, partly because they hadn’t made an actual request yet, but mostly because he’d learned that it was almost always better to wait and watch than to talk.

People always reveal their true nature, if you give them time.

It had been true during the war, and that hadn’t changed afterward. He’d seen boys who were still wet behind the ears reveal a spark of courage, risking injury and death in order to save fellow soldiers they hardly knew.

Nolan had also seen men with no natural sense of dignity or shame rummaging through the pockets of their dead comrades’ coats for what little coin they could steal.

“We’ll pay, of course,” Blue Eyes continued, slapping a small cloth knapsack he’d slung over his shoulder, which emitted a dull jangle.

“Two hundred dollars. Newly minted, too—none of that promissory note stuff. All for the biggest, meanest buffalo you know of.” The man waggled his eyebrows provocatively, and his companions laughed greedily. Like the coin itself was a universal need that surely every man shared, as essential as water.

Nolan didn’t move. “You can keep it. No amount of coin will make me hunt for you.”

“Eejit!” Black Beard hissed, his humor turning to anger in a moment.

“What, our money not good enough for you, is that it? You think you’re living so fine out here with sticks and dirt?” The younger—Pimple-Boy, Nolan figured he’d call him—burst out.

But Nolan kept his eyes on Blue Eyes. He was the ringleader here. The man’s face had flushed a deep scarlet, probably outraged that Nolan had refused to partake in their shared greed. The thirst for blood, just for the sake of it.

For a moment, Nolan could almost hear the notes of a lonely bugle rising on a doomed morning. He thought he’d put that memory away—young men being rallied to war, called out of their trenches, commanded to run headlong into cannon and rifle fire just because someone said they had to.

Because someone wanted blood. And thought there was glory in it.

“Buffalo are getting scarce out here,” Nolan said. He didn’t like the way his whole body stiffened with suppressed anger at this intrusion and the gruesome request—likely not enough for anyone else to notice, just enough for him to feel. It was the damn memories. That’s why he’d come out here in the first place: to find what peace he could, maybe even a drop of forgiveness for all the things he’d done during that terrible time.

“Too many people coming out to hunt them. Hardly any of the great herds left. You boys would do better to turn around and ride on out of here.” Nolan jerked his chin back up the trail.

“Who the hell do you think you are, telling us what to do?” Blue Eyes snarled. “You’re just some mud-grubbing tracker—you do your damn job!”

At that, Black Beard twisted toward Nolan, reaching for the pistol at his belt.

Suddenly, time slowed to a dreadfully familiar crawl as Nolan watched Black Beard’s dirty hand inch downward, seeing the grime under the man’s fingernails, aware of Blue Eyes and Pimple-Boy lunging forward.

Nolan’s heart hammered as his vision narrowed, focusing only on what was right in front of him, on what he knew how to do. Without conscious thought, Nolan stepped to one side, the hand holding the canvas-wrapped bone pommel of his hunting knife swinging around to smack Black Beard in the temple.

Black Beard went down, his open mouth snarling, but Nolan didn’t hear him cry out.

Then, Nolan spun to face Pimple-Boy. He shifted his weight back, thrusting his foot out to catch the youth on the side of the knee; he went down silently, just like his companion, with a look of surprised agony on his face.

Blue Eyes jumped forward, managing to land a punch on Nolan’s gut. It would have been enough to knock the breath out of him, but the man had his footing all wrong, preventing him from putting his full weight into the blow as it landed. He was clearly used to drunken tavern brawls and knew nothing about real fighting.

Nolan tensed his abdomen and twisted, taking the blow as his free hand leaped out to catch Blue Eyes across the bridge of the nose with a lightning strike.

And suddenly, it was over. Time slammed back into normal speed, leaving Nolan standing more or less where he’d begun, though now three men groaned and gasped on the ground around him.

“Get out of here,” Nolan snapped. His heart still raced in his chest, and though his vision had widened again, he didn’t like what he’d just done here. It had been too quick.

Too easy.

“Get on your horses and ride out. Don’t ever come back—and don’t even think about hunting around here. And if you tell anyone about me or what happened …” He trailed off, meeting each man’s scared eyes the reality of what had just happened sunk in.

“I’ll know,” Nolan finished finally, lowering his voice to a growl.

As one, the men scrambled to their feet and ran for the trees, so cowed that none seemed to remember that they had six shooters on their hips, while Nolan had only a knife.

Yeah, sometimes it helps to have a reputation. Nolan grimaced, standing still and watching them flee until the sound of their horses had faded to nothing.

It took a while for the birds to resume their chirping, and even longer for Nolan to stop thinking about how easy and natural it had been to fight.

Chapter One

Black Hawk, Colorado

“Easy girl,” Nolan whispered as he brushed down Ruthie, his chestnut Appaloosa dotted with white snowflakes. She was a little rangy and tall for this frontier life, but she had an eager spirit that Nolan appreciated. She was the only horse he’d ever known who seemed to like the snow, given a light enough dusting.

Nolan stood in the small paddock that ran down to the small creek at the back of his barn. It was a small strip of land, really, barely space for Ruthie’s hut and a stretch of grass. But he sensed that Ruthie didn’t mind.

They’d just come back from his smoke hut up on the hill across the creek, where he’d been preparing the deer meat. It was all cut, smoked, and packed away in salt as best Nolan could manage. It would last, and he didn’t like storing it too near his cabin lest it attracted bears.

Ruthie whinnied appreciatively, turning her head to give Nolan’s sleeve the briefest nip.

“Ruthie, hey! Fine, you’re right—I’m not really paying attention, am I?”

Nolan sighed.

His encounter with the three hunters a few days ago had shaken him more than he cared to admit. He didn’t like that they’d found him, and ever since, he hadn’t been able to shake the feeling that he was being watched.

What if they come back? Nolan grimaced. No, they wouldn’t dare.

He had made himself perfectly clear, hadn’t he?

Nolan sighed, setting the brush down, and leaned both hands over Ruthie’s neck. Pressing his bearded cheek against her fur, he breathed in that good, clean horse smell. Natural and loyal. Absolutely nothing like sweat and gunpowder.

Ruthie flicked her ears and pawed the ground.

“I know, I know, girl,” Nolan said softly, “but I got a feeling that something’s coming. Something bad. The town knows to leave me alone, but if three idiots can come out here looking and find me, where will it stop?”

He was exasperated. He felt frustrated. He hadn’t been lying when he told his uninvited visitors about the noticeable decrease in herds roving the river lands. He was sure that some of the smaller game had headed for the mountains, too. Even Nolan had heard about the steam engines and locomotives that were all the rage now. The government was selling off great tracts of land to any locomotive company that stretched out a grasping hand.

Even before the rail engines came the loggers and their grubby camps, the surveyors and company men—who were little better than bandits and outlaws themselves—tasked with protecting their assets.

How long before Nolan walked out of his cabin to find some logging camp set up right on the banks of his creek?

Ruthie scraped the ground with a hoof and huffed impatiently.

“Okay, girl! I’ll finish brushing you right now, I promise‍—‍” Nolan stood up straighter, but Ruthie pranced away a few steps before she turned back toward the cabin, her nose twitching and her ears flicking forward.

Nolan suddenly realized his mistake. “What is it, girl?”

Ruthie hadn’t been trying to remind him to get back to his job—she’d been trying to warn him that someone was approaching the cabin.

How could I be so stupid? Nolan cursed himself for his distracted nature, taking off across the paddock and vaulting the log fence as he came around the side of the cabin.

Had the three hunters returned to exact revenge? One of them would have a busted knee and another a broken nose, so Nolan didn’t think so. But maybe they had the wrong sort of friends. Once again, Nolan had foolishly left his rifle inside his cabin. In truth, he’d rarely needed it out here except to hunt. He knew how to avoid most threats without resorting to bullets.

But people are tricky. They don’t get the message so easily, he thought grimly as he neared the corner of his house, ready to jump the porch and be inside in a heartbeat if necessary. He poked his head around the corner.

“What the …?”

A sense of icy shock run down Nolan’s spine as he saw who was coming.

He felt like he was watching himself ride up the main track through the Aspens and emerge into the clearing around his house. Sunlight dappled his own face—no, not quite his face; it looked younger, with smooth cheeks, and this man’s nose didn’t look to have ever been broken.

His mind scrabbled for sense as his heart hammered in his throat. Am I looking at my own ghost?

But if his double was a ghost, it was a specter of who he might have become, years ago, if he’d taken a different path. If he’d never gone to war. If he’d had the money for a fine traveling cloak and well-fitting black waistcoat, linen shirt, and high-waisted trousers. This was a man whose body hadn’t been scarred by war, then spent years in the Colorado wilds trying to get over it.

Otis. Nolan couldn’t believe it. He hadn’t seen his brother in over a decade. More like a dozen years.

Nor have I wanted to, either.

Nolan stepped around the corner of his cabin, putting himself in full view. “Is that you, Otis?”

“Brother! I knew this was your place, I just knew it. As soon as I started hearing about the Wolf of Black Hawk, I just knew it!” Otis pulled his roan horse up too sharply, and the poor animal tossed its mane.

Nolan winced in sympathy. His brother had never been a good horseman, and it looked like he hadn’t learned in all the years since they’d last seen each other.

Otis stumbled off his horse, dropping the reins as he jogged awkwardly over the grass toward Nolan before his feet slowed. Finally, he came to a full stop, a look of confused hurt on his face.

“You … You aren’t happy to see me?”

Belatedly, Nolan realized that Otis had stretched out his arms, clearly expecting a brotherly hug. He raised his own arms and reluctantly stepped into the embrace, though he could tell it wasn’t entirely comfortable for either of them.

Otis stepped back after the brief and awkward clasp, his nose wrinkling. “Well, I see you’ve really, ah … taken to this living.”

Irritation washed through Nolan as he looked at his younger brother, who couldn’t even bear to meet his gaze, apparently, let alone be in the company of a man who smelled like the good, natural world.

Nolan sighed inwardly. Just like old times, then.

Otis had always been like that. Maybe it was the soot and grime that their father had come back wearing from the small Black Hawk mine he worked in. Maybe it was because all those fine city friends he’d been desperate to please had laughed at the poor mining family he’d come from.

And then, when the war came around, you skipped town.

Nolan struggled to push down his rising resentment. Hadn’t enough time passed to forget all that? The war itself had been an idiot’s folly. A nation of young men thrown into war for things that should have been sorted out by politicians.

But Nolan had fought. He’d believed in the freedom of his fellow men. It just turned out that not many people had shared his belief.

Did Otis?

His brother’s eyes flickered, a look of shame crossing his face. It was gone in a flash, but Nolan had seen the mask slip, the one that his brother carefully kept up with scent of rose oil and fine, tailored clothes. Instead of his own ghost standing before him, there was Otis, his younger brother, all of seven years old and scared of a galloping horse.

“I, uh, maybe I shouldn’t have come,” Otis said weakly.

Maybe I’m thinking too harshly of him. This man was still Nolan’s brother, after all. He was still Little Otis, and Nolan still loved him … kind of.

“I didn’t know you’d come back,” Nolan said gruffly. It was the best he could think of in the moment.

Otis’s lower lip wobbled.

“Come in,” Nolan ordered. He was suddenly aware he only had one good cup; the other had cracked last winter, and he’d never bothered to replace it. He thought he still had some dried tea somewhere. He certainly had coffee he could grind. Not that he’d planned to start a fire this early in the day, but there you go …

“I got married, Nolan. Nellie and I moved back to Black Hawk this spring, hoping you were here,” Otis said quickly.

Was there something he wanted to get off his chest?

I’m not interested in hearing any sob stories, if that’s what you’ve come for.

Nolan grimaced as he walked back into his cabin. They had chosen different paths, and he was doing his best to deal with his.

“I started a bank, you see. I had an office in New Mexico. We did well, but I always wanted to come back and make something of this old town.”

Otis paused at the threshold, taking in the surroundings, so Nolan took a look at his home, too.

Two rooms, one of them for storage. His hand-built bed was in the same room as his stove and desk, which was covered in leather tack and tools he had been sharpening, half-finished traps, and a couple interesting root gnarls he planned to whittle into something. One was already beginning to resemble a bear standing on its hind legs. Another, he thought, could become a leaping horse.

It wasn’t much to look at, Nolan had to admit. He felt the fierce wave of stubborn pride in his chest all the same.

It’s mine. Made by no one but me. No loans. I know each and every inch of this place.

“And, uh … I have children, too—two girls, Esther and Rose,” Otis said softly. “You’re an uncle, Nolan.”

“That’s mighty fine news, brother.” Nolan turned to face his brother; a statement like that deserved recognition. Nolan smiled, but Otis’s face held a look of utter devastation.

“What’s wrong?” Nolan asked at once.

“It’s my little Esther—she’s been kidnapped, along with another girl. It must be an outlaw. We think they’re going to ransom them, but brother …” Otis finally broke, tears running down his face. “I can’t wait that long. I’m losing my mind, Nolan. As soon as I heard people tell of the Wolf, I knew it was you. And I knew only you could bring them back.”

Otis fumbled with his wallet, drawing forth an actual photograph of his family. In it, Otis stood beside a young woman wearing a striped dress, her dark hair piled into a bun. Nolan guessed this must be Nellie, Otis’s wife; she held a baby in her arms, and a younger girl with frizzy hair stood between them, frowning seriously.

So this is my family now. Nolan looked at the fine-looking people wearing clothes he could never afford.

“The older one’s Esther, and the baby is Rose,” Otis said, pointing.

Esther’s expression was a miniature version of the signature Pierce scowl, which both Nolan and Otis had inherited from their father.

“She’s been taken?” Nolan stared at his niece, who couldn’t be more than ten years old.

Nolan glanced at his rifle, hanging on the wall, and his eyes flickered to his desk, beneath which he kept a cherry-wood box holding a .44 Army Colt revolver. He’d received it in the war, along with a matching cherry-red leather belt given to him personally by General Henry Thomas.

Nolan felt his heart thump. He swore he could taste gunpowder in the back of his throat. The sigh of the leaves outside started to echo the screams of dying men in his ears …

“I—I can’t,” Nolan blurted.