ONE
“Drink.”
A deep, raspy voice sounds beside me, and a tin cup presses to my lips. I sputter and try to twist away, but my body won’t obey. I yank at my wrists. Pain lances across my shoulders and down my spine.
“Quit jerkin’ around, woman. Drink, goddamnit.”
If it weren’t for the fire in my throat, I wouldn’t have listened. But my lips part, and warm, metallic water trickles down my throat. I gasp around it, coughing, choking, needin' more.
The cup pulls away, and a large, rough hand catches the back of my head, steadying me.
His voice drops into a low drawl, one a man might use on a skittish horse. “Easy, girl. You’re gonna choke.”
I take another slow drink, breathing through my nose while the stranger keeps my head upright. When the cup leaves me again, I choke on a sharp breath. He lets go softly, and my head lolls back against the rough bark.
Not long after, the dark takes me again.
I wake with a start, my head jerking up as the world snaps back into focus.
My legs are stretched out before me. The hem of my satin gown is torn and filthy, my lace-up boots caked in dust. My shins are scraped raw. I try to move. My arms don’t follow. I jerk forward, rope bites into my wrists, my back drags against bark, and that’s when I realize I’m tied to a tree.
“Mornin’, sunshine,” a deep voice grumbles.
My head whips that way. A man sits on a rock beside a dead fire, sweat-stained hat pulled low, black bandana covering half his face. A long coat—once brown, now dark with dirt and wear—hangs open just enough to show the black-handled revolver riding low on his belt.
“W-where am I?” My voice comes out a croak. My mouth tastes like sand and grit, and my tongue feels too big for it.
“My camp.” He still doesn’t look at me. A knife turns lazy between his fingers. The only thing I can make out clear is dark hair brushing his shoulders. The rest of him sits in shadow. “Where you helped yourself to my food ’n water.”
I swallow thickly. The night comes back in broken pieces. John. His hands at my throat. Caleb between us. Gunfire. Blood. Running. My horse, Juniper, spooking and throwing me before bolting. Then stumbling onto an empty camp, starving and desperate, sitting by the fire, drinking from a canteen, and tearing into stale bread.
Then… nothing.
“I’m sorry,” I say softly, my gaze tracing the gun on his hip, watching his hands close. “I got lost. My horse bolted, and I found your camp abandoned.”
Or so I thought.
With a grunt, he stands. He’s tall and moves as smooth as smoke. When he turns toward me, his eyes find mine. Black as coal, framed in thick lashes, not a lick of warmth in them. The patch of skin between the hat and the bandana is tan and weathered by the sun. His boots crunch gravel as he comes closer.
My spine snaps straight against the tree. I ignore the sting of it and lock my jaw.
“Just let me go,” I manage.
He stops at my boots and crouches slow. Those dark eyes drag from my braid, down the ruined gown, and settle on my boots.
I try again. “I don’t mean no harm, mister. I just needed a place—”
My teeth slam shut when I feel something cold press against the underside of my chin, forcing my head to cock back. There's a click, and my heart stops it's flutterin' inside my chest.
I don't know much about guns, but I know what they sound like when they're ready to fire.
He cocks his head as he studies my face, his gun still pressed against my chin. “I’ll let you go when you tell me what your business is.”
I'm shakin' now. “I j-just told y-you.”
“And I don’t buy it.” He nods down at my dress. “You workin’ for somebody? Informant?”
“N-no. I swear it.” I shake my head fast, the tip of the gun pressing deeper into the hollow of my throat. “Let me go, and I’ll be on my way.”
“No can do, darlin’.” He watches me another beat. “What’s your name?”
“Annabelle.”
A dark brow lifts beneath the brim of his hat. “Annabelle…?”
I search. Whitmore would give me away. Probably have him hauling me back to my husband over his shoulder like a sack of grain, and there’s no telling what kind of price John has put on my head by now.
“J-Jones.” I clear my throat. “Annabelle Jones.”
His brow climbs higher. “Alright, Annabelle Jones. Who or what are you runnin’ from?”
“My husband. He’s a dangerous man. He tried to kill me.”
At least that part’s true.
He glances over the gown again. I can see it plain enough. He knows I came from money. And he doesn’t believe the rest of it one bit.
Finally, he lowers the gun and slips it back into his holster. My shoulders sag, and I release a shaky breath.
“Can you untie me?” I whisper. “Please. I have no weapons.”
His eyes crinkle like he’s smiling under the bandana. “I know that already, darlin’.”
A chill slips down my spine. Of course, he searched me. Came back to find a woman asleep by his fire, and searched me where I lay before tying me to this tree.
I can’t stomach wondering what else he might’ve done.
I swallow hard. “Then you know I’m no threat. My arms hurt. I’ll be on my way—”
He shakes his head. “I’ll untie you. But you ain’t goin’ nowhere till I figure your business.”
He steps behind the tree, and his knife slices through the rope. My shoulders sag forward as feeling rushes back into my fingers in hot pins and needles. I pull my hands into my lap, flexing my knuckles, trying not to let him see them shake.
“You thirsty?” he asks in a grunt.
I blink, surprised by the question, then manage a sharp nod.
He jerks his chin toward a tin cup sitting on a flat rock by the fire. “There.”
I roll onto my hip and push up, but my legs nearly fold under me. The world tilts. I catch myself on the tree. He doesn’t move to help—which surprises me none—as he watches me find my balance.
I make it to the rock at last and grab the cup, taking one long swallow, then another. The water is warm and tastes of tin. I drink too fast and brace a hand on my knee when my stomach rolls.
“You sent ahead?” he asks.
I look up. “What?”
“Sent word. Smoke. Anything.” His eyes haven’t left me since I stood. “Before you laid yourself down at my fire.”
“No,” I mutter. “I haven’t told anyone, because if I did, we’d both be dead.”
“Right.” He says it flat, then lets his gaze drop to my boots again. “Annabelle Jones, aye?”
I nod.
He leans against a tree, folding his arms over a broad chest. Silent for a long moment. Then, “I know every wealthy name in these parts, miss. I know you’re one of ’em with those boots and that dress. But I don’t know a Jones. I know a Gallson. A Whitmore. A Sawyer. But no Jones. Why’s that?”
My mouth opens to fight him, then shuts just as quick, because he’s right.
His eyes crinkle again. He tips his head. “Try again, darlin’.”
“I’m not lying to you.”
“You’re lyin’ so hard your teeth near rattle. Question is whose pocket you crawled out of. Sheriff’s? Marshal’s? Or somebody meaner than that?”
I shake my head fast, words tripping over themselves. “I don’t—I don’t know what you’re talking about—”
“Sit down,” he barks.
“I—”
He straightens, hand dropping to his revolver. “Sit, woman.”
I sit.
He crosses to the saddlebags and crouches with his back to me. I’ve got three seconds to lunge for the rifle propped near the stump, but I don’t. I can’t. My legs feel poured from lead, and my head still rings. And I’ve a feeling if I tried, he’d have me down before I ever got the barrel lifted.
Besides, I’ve never fired a gun in my life.
He returns with a coil of rope, and my stomach drops through me.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“We’re movin’.”
My eyes widen. “Moving where—”
He stops in front of me and sighs. “Hands.”
I press my arms to my chest, shaking my head, braid flicking wild. “Wait, mister, please.”
He steps closer and crouches in front of me, long legs spread, worn boots planted in the dirt. One arm props on his knee, a scarred hand hanging loose. His head tips back as he meets my eyes, and I search those dark depths for some sign of a soul. I find nothing.
“Don’t make me a bad man,” he says in a drawl.
Something tells me he crossed that line long ago.
Without meeting his eyes again, I hold out my shaking hands.
“That's a girl,” he mutters, low and slow. He reaches forward and, in quick, practiced motions that tell me this ain’t his first time, loops the rope around my wrists and pulls tight.
I hiss through my teeth. “Y-you’re hurting me.”
He only grunts.
I glare at him, at the hard set of his brow, while he knots me up. “I told you the truth. You’re tyin’ an innocent woman right now.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time. If we’re tellin’ it honest, reckon it won’t be the last neither.” He yanks the loose end and hauls me to my feet like a calf at branding. “Besides, you told me a story. And it’s got holes in it big enough to drive a wagon through. So we’re gonna move, so whoever you brought can’t catch up.”
“I didn’t bring anyone!” I yell at his back.
He glances over his shoulder, jerks the rope harder, and I stumble after him. “Then you got nothin’ to fret over, do ya?”
With me still tethered like stock, he kicks dirt over the dying fire and rolls the bedroll one-handed in three quick motions. Then he cinches down the saddlebag straps and slings his rifle over his shoulder.
“Please,” I say. “I’m not a threat to you. If you’d just—”
He cuts me off. “You keep sayin’ please like it’s coin I take.”
I almost bite the question back, but it slips free anyway. “Then what do you take?”
He looks up at that, then back to the strap he’s tightening on the horse.
“I take the truth,” he says. “And you ain’t payin’ in it.”
“I told you, my husband—”
“I don’t believe ya.”
“You aren’t hearin’ me—”
“You’d do well to shut your mouth.”
My teeth slam together.
I watch in silence while he finishes with the horse, then turns and crosses to me. Up close, he smells of leather, woodsmoke, and cold morning air. He takes the loose end of the rope and tugs, and I stumble after him toward the gelding.
He jerks his chin toward the horse. "Climb up, and lie down."
My face goes white.
“I can ride,” I say. “I can ride behind you, I won’t—”
“You’ll ride how I put you.”
“Please—”
He stops and turns, studying me over his shoulder a moment before he faces me full on. He takes two slow steps closer. I hold my ground and lift my chin. His eyes narrow on mine.
“I’m gonna say this once,” he says. “I don’t know what you are. Could be you’re exactly what you claim. Could be you’re somebody’s eyes sent up the trail to find me. Till I know which, you’re cargo. Cargo don’t talk. Cargo don’t ask. You understand me?”
I stare at him, struck dumb.
“You understand me, girl?”
My head jerks up and down quickly. “Yes.”
He dips his chin. “Good.”
He hauls me to the gelding’s flank. Up close, the horse is huge, black as midnight, and it doesn’t so much as twitch when we near it, which tells me it’s been around plenty of frightened things before me.
He picks me up like I weigh nothing and hoists me—not into the saddle, but across it on my belly, my head hanging off one side and my boots off the other. The horn digs hard into my stomach. The breath leaves me in a rush.
“Wait—please, I can ride proper, I—”
“Shut your mouth, goddamnit.”
He loops the rope from my wrists beneath the horse’s barrel and ties it somewhere out of sight. My hands pin against the gelding’s shoulder, my legs trapped along its flank. I’m tossed across his saddle like a deer.
Blood rushes to my head. The world goes red at the edges.
“You can’t do this! You can’t just tie me on your horse like this!”
“Watch me.”
He swings up behind me, and the saddle creaks under his weight. His thigh presses warm against my ribs, and one heavy hand settles flat on my lower back. I go still at the feel of it.
“Easy now,” he murmurs, and for one foolish second, I think he means me. Then I realize he’s speaking to the horse.
The gelding shifts beneath us and eases into a walk.
My cheek knocks against warm leather, my braid swinging like a pendulum over the saddle. The ground passes below in a slow brown blur, and I squeeze my eyes shut against the dizziness, forcing air through my nose.
I don’t know how long we ride that way, only that it’s long enough for the sun to shift and my ribs to start aching.
When I open my eyes again, my face hangs angled toward the saddle skirt. I squint through the blur, and my gaze catches on something familiar burned into the leather.
My heart stops dead in my chest.
Stamped there, just below where his thigh rests, is a mark I’ve seen on a handbill nailed outside the mercantile in Bell Creek. A mark I’ve seen on a wanted poster tacked crooked in the sheriff’s office in Caldwell. A mark John once jabbed a drunken finger at while laughing, saying, "That one there, Belle—that one’s the devil himself. Takes whole stagecoaches single-handed and don’t leave nothin’ but his mark in the dirt."
A half circle, split clean down the middle by one straight line.
The very same mark I’m staring at now.
On this man’s saddle.
Wraith’s mark.
