The fighting stretched on brutal and close. The narrow canyon mouth becoming the only mercy standing between them and being overrun entirely. Every raider who tried to push through single file met either an arrow or a bullet. And slowly, agonizingly, the assault began to falter until it stopped being an assault at all and became something worse. Because through the gunfire and the shouting, another sound cut through.
Wagon wheels approaching from the opposite direction. From the south, from the direction that should have been clear. That's not Crane's men, Ayanna said, breathless, reloading with hands that hadn't stopped shaking since the first shot. Different sound, different pace. Ezra's stomach dropped again because he already suspected who it was before the wagon ever came into view.
It rolled to a stop at the canyon southern approach, lantern swinging, and the man who climbed down from the driver's seat wore a coat too clean for country this hard. A face Ezra had last seen laughing off 200 lives in a town square. Harmon. Ezra breathed. Wade.
Harmon surveyed the chaos with an expression of pure undisguised irritation like the gunfire and bodies were a minor inconvenience to his schedule rather than a battle for actual lives. Crane, he shouted over the noise carrying the particular authority of a man used to being obeyed instantly. What in God's name is this mess? Crane emerged from cover, breathing hard, blood on his sleeve from some wound. Ezra hadn't managed to see land.
They hit the relay camp. Took the herd back. They took Harmon's face went through several colors in quick succession. You said this was handled. You said nobody would even notice until the herd was three states south.
Things changed. Things changed. Harmon's laugh carried no humor at all. I've already paid you for 200 head crane. Paid in full upfront because you swore this was clean.
I did not drive out into raider country in the middle of the night to watch you lose my investment to a cowboy and two Indians. The words hit the air and hung there ugly and plain, and Ezra felt something in his chest go cold and sharp all at once. There it is, Ezra called out, standing slow from cover, revolver still raised, but voice carrying clear across the canyon. There's your innocent rancher. There's the man who stood in Redstone Square and called 200 stolen horses none of his concern.
Harmon's eyes found him in the dark, widening with recognition and then narrowing with pure calculation. You, he said, the fool from the square. Turns out the fool had questions, Ezra said. Turns out the fool found a bill of sale with your signature on 30 stolen horses. Turns out this whole town's been paying for your cattle empire without ever knowing exactly whose suffering built it.
That paper means nothing, Harmon snapped, though something in his voice had gone tight and defensive. It means everything, Ayanna said, stepping forward beside Ezra. bow still drawn, voice hard as the canyon rock around them. "It means every family in my tribe froze a little colder this winter, so you could line your pockets a little deeper." "This is business," Harmon said, and something almost pleading crept into his tone now. The particular desperation of a man who'd never once expected to be caught. "You don't understand how business works out here.