I could smell them before I saw them. It was the scent of unwashed wool and horse sweat baking in the hundred-degree heat. I checked my revolver. Five rounds in the cylinder. I kept the sixth chamber empty so I didn’t shoot my own foot off if the hammer slipped. That was a habit from the days when the star on my chest actually meant something. Now, that star was sitting in a drawer back at the ranch, or maybe Mabel had thrown it in the well. I wouldn’t blame her if she did.
The gold bars were hidden under the floorboards of our wagon. They were heavy, dead things that made the axle groan with every turn. That gold was the only thing that could stop the land barons from taking our home, but it felt more like a tombstone. Mabel sat next to me. She didn’t look at me. She hadn’t looked at me for two years, not since the night the jail burned and I came home without my pride or my paycheck. She held a Winchester across her knees. Her knuckles were white. She was scared, even if she was too angry to say it.
The dirt out here was cracked like a broken plate. There hadn’t been rain in months. The horses were sucking wind, their ribs sticking out like the rafters of a ruined house. Every time the wagon wheels hit a rock, it made a sharp clack that echoed across the flat land. It sounded like a bone snapping. I hated that sound. It told everyone within five miles exactly where we were.
“They are still back there,” Mabel said. Her voice was thin. It sounded like dry grass rubbing together.
I looked in the small mirror I had rigged to the side of the seat. A thin line of dust rose on the horizon. It wasn’t a big cloud. It was a tight, mean little trail. Mick and his men weren’t in a hurry. They knew we were hauling weight. They knew we were headed for the dry creek bed where the sand would swallow our wheels. They were just waiting for us to tire out.
“Keep your eyes front,” I told her. “Worrying about the tail won’t fix the path.”
I was lying. I was worried sick. My stomach felt like it was full of cold lead. I knew what Mick did to people who stood in his way. He didn’t just kill you. He made sure you knew you were dying for a long, long time. He liked to use a knife to see what people were made of on the inside.
By noon, the heat was a physical weight. It pressed down on my shoulders. I watched the horizon for any sign of a green leaf or a wet patch of dirt. There was nothing. Just yellow grass and the shimmering heat waves that made the world look like it was melting. My throat was so dry I couldn’t swallow. Every time I breathed, the dust coated my lungs.
Mabel reached for the canteen. She took a tiny sip and passed it to me. Her hand brushed mine. It was ice cold despite the sun. That sent a shiver straight down my spine. When a person is that cold in the middle of a desert, it means their spirit has already started to hide.
“Dad,” she whispered.
I followed her gaze. To our left, sticking out of the dirt, was a fence post. But it wasn’t a fence. Someone had tied a dead crow to it. The bird was gutted, its wings spread out and pinned to the wood with rusty nails. It was a warning. Mick’s brand of terror. He wanted us to know he could get ahead of us whenever he wanted. He was playing with us.
“Don’t look at it,” I said. My voice broke. I hated that she heard it.
We kept driving. The silence was the worst part. The only sounds were the creak of the wood and the heavy breathing of the horses. Then, the wind picked up. It didn’t bring cool air. It brought a low, moaning sound that whistled through the gaps in the wagon. It sounded like a woman crying in a room far away.
Suddenly, the lead horse screamed. It was a horrible, wet sound. The animal buckled, its front legs folding like a card table. The wagon jerked forward, throwing Mabel toward the dashboard. I grabbed her coat and pulled her back just as the horse hit the dirt.
A shot rang out a second later. It didn’t come from behind us. It came from the rocks to our right.
“Out! Get down!” I yelled.
We scrambled over the side, hitting the hard earth. The dust blinded me for a second. I crawled toward the back wheel, dragging Mabel by her sleeve. My heart was slamming against my ribs like a trapped bird. I peeked through the spokes of the wheel.
The horse was dead. Its blood was soaking into the thirsty dirt, turning it into a dark, thick mud. The other horse was kicking, trapped in the harness, its eyes wide and rolling.
“Saul!” a voice called out. It was Mick. He sounded close. Too close. “You can leave the girl and the wagon. I’ll give you a ten-minute head start. That’s more mercy than you ever showed me.”
I looked at Mabel. She was shaking so hard the rifle was rattling against the dirt. A tear tracked a clean line through the dust on her cheek. She looked so much like her mother it made my chest ache. I had failed her mother. I couldn’t fail her.
“I’m not leaving you,” I whispered.
“They’re going to kill us,” she said. Her voice was flat. She wasn’t asking. She was stating a fact.
I looked at the gold under the floorboards. It was just metal. It couldn’t feed us. It couldn’t shoot. It couldn’t bring back the dead. I realized then that the land barons didn’t just want the ranch. They wanted the legacy of the man who used to hold the star. They wanted to prove that justice was just something people said when they were too weak to take what they wanted.
I saw a flash of movement by a tall rock. I fired twice. The “clack-clack” of my revolver felt tiny against the vast, empty plains. Someone laughed. It was a high, giggling sound that made the hair on my neck stand up.
The sun began to drop. The shadows grew long and thin, stretching across the dirt like fingers. In the gray light, the desert changed. The rocks looked like hunched shoulders. The bushes looked like men waiting to spring.
“We have to move,” I said. “If we stay here, they’ll wait until dark and cut our throats while we sleep.”
“Move where?” Mabel asked. “The horses are gone. We’re in the middle of a graveyard.”
“The old well,” I said. “It’s a mile north. It’s stone. They can’t burn us out.”
We left the gold. We left the wagon. We didn’t even take the extra blankets. We took the water, the guns, and the fear that followed us like a ghost.
As we crawled away from the wagon, I looked back one last time. In the dying light, I saw three figures standing by our dead horse. They weren’t rushing for the gold. They were just standing there, watching us walk into the dark. They knew there was no water in that well. They knew that in this country, the only thing that grows is the hole in the ground where you end up.
Mabel gripped my hand. Her fingers were still like ice. We stepped into the shadows, and the wind began to scream again. This time, I knew it wasn’t the wind. It was Mick, calling our names into the night. He sounded like he was right behind my ear. I didn’t look back. I just kept walking, waiting for the cold sting of the steel that I knew was coming.