Chapter 2
“No…no…”
“Riley? Riley? Riley!” Riley couldn’t look up as Steel’s frantic shouts pressed through the numbness. “What happened? Riley! Who did this?”
He could only shake his head. Where had Steel been? He could have stopped this from happening. But he’d left two days before on a mysterious errand he never bothered to tell anybody about, and now they were dead. They were dead, murdered, and it was all gone. Riley didn’t realize that he was actually screaming the words like a hysterical woman, tears and impotent anger and very real, bitter fear pouring out of him with each shouted syllable. He didn’t stop until Steel grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him so hard his teeth rattled. His mouth clamped close and that’s when Steel pulled him against his chest in an embrace like he’d never shared with another man.
“Cry if you need to right now. Go ahead, because after today you can’t ever do it again. You’ve got to be the man around here.”
“Me?” Riley’s voice was muffled, but still audible. Steel didn’t loosen his hold. “What about you?”
“I’m not going to be around.”
“You’re not leaving me.”
“I’m going to go after the sons a bitches who did this.”
Riley pulled free of his arms and shook his head. “You don’t even know who they are. They’re long gone by now.”
“I’ll get them. Don’t doubt that.” He grinned a little wildly. “My daddy gave me two things before he left. My name and his gun.”
Steel sounded confident, but Riley didn’t really see how either one of those things would help Steel find a group of well-armed bandits who rode and shot like nobody Riley had ever seen. “What about me? What am I supposed to do? Everything’s gone.”
“Not everything. You’ve still got the cattle, and they still need to be taken to the train yards.”
“How am I supposed to do that? I can’t even hire a crew.”
“You’re telling me that you don’t know how to go to the bank and get credit off the herd, then use that money to pay half the salary of a good crew? Your daddy’s been raising you to run this place, hasn’t he? And I’ll be back before the winter.” The grin grew a touch maniacal now. Riley had no choice but to nod at his stepbrother—now the only family he had left in the world.
“I know what to do.”
“Good. Come on. Can’t stand here all day. We’ve got work to do.”
They buried their parents in the family plot behind the smoky, ashy remains of their home, marking each grave with a humble cross until such time Riley could arrange for proper monuments. That night, they slept in the barn, Steel pulling Riley into his arms and against his body without a word. Riley soaked up the heat and the comfort of the embrace, staring into the darkness long after Steel fell into a fitful sleep. He’d have to use part of the credit to buy lumber for a new house, then there was the harvest, the slaughter, preparations to make for the winter, and a million other things that were now his sole responsibility.
Steel rode away at dawn with a cocky smile and a promise to be back for the harvest. Riley began the long, slow process of putting his world back in order. It didn’t occur to him to sell until it occurred to him that Steel wouldn’t be coming back—five harvests after the one Steel promised to return for. 1
Deadwood, 1877
The bounty hunters rode into the camp in the dead of the night, but their arrival didn’t go unnoticed. A poker game in Bill Hadley’s place ran well into the morning, fueled by too much booze and gold and arrogance. They heard the commotion in the street, but they’d only looked up from the creased and greasy cards for a second before resuming their bets. All of Madam Dora’s girls were awake, as were their sisters in Madam Mollie’s brothel across town, but they were busy with paying customers and if they thought of the posse of riders at all, it was only in terms of silver pieces and leaking pricks. The Celestials paid little attention to the comings and goings of the white men in town, and one group of angry, hungry riders looked much like all the others before and after them. The riders—there were seven in all—dismounted at once and left their horses in the care of the black boy who traveled with them. They went directly to the Gem.
Riley heard the riders, too, but he ignored them, blowing out the candle in his window and turning in to bed. A commotion at dawn pulled him from his sleep. At first, he thought the gunfire was only an echo of his nightmares, as his nightmares were echoes of memories, but more followed and he realized it was happening again. He lay flat against the bed, knowing he was in no danger but unable to control his skipping heart or the white-hot dread that crashed over him.