The wind came down from the high peaks of the Mogollon Rim with a bite that felt like a whip of invisible wire. It hissed through the dry skeletal branches of the sagebrush and kicked up little devils of dust and ice crystals that danced across the hard-packed earth. Luke Carver pulled the collar of his sheepskin coat higher, tucking his chin against his chest, but the wool was worn thin in places, and the cold found every way in. He had been riding since first light, and the sun was already bleeding out into a bruised purple smear along the western horizon. He was a man who looked like the country itself, hard, weathered, and eroded by too many seasons of bad luck and worse choices.
His hat was stained with sweat and rain, the brim pulled low over eyes that were the color of flint and just as hard. At 35 years of age, he felt twice that. His knuckles were raw and red where they gripped the reins, and his bay gelding, a sturdy animal named Roan, walked with its head down, tired and eager for a windbreak that did not seem to exist in this godforsaken stretch of the territory. Luke reached into his saddlebag, his fingers brushing the last of his hardtack and a strip of jerky that was tough enough to shoe a mule. He was low on supplies.
He had $3 in his pocket and a reputation that followed him like a stray dog he could not kick loose. He had spent the last 2 years drifting between cattle outfits, branding mavericks and riding fence lines, but he never stayed long. Sooner or later, someone would talk. Someone would mention the scouting days. Someone would ask if it was true that he had ridden with Crook or Mackenzie, and if he had been there when the villages burned.
The memory hit him then, unbidden and sharp as a knife thrust. He saw the smoke rising in thick, oily columns against a blue sky. He heard the screaming. It was not the screaming of warriors dying in battle, which a man could stomach, but the high, terrified wails of women and children running through the burning lodges while the soldiers fired with mechanical precision. He had been a scout then, paid $20 a month to find the trails, and he had told himself it was just a job.
He had told himself he was keeping the peace, but the ghosts of those burning camps rode behind him now, darker than his shadow. He shook his head, physically trying to rattle the thought loose. He needed to focus on the trail. He was heading toward the mining camps near Silver City, hoping for work that did not require a man to have a clean conscience, just a strong back. The trail narrowed as it wound up into the foothills, the scrub brush giving way to ponderosa pines that cast long blue shadows across the snow-dusted ground.
The silence here was heavy, broken only by the crunch of hooves on frozen needles and the wind sighing in the upper branches. Suddenly, Roan threw his head up and shied violently to the left, nearly unseating Luke. Luke tightened his grip on the reins and spoke low and rough. "Easy," he said. "Easy now." The horse danced sideways, ears pinned flat against his skull, nostrils flaring.
Luke reached down and slid his Winchester from the scabbard, his thumb resting instinctively on the hammer. He scanned the tree line, his heart kicking a slow, heavy rhythm against his ribs. It might be a mountain lion, or perhaps a bear roused from its den, but then he heard it. It was a sound that made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. It was a guttural, agonized snarl, human but stripped of all reason by pain, followed by the distinct, metallic clank of heavy chain hitting stone.
Luke held the rifle steady. His instinct, honed by years of surviving in a land that wanted him dead, screamed at him to turn Roan around and ride. Whatever was in those trees was trouble. If it was an animal, it was dangerous. If it was a man, it was likely worse.
But the sound came again, a low groan that ended in a sharp intake of breath. Curiosity, or perhaps a lingering scrap of decency he thought he had lost years ago, made him nudge the horse forward. He guided Roan off the trail and into the dense shadow of the pines. 50 Yards in, the trees opened up into a small clearing where a game trail crossed a dry creek bed. There, thrashing in the dirt, was a nightmare made flesh.