Jed used the half second of distraction to step further out from the doorway, rifle rock steady, the bluff already doing its work before it had even fully landed because there was no one in that loft. Hadn't been anyone up there in years, but three armed men had just turned their backs on a man with a loaded rifle, and doubt, once planted, grows roots fast. Now, Jed said, "We're having a real conversation." Cyrus's face had gone pale under its sunburn. " Here's how it goes," Jed continued. "
You three ride out today, right now, and you don't come back ever. You forget her name, you forget mine." " And if we don't," the Reeve said, the voice still flat, still unreadable. But then we find out how fast you can draw before I put a bullet through whoever moves first. And even if you manage it, you've still got a man in that loft to deal with.
The bluff held. He could see it working across Cyrus's face, doubt curdling into something close to fear. Amos had already started backing his horse a step, hands trembling on the reins. Only Reeve stayed unreadable, sitting perfectly still, weighing something. Jed couldn't quite name.
This isn't over, Reeve said finally. He turned his horse, started riding unhurried back toward the ridge. Amos followed immediately, relief plain on his face. Cyrus lingered a beat longer, fury twisting his features before he spat toward the cabin and wheeled around to catch up. Jed didn't lower the rifle until all three had crested the ridge and vanished.
His hands were trembling by the time time he finally did. Adrenaline draining out of him all at once, leaving something hollow behind. Desa stood beside him. Rifle still raised ready. You were bluffing, she said.
About the loft. They didn't know that. No, Jed said. They didn't. She lowered the rifle slowly, breath shaking out of her in a long exhale.
That won't work twice. No, he agreed. It won't. They stood there a moment, the empty ridge still holding their attention like the danger might change its mind and come back. It didn't.
Not yet. Cyrus works for Thorne, Desa said quietly. Doesn't he? has to then thorne knows exactly where I am now, exactly what I look like, exactly how close you're standing, sign beside me. Jed didn't answer that because there wasn't a comforting version of the truth available.
Thorne knew and men like Thorne didn't stop coming just because the first two attempts had failed. That night, sleep wouldn't come for either of them. Jed found Desa outside the barn again, this time pacing instead of sitting. Restless energy crackling off her like heat off a stove. He almost didn't approach.
Almost let her have the space. Except something in the way she moved told him. Space wasn't what she needed tonight. Can't sleep either, he said. Reeve, she said, not quite an answer.
That one, the quiet one. What about him? He looked at me different today. Not like the others look at me. She stopped pacing, arms wrapped around herself against the cold.
Cyrus looks at me like cargo. Amos looks at me like he's scared of me. But Reeve, Reeve looks at me like he's trying to remember something. Jed felt something uneasy settle in his chest. Remember what?
I don't know. She shook her head. But I've seen that look before on my father's face. Sometimes late at night when he thought I was asleep, like he was carrying a memory too heavy to put down and too old to explain. Two days later, she got her answer.
Jed had ridden out at first light to check the southern grazing line, leaving Desa at the ranch with the rifle closed and the doors barred. It was a decision he'd replay in his head a hundred times over the following weeks. Wondering if things might have gone different had he stayed, because that was the day Reeve Slate came alone. Desa saw him first from the cabin window. A single rider, no gun drawn, moving slow and deliberate up the eastern road.
She had the rifle up before he'd even reached the yard. " That's close enough," she called out, echoing, but without meaning to. The exact words he'd once used on Jed, but Reeve reined in, held both hands loose and visible at his sides. " Didn't come to fight," he said. " Forgive me if I don't take your word for it." "
Fair." He didn't move closer. Didn't reach for anything. just sat his horse in the yard, hat tipped back enough that she could finally see his eyes clearly in daylight. Older than she'd first thought, tired in a way that had nothing to do with sleep.
Then why, she said, the rifle still level. Did you come to tell you something? Something you deserve to know before this goes any further than it already has. Talk fast. Reeve exhaled slow like a man setting down a weight he'd carried a long, long way.
I knew your father, he said. Before I ever worked for Thorne, before any of this, years back up near the Marias Crossing, traded furs alongside him two winters running. Desa's grip on the rifle didn't loosen. But something her chest did. You're lying.
I'm not. He reached slow into his coat, ignoring the way her finger feet tensate the trigger, and pulled out something small. Held it up, careful at arms length, a carved wooden token, weathered smooth, nearly identical to the pendant hanging at her own throat. He gave me this, Reeve said the winter his wife died. Said it was carved by her hands.
Said it brought a man luck he hadn't earned. Desa's breath caught hard in her chest. Why are you telling me this? Because I owe him, Reeve said. And I've spent 6 months trying to figure out how to pay that debt while working for the man who killed him.
The rifle dipped just slightly in her hands. You're saying Thorn I'm saying your father's fever came on 4 days after he turned down Thorne's third offer. I'm saying I was there the night before he took sick. Delivering a bottle of whiskey thorn sent along as a peace offering. Reeve jaw tightened.