Chapter 1: Smoke on the Wind

I was two days out of coffee and one day out of grub, with an empty canteen riding my saddle horn and a tongue like old boot leather. The sun had baked me dry and the wind had whipped my patience raw. I was tired of talking to my horse and getting nothing but a twitch of the ears for an answer.

Then I caught the drift of woodsmoke. A welcome sign in wild country, or the beginning of trouble.

I reined in under the saddle of two hills and sat a moment in the hush. Below me stretched a long sweep of country, all roll and wrinkle, dry watercourses like scars, distant rock outcroppings like broken teeth, and scattered clumps of mesquite huddled in the arroyos like secrets.

In this country, mesquite usually meant water. Not always, but more often than not. And water was something I needed bad.

The smoke pointed straight up like a finger accusing the sky, steady and thin—no bonfire, no cabin stove. A campfire, most likely. I didn’t move right away. Just sat there and watched the way a man does when he’s been out too long and trusts too little.

Then I nudged my gelding forward, easing down between the hills. I stayed off the skyline as much as I could. In this country, showing yourself was a good way to catch lead, and I’d no interest in taking any more bullets through my hat.

The trail bent into a shallow ravine, and I came up slow to where I could see them, three men around a small fire under a lightning-blasted cottonwood. Bacon sizzled in a black skillet. A battered coffeepot hissed on a flat rock. Behind them stood three saddle-broke broncs and a rawboned packhorse tied off in the shade.

“Howdy,” I said. “You boys receivin’ visitors, or is this a closed meetin’?”

They all looked up at once, no fast hands, no drawn steel. Just cowboys, at least by the look of them. The kind who’d seen trouble, but didn’t go grabbin’ for it first thing.

“You’re here, mister,” one of them said. “Light and set.”

He was older, maybe forty, with a mustache wide as a broom and a nose that looked like it’d been rearranged more than once. Hard to say if it had been fists, hoofs, or bottle glass, but it had come out worse for wear. He sat cross-legged with the ease of a man who spent most of his life eating from a skillet in the dirt.

The youngest was a straw-haired kid with long legs and a twitchy energy. The third was short and wide in the chest, his rolled sleeves showing thick muscle and brown scars—rope burns, most likely.

The horses were in good flesh. All wore the same brand: CB connected. That told me something. Not just cowhands, but working for a real outfit.

A pair of chaps lay slung over a rock, and a rifle leaned against a stump not far off. Nothing too suspicious. But nothing careless, either.

“Driftin’?” the stocky man asked, his eyes steady under the brim.

“Huntin’ a job. I was headed east, figurin’ to latch onto the first cow outfit needin’ a hand.”

“You might’ve hit luck,” said the mustached man. “We’re C-B. Just bought the FOX outfit and roundup’s comin’. Could be the boss is hirin’ for the rough country.”

I stepped down from the saddle, stretching out a leg that hadn’t liked the ride much. My horse didn’t wait for instruction he wandered over and buried his nose in a shallow pool beneath the rocks. Just a trickle, but enough to draw a thank-you from both of us.

“Name’s Taylor Hawkins,” I said, unbuckling my rig. Nobody blinked.

“Moore,” said the man with the mustache. “Rufe Moore. That colt is Nick Root, and the fella bustin’ bacon like he owns the fire is CJ Ruben.”

Ruben grunted. “Boy’s all right,” he said, jerking a thumb at Root. “Still green enough not to track right, but he stays in the saddle.”

Root grinned like he’d heard worse, which he probably had.

I moved my horse to graze and dropped the picket pin. The smell of bacon turned my stomach into a live thing. I hadn’t eaten since yesterday morning, and that was a biscuit hard enough to break teeth.

These boys looked the part. Worn gear, worn faces, good horses. They were cowhands, all right. But they were giving me the once-over just the same. I couldn’t blame them. My rope was coiled neat on the saddle, my shirt was an army blue gone dusty with time, and my shotgun chaps had more trail on them than most men’s boots. My hat was flat-brimmed and near new, except for the bullet hole in the side.

And my Colt rode low and tied down.

They noticed. You don’t wear a tied-down gun unless you know how to use it, or want folks to think you do.

Moore nodded toward the fire. “We’re eatin’ light. Just a few biscuits and bacon.”

“Dip it in the creek and I’ll eat a blanket,” I said.

Ruben gestured to Root’s bedroll. “Start with his. Might be a squirrel in there.”