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determined, mule-headed
expression again. He had to give the kid his due—he had gotten the
animal, and without much fuss. Kyle swung down from his gelding,
and within minutes had a fire started. He worked quickly and
quietly, and soon the rabbit was dressed and spitted over the
flames.
    Kyle squatted by the fire, tending the
roasting meat, saying nothing, Jace glanced at the boy’s small
hands.
    “ Where’d you learn to hunt
and cook?” he asked, plucking a rabbit-laden skewer from the
fire.
    Kyle shrugged and took a skewer for himself.
The meat was hot and he blew on it before taking a bite. “It ain’t
so unusual. I wasn’t raised in some fancy city house, y’know.” He
dragged the back of his hand across a dribble of hot grease on his
chin.
    Jace bit off a hunk of the tough meat “I
never would’ve thought that,” he observed wryly. “How old are you,
anyway?”
    “ Old enough.” His voice
cracked.
    “ It’s a secret?”
    “ No, it ain’t a secret, but
what do you care?”
    Jace took another bite. “I don’t give a
damn, kid. But usually women are the only ones who are touchy about
their ages.”
    Kyle looked away. “I just don’t like
answerin’ a lot of questions. I told you what you need to
know.”
    “ Not by half. I need to
know enough to make sure I don’t walk into a trap and get my head
blown off. Tell me again how Hardesty got this ranch you say is
yours.
    “ I ain’t just sayin’ it.
It’s the truth.” He threw a bone into the fire and wiped his hands
on his pants legs.
    “ Fine, tell me about it
anyway. I don’t want to get to Blakely and be . . . surprised. I
hate surprises.” Jace listened carefully while Kyle repeated the
story he had him the first time, no more and no less.
    “ Who did Hardesty
kill?”
    Jace heard him sigh. “He was my—he worked at
the as foreman. After he was dead, the rest of the crew scattered.
I can’t blame them.” He threw another bone into the fire. “I tried
to hold Hardesty off but I couldn’t do it by myself. He had the
Vigilance Union behind him."
    “ How long has your father
been gone?” Jace extracted a cheroot from his saddlebag.
    “ He died almost two years
ago.”
    “ Any sisters?
Brothers?"
    Kyle glanced up at him sharply. “No!”
    Silence fell for a moment then, interrupted
only by soft snapping of the fire and the call of a peregrine as it
crossed the darkening sky.
    “ Hardesty’s soul is
festering and rotten, and he must pay," Kyle concluded, his voice
cold and flat, as it had been yesterday.
    Jace nodded but said nothing. There had to
be more to it. He knew the boy was withholding something, and that
the part he was hiding was vital. He would keep an eye on him; that
was the best way to discover whatever secret he kept.
    In his experience, most people betrayed
themselves eventually.
    * * *
    Kyla glanced at Jace Rankin across the dying
fire. He lay with his head on his saddle again and his rifle in a
loose grip. He looked like he was asleep, but she suspected that
the snap of a twig would bring him instantly to his feet.
    She wrapped herself tightly in her bedroll
and looked at the stars overhead. In the distance, a coyote howled
at the sliver of cold white moon riding the western horizon.
    This wasn’t the life she had imagined for
herself: banished from her home, dressed in a boy’s dirty clothes,
running around the countryside with a bounty hunter she disliked
and feared, hoping to convince him to kill a man, while a white-hot
coal of anger and vengeance burned within her night and day—
    She had seen none of this coming. When Kyla
imagined her life, in her mind’s eye she had finally thrown away
all of her boy’s clothes. Sometimes she pictured being married to a
strong man, one who would be her equal in wits and will. A man who
would honor her independence, but whose heart was noble and whose
touch was tender. There weren’t too many men around who would have
found that an interesting partnership. Hank had