Two buildings. Two fires. One brand.
Message sent.
I whistle for Jett and start moving back toward the tree line. The fires are roaring now, and I can hear shouting from the main house. Lights begin flicking on and doors are slamming. Men stumbling out in their underwear, staring at their property burning.
Good. Look at it. Remember whose initials are on your gate.
I'm fifty yards from the tree line when the shot cracks past my head.
Eight, maybe ten inches to my left. I hear the snap of the bullet cutting air before the sound of the rifle reaches me.
I drop flat. Face in the dirt, heart slamming.
The second shot kicks up dust three feet in front of me.
"Contact right!" Colten's voice from the ridge. I'm between him and the shooter.
I roll left, putting a fence post between me and the water tank. Third shot splinters the wood above my head.
This isn't a ranch hand. Ranch hands don't shoot controlled, spaced rounds, adjusting for movement. This is someone with training. Fuckin’ great.
I hear him before I see him. Boots on hard ground, closing the distance. So I hold my breath and wait. Thirty yards. Twenty.
Fifteen yards.
I explode off the dirt. Fuck it. I ain’t letting him shoot at me again.
He doesn't expect it. Nobody trains for the target to sprint directly at them. Nobody trains for a man who rides two-thousand-pound bulls for fun and has absolutely no respect for his own mortality.
I hit him at the waist at full speed. His gun flies and we hit the ground together, the air blasts out of his lungs.
He gets an elbow into my jaw and tries to roll out. I pin his wrist, drive my knee into his ribs, and slam my forehead into the bridge of his nose.
The crunch is deeply satisfying.
He goes limp. Blinking at the stars with blood pouring from his nose.
Jett appears, rope already in his hands, tying the guy's wrists behind his back.
I grab the man's jaw and turn his face toward the firelight. A tattoo on his neck with geometric, angular letters that I don't recognize.
"Who the fuck are you?" I ask.
He spits blood at my boots and says something I don't understand.
Colten rides up on Bowie, rifle across his lap.
"That's not one of Carson's guys," he says.
"No shit."
He ain’t no cowboy.
"Get him up. We're taking him back."
I drag the man to his feet. He struggles until I lean in close enough that he can see the firelight in my eyes.
"You just took three shots at me on my family's border. I don't know who you are. But I know you ain’t part of this ranch. But you're about to tell us, or you’ll have the worst night of your life, and how bad it gets depends on how fast you start talking."
