Prologue
Open air, bright sunshine, beautiful big sky above her—a day like this in the mountains usually made Gracie happy. Today should have been even better—she stood at Clive’s side, and they’d just helped themselves to the gold of a rotten, scheming railroad tycoon.
It should have been a great day…but it wasn’t.
Because right in front of them, Sheriff Rhees and two of his crooked deputies were pointing their pistols like they meant business.
Gracie looked behind her. Deep canyon, a straight drop. Clive stood next to her, holding her hand, and to her other side was Bo, Clive’s brother.
She hadn’t had a good feeling about this run from the very beginning. Rumors had been circulating about the railroad tycoon getting Sheriff Rhees onto his payroll. As a result, Rhees was cracking down on everything and everyone, and using his clout to add new taxes to the town. Legal? Nope. And that’s why Gracie, Clive, and Bo had decided to collect and stow a cache of gold, so they could put a stop to it.
Unfortunately, Sheriff Rhees was putting a stop to them.
“Clive, we should drop the money and run,” Gracie whispered.
Clive didn’t say anything at first. His intense blue eyes were focused on the men in front of them. Finally he said, “I’m tempted to agree with you, Gracie.”
Sheriff Rhees sat tall on his horse, facing them down. The two deputies sat on horses on either side of him, gleeful looks on their faces. They knew they’d won.
“When do we get to shoot them outlaws?” one of them asked, probably saying it loud on purpose so Gracie, Clive, and Bo could hear.
Sheriff Rhees shook his head and called out, “Just drop the money and come on over, easy does it. We can put a bullet ’tween your eyes without any efforts at all. You there, Bo Pickett.” Rhees pointed at Bo with his free hand.
Bo flinched, and a tendril of too-long hair came out of his low ponytail. He adjusted his hat with a shaking hand.
The sheriff continued in an amused voice. “Just come on forward with that gold, son, and we’ll take care of you.”
Gracie looked over at Bo, who held the bag of gold. She whispered, “I think he’s a lyin’ sonofabitch.”
“I think so too,” Clive said. “Don’t do it, Bo.”
“I—I don’t know,” Bo said. Hesitating.
Bo had never been comfortable with the three of them being branded outlaws. Gracie knew they were trying to do the right thing, but her uncle down in Wyoming had put up notices after she ran off with Clive, saying that she’d joined the Pickett Brothers on their path to the devil. He’d branded them thieves and traitors.
Gracie Jane had seen one of those fliers with her own two eyes. Her uncle hadn’t liked her much, always yelling at her when he was drunk. Now he seemed intent on hurting her from far away.
“That’s right, son, lookie here,” Sheriff Rhees called. “Just toss that bag on over.”
“I’m gonna do it,” Bo said. “Where else can we go?”
“I ain’t going back,” Gracie muttered.
Bo’s whisper came out as a hiss. “But where else is there?”
Clive didn’t say anything, just squeezed Gracie’s hand.
“I love you, darlin.’” Those beautiful blue eyes flicked over to hers. “No matter what happens next.”
Gracie held her breath. The only other way was down into that ravine. They wouldn’t stand a chance. They wouldn’t be able to climb down, and they certainly wouldn’t be able to carry that sack of gold with them on the way. It would be a long, hard fall to darkness.
At the same moment as Bo tossed the bag of gold toward the sheriff, the sheriff cocked his pistol and a loud bang reverberated over the rocks.
Clive crumpled to the ground.
“No!” Gracie screamed, falling to kneel next to him. “Clive, Clive—”
A wound bled right in the center of his forehead, just like the sheriff had promised. His mouth opened like he had something to say, but then the life left his eyes, and Gracie knew he was gone. She gathered him up in her arms, felt his warmth, his weight. Gone, just like that.
She heard the horses move closer to them, but it was like they were in some other canyon, far away.
“Clive,” she whispered, touching his lips, that perfect mouth that had shown her love.
Bo squatted next to Gracie and looked at Clive, his face ashen. “Why did Rhees shoot him? I was givin’ them the money.”
Rhees’s voice was hard and smug, just behind them. “Come on, now.”
The deputies were already grabbing Gracie, dragging her away from Clive’s body.
“You come along and tell us where the rest of the gold is, little girl, and I’ll make sure you’re released from jail right away,” Rhees said.
“What—what about Clive?” she whispered.
“Well, right now he’s about to be feeding the buzzards. But if you’re out, I don’t think anyone’ll stop you from givin’ him a proper burial.”
She looked over at Bo. He nodded.
“Okay,” Gracie said. “You’ll find the gold in the caverns just south of Corona Mountain.”
“Beautiful,” Rhees said. He reached forward with his pistol and stroked it along Gracie’s cheek, down to her neck. She flinched backward before he could travel down the lace front of her blouse.
“Gracie Jane Moseley,” Rhees said, “you make me feel like a man.” He turned to his deputy. “Throw ’em in jail.”
Gracie struggled in their arms. “You promised—”
“Do it,” the sheriff said.
Gracie started hollering, and the butt of a pistol slammed against her head. Everything went dark.
*
When she woke again, she was being pulled off a horse. One of the deputies tightened his hold on her, his hands too hot on her upper arms, and he shoved her into a low, squat building. The Belnedge jail. She’d seen it before, from the outside. Once she was through the door, the deputy didn’t give her eyes time to adjust before prodding her forward, into a tiny, barred cell with Bo.
She fell into Bo, who reached out a hand to help her stay upright. Gracie spit at the deputy and let off a string of curses at Rhees, curses she’d learned from her uncle way back in the day, during her other life on the prairie before Clive.
Clive.
It hadn’t been his time, not yet. They’d talked about dying—after all, the lifespans of outlaws weren’t reputed to be that long. But they’d talked about it while thinking they had more time. More time with each other under the stars each night, laughing and loving and talking.
She pressed a hand to her chest, feeling dead inside already.
Rhees and the deputy laughed, then walked back out of the jail. She was left alone in here with Bo and her heartache.
She didn’t want to move, but they had to get out of there. She tugged on the bars to the cell.
“I already looked for a way out,” Bo said, “before they brought you in.”
While she moved around the tiny cell, searching for weaknesses she knew she’d never find, Rhees’s voice echoed from outside. “Find the gold. Make sure it’s there. Afterward, we gag ’em and hang ’em. Nobody’ll care about outlaws who can’t talk.”
The sheriff laughed and sauntered away, his spurs jingling with each step.
Gracie was a sinner, plain and simple. She had stolen and thieved and hollered and lied, and fornicated with Clive nearly every night of her adult life. But never had she wanted to murder someone until now.
“I’m not a good person,” she whispered to Bo.
He came to sit next to her against the stone wall. “I want revenge.”
“Me, too. I miss Clive so bad it hurts.”
Bo nodded, and Gracie felt the movement more than she saw it. The little jail was growing dark. Night was falling.
Gracie wanted to move past the pain of missing Clive. She imagined shoveling through it like she was in a collapsed mine, and with every shovel full of hurt, she found something new: fury.
“Let’s make a pact,” Gracie said. “We get our revenge, in this life or the next one.”
Bo nodded. “Blood oath.”
Gracie found an old splinter sticking out of the frame of the low, barred window and slashed it across her palm. She winced at the pain, but that pain was dulled by her rage. Then she slashed it over Bo’s palm. They looked into each other’s eyes and shook hands.
“Brother and sister,” Bo said. “We’ll avenge Clive’s murder, and our own. In life or death.”
“He won’t know what hit him,” Gracie said. Tears splashed down her cheeks and she watched them fall over their joined hands.
She meant every word of that blood oath, but she doubted she’d be alive to deliver on it. Rhees’s deputies would find the gold, and tomorrow morning she and Bo would be bound, gagged, and dragged up to the gallows in the center of Belnedge.
“We never shoulda come here,” she said to Bo.
“I know. It was stupid.”
There wasn’t much in the little room with them. A tiny bucket for their piss, but not even a bench to lie on. They curled up, sharing body heat, when the cold Montana night fell.
*
Gracie woke to a soft voice speaking. Looking around, she saw the jail was empty save for her and Bo.
The voice spoke again. “Easy, easy,” he said.
The voice was low, and it sounded cultured, nothing like Gracie had heard before. Shorter vowels, a clipped tone. Brusque.
“I can give you your revenge,” the voice said. “I heard about what happened.”
“Who are you?” Gracie asked.
“I’m Astor. Your savior.”
Gracie shook in place, terrified. It sounded like a demon’s name. It sounded like it promised all the dark things she wanted, all that revenge, all that violence on Rhees.
“Think about it,” the voice whispered. “But don’t think too long.”
Screwing up all her courage, Gracie raised her gaze to the window. A black-eyed man stared down at her. It was the face of the devil. Hungry. Pale. Cruel.
“You decide,” Astor said. “In or out?”
Gracie looked at him for a long moment, then nodded. “Bo,” Gracie said, nudging him with her foot. “Wake up.”
Bo sat up suddenly, his hand going automatically toward his holster, which was of course empty.
“We can get out,” Gracie said. “We just have to go with Astor.”
“Who the bloody tarnation is Astor?” Bo asked.
“Look.” Gracie pointed at the tiny window. “He’s up there.”
Twin black eyes stared down at them. Bo scooted back fast. “It’s a demon.”
“I don’t have to be a demon,” Astor said. “Demons hurt you. I want to help you. I can be a friend.”
Gracie looked from Bo to Astor. “It’s our only chance, Bo. If we wanna get out of here and avenge Clive, this is our only shot. You know as well as I do that we’re gonna hang tomorrow. We made a blood oath,” she said. “We gotta do this.”
Bo shook so hard, she thought he might faint.
“Come on, brother,” she said. “I won’t do it without you. We get our revenge together, or we hang together. What’s it going to be?”
“Revenge,” he said.
Gracie turned to Astor. “What do we do?”
The voice was a whisper. “Invite me in.”
She invited him in.
Twin pinpricks of pain, and then bliss.
*
When Gracie woke up next to Bo, she was a new creature—a demon that thirsted for blood.
And Sheriff Rhees was already dead, shot by the railroad tycoon he’d double-crossed.