McCutchen blanched as the haunting words rummaged through his disheveled mind. What wasn’t finished? And who had spoken? He struggled to comprehend the recent series of events that had besieged him, but all he could think was to escape. Go.

He tugged at Chloe and repeated his mantra. “Keep moving.” A drum beat of blood cry rose into the air, pulsing gradually louder until its volume caused McCutchen’s face to twitch. While the raging fires had served to warm him to the core for the first time in weeks, he longed for the cold isolation of the Texas backcountry now more than ever.

He and Chloe pulled Chancho to his feet. The Mexican looked as poor as McCutchen felt. Together the three of them stumbled to the edge of the hill and gingerly started down the subtle slope, weaving through barren brush by the fading flicker of firelight.

What was it about Villarreal that brought out the worst in him? Made him ignore reason and throw caution to the wind? Stopping the twitcher threat had been his priority—find the logbook, prevent the power brokers from weaponizing the toxin. And yet, he’d lost the book while saving these pathetic do-gooders. He sighed. It was Chancho’s damn contagious hope—his unmitigated confidence that everything would turn out fine. Dreamers.

On top of it all, he’d risked his own neck to help a trainload of children who’d probably all turn in the next couple of weeks, giving him a fresh batch of nightmares to deal with. He paused to look back toward the burning homes on New York Hill and steadied his head with his hand.

There remained only one explanation for his behavior. He heard his father’s words echo in his head. Life isn’t black and white, son. Someone isn’t either all guilty or none at all. But everyone’s guilty. His black and white world had gone gray in the ash and mud of Thurber.

Chancho put a hand on his shoulder, the touch igniting a strange sort of cautious optimism alien to McCutchen. Without the logbook, the likelihood others would continue to victimize his Texas remained high. Without food and water and a safe place to rest, the injuries he’d sustained could kill him. Yet, some small part of him wanted to believe everything would turn out alright.

“Amigo, what do you think will happen to them?”

The two sworn-enemies-turned-reluctant-partners supported each other while gazing back on a nightmare they shouldn’t have survived. McCutchen breathed as deep as his injuries allowed. “They’ll die. If not from the toxin, then from—”

Suddenly the air pulled away from him, drawing his words from his chest as a tangy crackle curled the end of his nose. For a split second, the orange and red of the fire vanished as a shockwave rushed outward from the center of New York Hill in every direction.

Lifting him from his feet, the force of the rippling air flung him thirty feet into the top of a juniper. Ripping the oxygen from his lungs and slamming his ears with the roar of raw consumption, the initial surge passed as the explosion plumed upward and outward, followed immediately by rushing wind and raining debris.

Dangling helplessly from twisted branches, clods of dirt and God knows what battered him until the trunk snapped under the weight. Dropping through several feet of brittle foliage, he crashed back to the frozen ground. His recently found hope bled out as quickly as it had come. Exhausted and weak, he couldn’t wrap his mind around what had just happened or why. But as he always did, he kept moving. Say something. Do something. Get up.

“Chancho.” Wobbling, he grasped a branch and tugged. A hand reached down to help him. “Chloe?”

“I don’t know what you two were doing up there. Roasting marshmallows, I guess.” With a grunt she lifted him to his feet. “Chancho?”

“I’m alive. I think.”

Several yards away they found him upside down in a clump of oak. “Good thing it wasn’t a mesquite.” McCutchen turned up the edges of his mouth, impersonating a smile.

“Was that a joke, mi amigo?” Chancho coughed, wincing in pain from the baluster protruding from his back.

Chloe looked both of them in the eyes. “What happened? Who—”

“The twitchers.” Chancho spoke in short sentences between labored breaths. “I saw the dynamite.”

“Why?”

Chancho shook his head and fell silent.

In terrible clarity, McCutchen knew the answer. It was exactly what he would do. Reshape the landscape in your favor. The twitchers were claiming Thurber, making it their own—erasing Vezzoni, erasing the Company. And all of it while faking their own deaths. “Come on. We’ve gotta keep moving.”

McCutchen also knew if he stood still any longer, his muscles would seize, refusing to unfurl again. “We’ll head for the north shore of Big Lake, then to Steam Shovel Hill. Maybe Nanette’s still around.”

Animated by a cold wind, skeletal trees danced to life, dropping wet snow from their branches. Chancho clutched at his serape, but only shreds of wool remained. First his sombrero, then… his breathing hitched as fresh pain from the wooden baluster radiated throughout his back and shoulders.

His eyes drooped, even as his ears flitted from whisper to whisper. Every shadow seethed with twitcher menace, yet fear had lost its premium. Groping internally as if he were still in the mines, his mind stumbled for purchase. Tripping back through the memories most firmly engrained, he hadn’t felt this lost since his stint in the Pecos Wilderness of the Davis Mountains.

McCutchen had been the cause of his isolation then. But now? What had the Ranger become to him? How had he found himself in this place? Starr had betrayed him, leaving him and Chloe with McCutchen. With so many unanswered questions, Chancho clung to the concrete—Chloe. She had doubted him, but remained by his side. Could he love her as much as she deserved in return?

He fingered the torn edges of his clothing, nervously fiddling a worm of yarn between his forefinger and thumb. After a twinge of pain, he slipped his hand into his britches pocket and removed three sheets of paper, still bound together where they’d been torn from a larger spine. He unfolded them while keeping his hands at his waist to avoid another bolt of pain.

“Talk to me.” Chloe pressed close to his side as they shuffled through a narrow gap in the brush.

He handed her the pages, afraid to look at them himself—afraid the darkness would reveal enough for him to know he’d failed completely. “I tore them from the book before…” He gasped for another short breath and fell silent. He’d removed the pages at the last second, without looking. He wasn’t even sure—

“The formula.” Chloe flipped through them inches from her face. “Chancho, you did it!”

McCutchen turned, “Starr didn’t—”

“He tore out the last three pages before Starr took it.” Chloe’s voice buoyed Chancho, transforming the cold winds into a summer breeze off the Gulf. They were the first anxiety-free words she’d spoken in days, and they gave him precious hope.

“I’ll be damned.” McCutchen stopped, a branch snapping beyond the brush to their right. He drew his Colt .45 Flat Top slowly.

“Don’t stop your yapping on my account. Just ole Nanette laboring these here bushes loud enough to get a word in edgewise. For God’s sake keep your guns in your pants. You young’uns and your pistols. I swear you’d rather pull the trigger than shake hands.” A woman so dark her eyes appeared to levitate stepped through the brush, leading a caravan of animals behind her.

“Nanette Bougere, where the hell you been?” McCutchen stumbled toward her. Wrapping his good arm around her ample frame, he created a gesture that looked surprisingly like a hug.

“Busy shooting people and saving your raggedier-than-ever ass. Again, I might add. But I won’t due to da sensitivity of da male ego.” The woman turned to face Chancho and Chloe. “Damn, you as hard on your friends as yourself. Now I see why you’s so afraid a hooking up.” She shook her head. “At least da lady don’t look like she’s bleeding to death.”

Chancho fumbled for words but found none.

“Good thing I found these forlorn little donkeys thereabouts the cemetery fence where I planted them Company men. But I reckon I got an extra.” She looked the three of them over as well as the dark would allow. “I suppose one of da number who gone in ain’t come out.” She tutted. “That’s a real shame, and I mean it.”

She moved within inches of Chancho’s face, hooking her knuckle beneath his chin. “I’ll tell you da truth, Mr. Motorcycle. When you done crossed the fence I thought the whole lot of ya were cooked and gone. But J.T. Smarty Pants here said you was a tough Mexican.”

She unfurled her chubby fingers until she held his face in her hand. Her skin felt like warm candle wax. “You done good to bring yourself out and bring this here mongrel with ya.” She nodded toward McCutchen. “His father meant something to me, and I suppose he does too.”

McCutchen cleared his throat.

“Oh, and he told me just today how sorry he was for trying to bury you before. Said you was a better man than him, then burst into tears like a little girl.” McCutchen pinched her, and she continued. “But what ya’ll standing around fer? You wanting this cold to be da death of ya after all these shenanigans? Now stop your yammering and mount up.” Lightning-quick, she slapped McCutchen across the buttock before helping him into his saddle. “I told you I’d get ya.”

McCutchen grunted as he tugged himself into position using the horn. Ignoring Nanette, he reached down to stroke Chester’s neck. “Good to see ya, boy.” Chester snorted in response.

Chancho and Chloe mounted the donkeys they’d ridden from Gordon.

“I suppose you know best where you’s going, so git on with it.” Nanette waited for McCutchen to take the lead.

Instead he moved behind the donkey left riderless, the one Angelo had ridden in on. “Home.” He lashed the animal gently with the ends of his reins. Without hesitation the donkey chose his path and pace.

Nanette’s eyes grew large, nodding with approval.

Without turning to look at her, McCutchen responded. “I suppose they’ll need a new home, and you and Angelo would have got on fine. If the others don’t object—”

“I think that’d be nice,” Chloe settled it.

As soon as the animals started out, Chancho unscrewed his canteen. After making sure Chloe had enough of her own, he drank. Closing his eyes, he allowed the donkey to find his own path and focused on the hoofbeats over the myriad of demons clawing for his attention. He was too exhausted to care. For now, they’d have to wait.

Starr closed his eyes and exhaled, using the throttle lever to brace himself against the rhythmic rocking of the locomotive. Moments ago he’d cleared a switch outside of Mingus and rounded the bend heading east. For the time being the tracks ahead would be clear. With any luck the unscheduled Black Diamond would be reported, resulting in a cleared line for as long as he could push the old engine without stopping for more coal or water.

He’d done it. He patted the book stuffed under his belt. He’d barely flipped through it, but clearly its pages contained scientific information about the contagion. Maybe it didn’t implicate TPE, but that had never been his intention.

He’d quietly copy as much of the information as he could before dutifully handing the book over to his superiors, thus strengthening his hand while building upon his perceived loyalty at the same time. On top of it all, and completely beyond his own planning, he’d managed to save a passel of innocent children in desperate need of medical attention.

Ever so slightly he found himself leaning forward into the backhead as the rhythm of the rails slowed beneath him. He opened his eyes and tapped the gauge closest to him. He didn’t understand everything he was looking at, but it seemed none of the indicators had changed significantly. All the same, the train was definitely slowing.

He shoveled in the last of the coal. He wouldn’t make it as far as he had hoped, that was all. The sound of a heavy boot on the landing startled him. Assuming some kid in oversized shoes had clambered up to see the engine, he turned. “Well hello…” Wide-eyed, he froze solid. A low growl filled the cabin as a cloaked figure sprang the last few feet to his side before he could blink an eye. A twitcher.

The train resumed its former speed, causing Starr to sway. Yet, he couldn’t move a muscle of his own volition, not a finger or an eye. Nothing save his mouth. “No.”

“Senator, we meet again.” The words originated within his head, but the voice was not his own. Accented thickly, he knew it. Slowly, the figure turned its head toward the scant atmospheric light.

“No. I saw you die. I touched the body.”

“Nothing but pawn, Senator Starr.” The cloaked head shook from side to side, the lips still not moving. “Game over only when one king is taken. But first one must recognize true opponent. Which in this case, was never me. Still, I will be relieving you of logbook.”

Without realizing it, Starr pulled back his jacket, revealing the book buried under his belt, right next to his .38 Tri-Star.

“I cannot have you handing book to benefactors.” The figure’s lips snarled even as they remained shut.

“How—”

“You are nothing but slave, James Starr. For years, I was slave like you.” The figure snatched the book, concealing it within his cloak.

Starr barely saw the arm move. While internally he flinched at its quickness, his body refused to move. Then just as before, the train slowed without losing steam. Starr swayed forward.

“Quit while ahead. Is no other end to one-sided game. Victory is deception.” The figure turned and leapt from the cabin in a fluid movement.

Starr stumbled as the train resumed speed quickly, throwing him against the back of the cabin. Shaking his head, he regained control of his body. He clutched at his belt. The book was gone. Drawing his .38, he rolled onto his side and aimed the weapon into the cloistered night. Nothing was there but the shadows of trees rushing past.