Marshal of Hel Dorado by Heather Long Page A

darkness,
giving in to his body’s desire to run.
           He wasn’t followed.
           If the boy was true to his word, he would
wait for the first light of dawn to check the canyon for the gold. Cody loped
through the desert, scattering rabbits, snakes and startling the coyote bitch
from her hunt. He ignored them all, stretching his body out for speed. It still
took him a half hour of racing over rocks and circling the escarpments and
canyon drops to reach the brothers' camp.
           The fire was quiet, banked in the darkness.
He scented them all and let them see him before he trotted to his saddle and
bags. The shift was a slow process, but his fur retreated and his body twisted,
bones grinding on bones and his skin snapping back into place. They wouldn’t
watch him.
           None of them liked the change.
           He was on his knees, panting when he was
done. Sweat soaked his fever-heated skin. The flushed pink color of his skin
would fade, but the heat would linger. It always did. The change was brutal to
his body. He breathed through the pain as the last of his bones snapped to
where they should be.
           Buck squatted in front of him, handing him
a canteen. Cody guzzled the tepid water. The brothers moved closer, saying
nothing as Buck passed him dried jerky. Cody tore into the food, hunger a
driving force after denying himself the hunt earlier.
           He could feel the weight of their stares.
Expectation hung like moist air before the storm.
           “They’re not going to stop until they get
the gold back. And they do have Scarlett.”
           Silence met his declaration. They knew he
wasn’t done. Interrupting him or pushing him this close to the change was just
as likely to piss him off. So they waited. Buck handed him another piece of
jerky and he bit into it, the dried meat not remotely what he wanted, but it
would do. He chewed, washing down the bites with more water and finally reached
for his britches.
           He jerked them on over bare legs. The rasp
of fabric stinging the sensitive skin.
           “They’re going to hang her.” He stared at
Buck. “Have you been able to reach her?”
           “No.” Buck was Quanto’s son by blood and by
skill. Like the Shaman that raised them, he could walk in dreams, communicating
over long distances. “Father reached for us though. He said Wyatt will be
leaving tomorrow to meet us in Dorado.”
           The collective in drawn breath around him
suggested that Buck had reserved that news for Cody’s return. Cody sighed.
Wyatt shouldn’t leave the mountains. He needed to be with Quanto. Wyatt rode at
the side of death, if they couldn’t reclaim Scarlett before Wyatt got there…
           …Dorado would be losing a lot more than
their gold.
           “What do we do?” Jimmy stood a few feet
away, his arms crossed. His yellow jacket his only deference to the cooler
night air in the desert. He wore three guns and carried a fourth in his saddle.
           “We leave the gold in the canyon. Their
leader said they just want the gold back. If we return it, Ike can follow the
boy. Buck, dream walk to Quanto. Ask him to delay Wyatt.”
           “And Scarlett?” Rudy asked the question
from the shadows next to their banked fire.
           He’d been moody and silent throughout their
flight. He blamed himself for leaving Scarlett behind.
           Cody was fine with that. He blamed Rudy,
too.
           But not as much as he blamed himself for
letting her come along in the first place.
           “We’re going back for her.”
           They nodded. Noah rose silently from where
he sat next to the bedrolls. He clapped Ike on the arm. “We’ll take the gold
down into the canyon now.”
           “Is that a good idea?” Jimmy looked from
Cody to their brothers. He trusted no one.
           “It’s the only idea we have. They aren’t
backing off and unless