The sun was beating down by now – just when he needed it the least. For Darrell didn’t care where he was going, so didn’t need to see very well to get there. He was mostly looking behind him anyway, past his two collegues all the way back to the specs in the distance, the riders on his tail.

The best laid plans had gone awry. He’d waited at the point where he could hit the stage just before dawn, when it was still dark as ever, and guards’d be at their most relaxed point. But he hadn’t any idea where this other group came from, except that it was the direction directly opposite the one he was taking now. Git goin, an git far.

Duke, who was Darrell’s left speck, so to speak, could smell the man’s fear from that far back. Even though John Marshall and the man called O’Neil were too tired from their long hunt of this band to join the chase, Duke and his partner were more than scary for any outlaw. Hell, she was all on her own. The four of ‘em had put paid to seven of Darrell’s men already, so Darrell knew too.