As the older brother by twenty minutes, he’d tried his whole life to protect Shadow from the harshness of their world. He hadn’t been successful. Shadow had suffered at the hands of their father. He’d suffered at the hands of the Mexican army that had wiped out their town when they were just boys. He’d suffered in the days after the massacre as he and the seven other orphaned boys had almost starved to death, searching for a place to belong. In the end, they’d made their home together, found acceptance in each other. And in the years since, those eight boys had grown into the most feared men of the Texas plains. Tracker and Shadow had family in Hell’s Eight, but any respect they garnered outside the confines of Hell’s Eight land they’d earned with their blood. In this country, the only respect a man held was that which he took. And he and Shadow had taken more than their fair share.
“Deep thoughts, brother?”
Tracker shook off the melancholy and smiled as he slid his rifle into the scabbard. “I was thinking that Caine would be pleased with where Hell’s Eight has landed.”
Caine was the leader of the group that those eight starving boys had become. He’d taken them from outlaws to lawmen, and Caine’s wife was the reason Tracker was on the hunt now.
“He always said we’d get strong first and then we’d get even, and damned if he didn’t make that come true.”
“Hard to believe we’re now the ones people call on when they have trouble.” Tracker still wasn’t comfortable with that. He’d rather stay in the background with no ties, no expectations, handling what needed to be handled calmly and efficiently, without any notoriety.
Shadow chuckled and shook his head. “Yeah, especially since we were so good at being trouble.”
They had been that. Tracker had never felt so free as in those early years when they’d ridden outside the law, taking justice into their own hands, slipping in and out of the shadows, doing what needed to be done with an efficiency that would have pleased his father. But things had a way of changing, and now Hell’s Eight was the law, bound somewhat by the rules of society. He grimaced. Hell, they’d gotten so damn respectable that it chafed. The bounty they’d just settled being a case in point.
He pictured again the smarmy smirk of John Kettle as he stood before the judge, hearing his not guilty verdict. The man was as guilty as sin. Tracker and Shadow had buried the bodies of the woman and child he’d killed, before they’d tracked him down. In the old days they would have just killed the son of a bitch in a quick dispensation of justice. Instead, they’d followed the law and brought him to the county seat. But while the woman and little girl were still dead, their killer was walking free, because justice had caved beneath the money and influence of John Kettle’s family.
Tracker spat. “Things are changing, brother.”
Shadow grunted, knowing exactly what he was talking about. “We should have just gut shot the bastard.”
“Next time we will.” He wasn’t a man naturally given to playing by the rules, especially when they weren’t working. Things might be changing, but he wasn’t. He liked things clean and neat, with no messy loose ends. John Kettle was a loose end, and sooner or later Tracker would have to clean it up. The bastard killed for the pleasure it gave him. That kind of sickness inside a man only got worse, not better. He would kill again. And again. And again. Until someone stopped him.
“Amen,” Shadow muttered.
A warm breeze blew up, lifting Tracker’s long hair off his neck in a subtle warning. Goose bumps rose along his skin. His senses sharpened and that inner voice that so often saved his ass issued an alert. He traced the breeze’s path backward. South. The sense of inevitability that had been haunting him since the day he’d met Caine’s wife, Desi, increased. The woman who might be Ari was south. So was his destiny. He gripped the stock of the rifle, letting the familiar feel of the sun-warmed wood anchor him. The letter rustled. Damn, he wasn’t sure he was that eager to meet what was coming.
It was too much to hope Shadow hadn’t sensed the tension flowing through him.
“What is it?”
Tracker didn’t know what to make of the inner prodding, the overwhelming sense of destiny crashing in on him. “A feeling.”
Shadow swore. Their whole lives they’d had a strange connection, strange feelings. What happened to one often was felt by the other. It had kept them alive more than once. Shadow finished tying on his saddlebags. “I’m going with you.”
Tracker didn’t want his twin anywhere near the disaster that had to be his destiny.
“No.”
Glancing from beneath the wide brim of his black hat, Shadow said, “You may be twenty minutes older, but you don’t tell me what to do.”
The hell he didn’t. “We made Desi a promise to find her sister.”
“Yeah, so? We’ll give the Cavato lead to someone else.”
“Who would you suggest? Cavato is in Indian territory. It would be suicide for most men to get within ten miles of there.”
“I’d say Zacharias and his men, if he weren’t still stove up from that run-in with Comanches.”
“They could do it.”
Zacharias and his vaqueros were from Sam and Bella’s ranch. Tougher men had never been bred, unless it was Hell’s Eight themselves. Hells’ Eight owed them a debt that could never be repaid. Zach and his men had volunteered to sacrifice themselves in a near-suicide mission, standing against Comanches to buy Tucker the time he needed to get his pregnant wife to safety. Everyone thought they’d been killed. It’d been quite a shock to have them ride up, bloody and near death, at their own funeral.
“I’ll be glad when Sam’s connections get us what we need to put an end to the attempts on Desi’s life.”
Tracker nodded. “And Ari’s.”
“Yeah. Amazing what men will do for money.”
And Ari and Desi were worth a lot of money to someone back east. From what Sam and the rest of them had deduced, the whole family had been slated to be murdered on their trip west, but the killers had gotten greedy when they’d seen the girls. Instead of killing them, the attackers had sold them to Comancheros. Both girls had suffered horribly. Desi’s suffering had ended when Caine had found her standing all but naked in a creek, fighting four men with that hellion spirit. But Ari’s suffering probably continued.
No one knew if Ari had survived, but Desi’s gut said she had, and that was enough for Hell’s Eight. They each carried a letter that contained a promise to bring Ari home to her sister. And no member of Hell’s Eight ever went back on a promise. None of the men really expected to find Ari breathing, except maybe Tracker. Perhaps it was because he was a twin himself and understood that strange connection between close siblings that surpassed logic. Or maybe, he admitted only to himself, it was because of something else, something deeper. But he knew Ari was alive, and he knew he would find her. The only thing in question was whether he would find her in time. Inside him a clock ticked, and lately the tick was becoming louder, as if time was running out.
He glanced south again. Ari was waiting and she needed him. He wouldn’t listen to anything inside that said more than that. But he still didn’t want Shadow anywhere around what his gut said was going to be his end.
“We can’t afford to wait for Luke, Caden and Ace to hit the rendezvous points and pick up their messages. If the woman in Cavato is Ari, you need to get there before she’s sold or stolen again.”
“Yeah.” Shadow’s face set in that blank way that said he was accepting