Page 6 of After the Fade, Vol. 1 (Asheverse: B-Side)

The only hard part was getting to the gear.

I crept along the waterline, grateful that the winter grasses here were still tall and not weighed down by snow.

Up the canyon, the Sheridan boys were making enough noise that the whole Vehpese cheer squad could have done their sideline routine without being noticed.

If I had to guess, I would have said the Sheridan boys had just figured out about beer.

And they were, judging by all the sounds, liking it.

Jimpson stared at me with glossy black eyes. He raised one hind foot. Hoof, I guess.

Sugar, my nemesis, pricked her ears. Her head inched forward. She stomped, shifted, and stomped again.

“No,”

I whispered fiercely. “Don’t even think about it.”

She shook her head. Her ears, still on high alert, twitched.

This was probably how I’d die: betrayed by a horse.

But maybe Sugar thought better of it.

Or maybe her loyalty to Austin trumped her innate desire spend the next hour trampling me.

Either way, she didn’t whicker or snort or otherwise give me away.

Jimpson, as always, looked like he could have stared an avalanche in the face and not blinked.

Austin always got to ride Jimpson.

When the Sheridan boys had taken our clothes, they’d taken my bear spray, my bear bell, my fishing vest—all of it.

From the looks of it, they hadn’t kept any of the stuff.

My best guess was that they’d tossed it as they went up the canyon.

But our bags were there, and I jimmied the zipper on Austin’s, dug around, and came up with what I’d been looking for: a backup can of bear spray, another bear bell, Austin’s hunting knife that was as long as my arm, and a spool of fifty-pound-test fishing line.

It was the same color as the pine needles, and I jammed it in the pocket of Emmett’s coat.

With river stones crunching underfoot, I crept back along the bank and scuttled through the tall clumps of fireweed and past a field thistle the size of a player piano.

I had some guesses about how things were going to go.

The Sheridan boys were just that.

Boys.

Asshole boys, but just boys.

They hadn’t meant to kill us, although they’d taken our clothes, so they were probably just morons.

They definitely didn’t intend on keeping the horses.

Sugar and Jimpson were both branded and had trackers, and in Wyoming, horse theft carried up to ten years in prison.

They took their horses seriously up here.

So this was some kind of locker room prank.

This was boys being fucking idiot boys.

And that meant they might get rough, they might even throw a punch, but they weren’t going to pull a knife or a gun.

If I left them alone, they’d probably ditch the horses and the gear and keep on their merry way—at some point.

Working my way up the sloping canyon floor, I touched the fishing line and thought about how Austin had looked when he thought he was the one responsible for losing Sugar and Jimpson.

And then I looked down at the Sheridan boys.

And I thought about the packet of beef jerky skidding across the countertop and smacking down on the C-store floor.

And I figured boys were boys.

And maybe these boys just needed their asses handed to them.

When I reached the tree line, I cut into the rows of pine and spruce and low, scrubby juniper.

I found a fallen branch—nice length and heft, just what I wanted for my last resort.

I unwound the first length of fishing line, cut it with the hunting knife, and got to work.