Blaze! Spanish Gold (Blaze! Western Series Book 18) by Ben Boulden

Author:Ben Boulden [Boulden, Ben]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rough Edges Press
Published: 2017-10-08T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 15

Joshua stopped a few yards from where the trail narrowed to a small opening, a steep canyon wall on one side, a red rock spire on the other. Kate urged her horse forward at a slow walk. Her eyes and ears alert for any unusual sounds. She pulled up next to Joshua and said, “Where are we?”

Joshua pointed to the narrow passage. “It’s through there, Mrs. Kate.”

J.D. and Gentry left their horses in the trail and approached Kate and Joshua on foot. J.D.’s spurs jangled in the afternoon’s stillness, Gentry’s denim trousers whisked with each step.

“Well?” J.D. said.

Kate swiveled from her saddle. She pulled her well-trained horse to the trail’s edge and left it ground-tied before walking back to where the men had gathered. “Joshua says the Ames-Moon is down slope from here. I’m going to reconnoiter”—Kate smiled as J.D. raised an eyebrow—“It means, ‘look around,’ J.D.”

“I know what it means, but I had hoped to save it for some dark moment when I needed to impress you.”

Gentry looked from J.D. to Kate and back again. “You two are plain odd.”

“J.D. is an odd duck, Sheriff, but a good bird nonetheless.”

Joshua joined the group.

J.D. looked at the boy, tousled his hair with his big right hand. “Gentry said, ‘you two’; as in both of us, Kate. Me and you.”

Kate placed her hand on J.D.’s shoulder. “I heard, but chose to interpret its exact meaning.”

Gentry shook his head, chuckling. “You two need time to figure this out?”

A glimmer shone in J.D.’s eyes, he opened his mouth to speak, but Kate beat him. “Don’t say what you’re thinking, J.D.”

The boy laughed, hands on his belly, until tears started streaming down his face.

“You think this is pretty funny, do you?”

Joshua straightened. “Yes, ma’am. You and J.D. are exactly like the books make you out to be.”

Kate gave J.D. a headshake and a stern look, knowing his low opinion of the unauthorized yellow-back Blaze! tales sold across the country and purporting to be based on factual happenings.

J.D. scratched his three-day beard and winked at Kate. “You know, Joshua. You shouldn’t believe anything you read. That goes double for anything with an exclamation point in its title.”

Joshua’s eyes narrowed with bewilderment, then widened with a pleased understanding. “Like Blaze!?”

“Exactly.”

Kate shook her head, smiling. “If we’re done with the horse play, I have a proposal. I’m going to peek past that narrow passage. I want you three to stay here. If you hear any trouble I expect a hasty rescue. Do you think you can do that?”

Joshua said, “Yes, Mrs. Kate.”

The two men nodded.

* * *

Kate moved through the narrow entrance. The cliff walls tailed away to reveal a sun soaked valley surrounded on one side by varnished sandstone and on the other by broken white stone and dirt rising to a tabletop plateau. The change from varnished red to pale white stunned Kate’s senses. She blinked at the brightness, brought her hands over her eyes.

Kate studied the valley floor. The landscape bland and dry.

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