CHAPTER EIGHT

You look like a storm’s raging up there.”

Jasper turned to Hatch to see him tapping his forehead. “Something have you worried?” Hatch asked.

Jasper shook his head, but Hatch kept watching him. “Casey Gang struck a few days ago,” he said, so he’d have something to say. “Why do you think our prisoner wasn’t with them?”

Hatch shrugged. “Off on a bender. He was full as a tick when Valdez pulled him out of that cabin. Alec Casey probably don’t want the family jester around when he’s doing jobs anyway.”

Jasper let the exchange die after that. He wasn’t too interested in talking anyway; he’d rather ruminate for his own private reasons about what the Casey Gang had been doing a few days ago.

Modesto wasn’t far from Sonora.

Jasper wondered if by the time they reached Sonora, Alec Casey would know they had his brother. Eventually he’d know, and eventually he’d come for him. And Jasper wasn’t going to leave Slip Casey’s side until that happened, no matter what he had to do to stay there.

They hadn’t been traveling long when they started to come up on the place where Jasper had nearly lost his stage two days before. He could see the tracks on the dirt road where the coach had nearly spilled. He could see something else too—marks in the road that he couldn’t quite place.

And from the side of the road, a silvery glint of metal.

“What are you doing?” Hatch demanded when he started to slow down. “Answer me, Duncan, or this stagecoach will keep moving without you on it.”

Jasper pointed to the road ahead of them. “The other day, that’s where my stage got damaged.”

“So?” Hatch demanded. But he didn’t threaten to steal his stage again when Jasper came to a stop.

Behind him, he could hear Valdez ask what was going on and Hatch answer in a way that was less than flattering toward Jasper. He ignored it and walked forward.

Up the road a ways, Jasper could see where they’d crashed into the rocks, the splinters of wood the spokes had left behind. He shouldn’t still be so angry about that. What did the damage matter when he’d gotten the chance he wanted?

His eyes flickered around the road, looking for that glint of metal he’d seen.

It could have been anything. It could have been, but he knew somehow that it wasn’t.

He found the bullet at the edge of the road. Newly fired, clearly. Had this been the bullet that spooked the horse? He remembered thinking the horse had reacted as though someone had fired at her, not just near her.

Maybe someone had.

He scanned the ridge above as though he was expecting to see someone else ready to shoot too near the road, set another team of horses into a panic. But no one was there.

Jasper walked back toward the stage, turning the bullet over in his hand. It didn’t mean anything. A shot gone wild? Happened all the time.

“I’ll tell you what, though,” Hatch called from up in the box as though he’d been saying something before that. His feet were propped up; he looked right comfortable. “Crash or not, you got that damage fixed damn quick. Faster than the damage to that Pinkerton’s eye.” He laughed.

Suddenly the stagecoach gave a jolt, pitching Hatch to the side. Jasper stepped forward to reach for the horses’ rig, in case they were about to bolt, but no, the motion hadn’t come from the horse.

It had come from the coach itself.

The left-side door opened with a shriek, and Slip Casey came flying out.

The jump he made looked awkward; Jasper wasn’t sure how the man had been able to land on his feet. But he had, and as soon as they touched down, he was running.

Valdez shouted something from inside the coach, but Jasper couldn’t hear what he was saying. He was already running.

Slip made it off the road quickly. Jasper was a few feet behind him, but Slip could run fast. It was those long legs. He pounded down the hill, half tripping the whole way, maybe off-balance because of the cuffs still around his wrists.

Jasper had shorter legs, but he was almost keeping up. There was a stream at the bottom of this hill and, beyond that, a patch of forest. If Slip makes it in there, does he hope to hide out? Jasper wondered. Live off the land until he can find his brother?

Slip started pulling ahead. He did seem to be heading for the woods, and fast. Was he going to try to jump the stream?

Even if that was his plan, he didn’t make it. A yard from the water, he tripped and went flying. He landed on his belly, hands flying out to catch himself; then he started to holler like he was face-to-face with the Devil himself.

Before Jasper could make it to Slip or Slip could climb back to his feet, a tan-and-brown blur came bolting past Jasper and landed on top of Slip’s back. The man started yelling again and thrashing, but the brown thing stayed on him.

It was Valdez’s dog.

She must have come running down the hill after Casey, same as Jasper had done. She’d pinned him before Jasper could get his hands on the man, but not before he’d fallen without any aid at all.

Well, maybe a little aid, Jasper thought when he got closer.

He saw that Slip hadn’t tripped on nothing. His foot had landed on a skeleton.

That was what made him holler—Slip Casey had come face-to-face with a bear’s skull. He was still trying to push himself away from it, but the dog was pinning him to the ground. Stronger than she looks, Jasper thought.

He didn’t know how to command the dog. What had Valdez done when he told her to do something? Jasper couldn’t remember. “Dog,” he said sternly. “Move.”

The dog looked up at him, brown eyes quizzical.

“Move,” he repeated again, his voice still sharp. The dog whined a little. “Come on, girl,” he said, and pointed to the space beside him.

He hadn’t known a dog could look so reluctant, but she did. She stepped off of Slip’s back and strode toward Jasper, her tail between her legs. Had she expected praise? Probably so after catching an outlaw. But Jasper didn’t know much about dogs or praise or anything of the sort, so all he did was flip Casey over.

Up close, in the light of the early afternoon, Jasper had figured he’d see more of a resemblance between Slip and Alec Casey. But figuring it wasn’t the same as seeing it. Those eyes were the same shape and color as the ones that had looked down so calmly and coldly when Alec almost shot him. The mouth was the same, though Slip Casey’s was flat. His chest heaved, though Jasper didn’t know if that was from the exertion or from the fear.

“I am very glad,” Slip Casey gasped, “that we didn’t run into that thing when it was still alive.”

Jasper looked down at the skull. It was yellowed from age and its teeth were chipped, but they were still larger than anything Jasper would have wanted to see grinning at him, waiting for a meal. Slip was still kicking his leg free. It looked like one of his feet had gone right between two ribs, sending Slip sprawling. What terrible luck, Jasper thought, and right when he was so close to making it into that forest.

“An angry dog can be just as bad,” he said, though he didn’t really believe it. Valdez’s dog, despite chasing Slip down, didn’t really seem like a vicious beast. “Did you really think you could outrun her? And all of us?”

“I ain’t much for getting captured,” Slip said. “I’d much rather get away.”

Jasper wrenched him to his feet. “And I’d much rather you stay captured.”

“We’ll have to agree to disagree on that, then, brother whip. Seeing that skeleton has certainly made me even more dismayed by the thought of my own mortality.”

Jasper shoved Slip forward. “Move.”

They trudged up the hill together, Valdez’s dog at their side. She gave a bark when they were halfway back, and Jasper saw Valdez and Hatch looking down at them.

“Didn’t feel like giving me a hand?” he called up at them.

“You seem to have it under control!” Hatch called back.

Jasper truly did not like the man.

“Good girl,” Valdez said, scratching the dog behind the ears when they made it back to the road.

Jasper rolled his eyes and pushed Slip Casey up against the stagecoach, then opened the door.

Westin looked up from his papers, seemingly quite unconcerned about the attempted escape. “Oh,” he said, and pulled his briefcase back over beside him. “He was sitting over there.” He gestured to the place across from him as though Jasper were highly concerned with the prisoner having the right seat.

Slip shook off Jasper’s hand when he tried to shove him into the coach. “I’m no lady needing a hand. I can climb in on my own.”

“And out too clearly,” Westin said, sending a wry look over his glasses at Slip.

“I had to try,” he said with a half-apologetic shrug.

Jasper slammed the door.

Valdez climbed back into the coach after that, but Hatch beckoned Jasper forward. “Now, friend,” he said. There was that word again. Jasper really didn’t like Hatch saying they were friends when they weren’t. “I can understand dwelling on what happened before. I can’t say I blame you, what with the trouble that crash nearly caused. But I am telling you true—you pull something like this again, and I will throw you in irons like Slip Casey and you will be walking back to Indigo. You hear me?”

This threat didn’t seem as idle as the last one had been, and Jasper understood why. After all, he wanted to get Slip Casey where they were going as much as anyone. More even.

Jasper nodded. “I hear you. Won’t happen again.”

“Good,” Hatch said seriously. “Now let’s get on the road. Alright?”

Jasper swung back up into the driver’s box. Once Hatch was settled beside him, he took up the lines and gave the horses a giddyup. They headed off again.

It wasn’t long before Hatch was talking again, easy as you please. “What’d you have to promise O’Reilly to get your stage fixed so quick?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Hatch snorted. “If that’s how you want to play it.”

“Did you volunteer to be my conductor or did you lose a bet with Valdez?” Jasper asked.

Hatch laughed again. “JD’s none too pleased you went right to Randall. If Charley’s parlor ain’t sacred, what is?”

Jasper thought that might have been the case. He’d have to live with Valdez’s displeasure. “I thought you’d know by now that the West is full of outlaws.”

“Sure enough,” Hatch said. “Never thought we’d get one of the Casey Gang up in Indigo.”

Jasper hadn’t thought so either. For two years, he’d thought Knights Ferry might attract them or Sonora. Trade flowed through those cities, along with gold and silver and payroll dollars. Prime places for a thief to strike. Sure enough, they’d struck here and there in those parts, but Jasper had never been able to track them down. The best lead he’d gotten had actually been news of that payroll grab north of Modesto. But Slip Casey had been hiding out in that old cabin. Why was Slip Casey hiding out up near Indigo? Jasper supposed Hatch was right and the man had just been on a bender, but now that he had asked the question, he found he wanted to know the answer. He told himself it didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was whether or not Slip’s brother had heard something of his capture and knew where to come looking for him.

The road down to Long Barn was the longest stretch between stations, and Jasper tried to keep the horses at a slow, steady pace. It wasn’t easy ground, but the team handled it well, used to the pace and the land. Jasper had driven this road near a hundred times. It shouldn’t have made him this uneasy, but he couldn’t stop looking for someone coming for them.

They’d been on the road for a couple of hours when Jasper spotted the rider.

He was off in the distance, wearing muted greens and browns, and though he was on horseback, he wasn’t riding at all. He seemed to be watching them.

Jasper’s brow furrowed and his hackles went up. There could have been any number of reasons why a man would be out there, but there was something about his stillness that made the back of Jasper’s neck prickle.

“You see the man over there?” he asked Hatch, nudging the deputy and gesturing into the distance.

Hatch followed his gaze. “I do. Hold steady now,” he said, then stood right up in the driver’s box, waving one arm while clutching the roof of the stage with the other. “Heyo, out there!” he called in what must have been his loudest voice. The man put his heels to his horse’s side, and they turned and trotted away until they were out of sight.

“Sit down,” Jasper hissed.

Hatch did, laughing at whatever expression Jasper wore. “Whoever that man is, now he knows we know he’s there. He’s not up to no good, well, then, I was just friendly.”

Jasper wasn’t sure how that had been friendly.

Even after the man faded into the distance, he stayed kicking around Jasper’s thoughts. Was he the one who had taken a shot at the road the other day? Just a hunter spending too much time near the road? A rancher trying to bring down a cougar going for goats and nearly shooting up Jasper’s team? Was it that simple? But how had the shot gotten that close by accident? Not that Jasper could think of a reason anyone would want to take out his stage.

Well. Not that time anyway. This one? Another story.

The sun was bright and the horses tiring by the time they reached the swing station at Long Barn. The town wasn’t much longer than a barn, though it was a mite bigger than Indigo. The road was empty, though. Usually, Jasper saw at least a few people as he approached. As they got closer, Jasper passed the stage horn to Hatch.

“Blow this loud as you can.”

“Why?” Hatch asked, staring at the bugle like he’d never seen one.

“To let them know we’re coming.”

“Let everyone around know we’re coming, you mean.”

“They don’t know we’re coming, we’re stuck here for longer,” Jasper said. “Blow.”

Hatch blew, his face turning all red. The sound that came out was pitiful, but better on the second try.

Usually, the hostlers spilled out of the barn, hustling over to the incoming stage, bringing out a fresh relay team to hitch up. But this time, no one had come out of the stables by the time Jasper arrived right outside it.

First the person watching them on the road, then this? He felt his skin prickle. He wasn’t sure if it was unease or excitement.

“They always this late getting out?” Hatch asked beside him. Jasper looked over. Hatch’s grip shifted on his shotgun.

“No, they are not,” Jasper said. He put his hand out for the stage horn, and Hatch passed it to him. Jasper blew a few notes, and Hatch beside him hissed a complaint. But if someone had laid an ambush here, they already knew they’d ridden on up. No use in waiting.

Jasper slowed the horses until they came to a stop in front of the boxy stable. The swing station was half the size of O’Reilly’s home station; this wasn’t a place people spent the night, even if the town itself was larger than Indigo. Stages just passed through here on their way to Sonora or up the mountains. There was a mine or two nearby, quartz and gravel, Jasper thought, but he hadn’t paid much attention to the mining around here, just the outlaws.

He reached for his rifle, but before he could get his hands on it, one of the stable boys stuck his bleary-eyed head out the stable door, waving a hand and then disappearing back inside the barn. The feeling that flickered through Jasper almost felt like disappointment.

“From the looks of it, we caught the hostlers napping,” Jasper said.

“You don’t sound too happy about that.”

“We’re on a schedule,” he said even though he knew that wasn’t what Hatch was implying.

Jasper dropped down from the box. He could hear muffled words coming from inside the coach, from a voice he didn’t recognize. The door opened and then the words weren’t as muffled anymore.

“—even prisoners should be given that comfort, Deputy,” Slip Casey said, and dropped out of the coach. His legs almost buckled as he landed.

Valdez’s dog hopped out next, growling at Slip as he staggered back a step. “Easy, easy, Deputy Dog! I ain’t trying to run again.” He held up his hands. The dog did not stop growling. “Dogs usually like me,” the outlaw muttered.

Valdez was next out. “Tabitha has better taste than that.” He pointed across the road, where nothing more than a couple of trees stood. “Walk.”

“I can’t even use the outhouse? Or get some grub?” He looked over at Jasper after he said that. “Not that I’d keep that down, all that rocking and rolling on the road. Is this thing always so rough on your passengers, or did you cook it up something special for me?”

Now Slip was smiling, his lips quirking up in a mocking grin that almost looked like his brother’s, though it wasn’t as chilly a smile. Jasper felt his stomach turn. He hadn’t been ready to see that smile again, for all that it had been six years. He didn’t think he could keep anything down either.

“Nothing but the best for you, Mr. Casey,” Hatch replied when Jasper didn’t answer.

Valdez pushed Slip’s shoulder. “Walk,” he repeated. This time Slip listened.

“Don’t know why Alec Casey would want to get his brother back if he’s in this form all the time,” Hatch said under his breath.

Jasper wondered that as well, but there was no question that he would want to get him back. This hadn’t been the first time Slip Casey had been captured, and he’d never made it to the hangman’s noose.

Westin was the last to slide out of the stage and walked to join Jasper and Hatch on clearly unsteady legs.

“You alright?” Hatch asked.

“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to travel by stagecoach, Deputy Hatchett,” Westin said, then turned to Jasper. “I hear these stations usually have somewhere for ablutions?”

Jasper nodded and jerked his head toward the station. “There’s a water pump out back.” He hoped Westin would feel better once he got the dust off his face.

Slip had stopped complaining by the time they came back, at least. As Valdez opened the door, one of the hostlers finally jogged out to meet them, giving a side-eye at the shackled man beside the stagecoach. Slip gave him a jaunty double-handed salute, then clambered into the coach awkwardly, the dog at his heels.

“Your passengers want coffee?” the boy offered, craning his neck to see into the stage until Valdez shut the door behind himself. “Might have some biscuits too.”

Jasper shook his head. He couldn’t see Westin drinking down the black sludge Long Barn always had to offer, and Jasper himself wouldn’t touch the biscuits.

“I’ll take some coffee.” Hatch climbed down from the box and slapped his hand against the side of the stage. “Valdez, you keep an eye on that . . . passenger now.”

Jasper didn’t hear Valdez’s reply. He took a few steps from the stage, stretching his arms out, while Hatch headed toward the small building next to the stables that served as a cookhouse for the travelers.

Usually, the hostlers were quick about changing out the teams, but all this one had done was offer coffee and biscuits, and he didn’t even run off to get it for them. “Mr. Duncan,” he said, noticing Jasper’s impatience.

“Shouldn’t you be changing out those horses instead of talking to me?”

“Not in a hurry to change out the horses today,” the boy said.

Jasper didn’t care for his attitude. “You may not be in a hurry, kid, but we have somewhere to be.”

“There’s been a problem on the road up ahead. Can’t get through.”

Something uneasy swam in Jasper’s gut at that. “What sort of problem?”

“A tree fell last night, straight across the road. One of the big ones. We’re the only two here; rest of the men in town are out there trying to clear the road. Sounds like it might be a while.”

Jasper thought back to the night before. He’d barely slept, working hard with a pair of sleepy stable boys at his side. The wind had barely whistled outside. “You have a storm last night?” he asked even though he knew the answer.

“No storm. Sometimes trees are just like people, I expect. Fall over and die.”

Jasper didn’t think it was as simple as that. But he nodded along with the boy as he continued on about how big the fallen tree was—or how small really, compared to some of the towering trees that grew up on this mountain—and waited until the stable boy ran quiet before saying, “Well, do me a favor and go ahead and hook up a new team, will you? Want to make sure we’re ready.” For good measure, he pulled a coin from his pocket and flipped it to the boy without even checking what sort of coin he’d given him.

“Thanks, Mr. Duncan,” the boy said, and ran to the other hostler, rushing him to work.

Jasper scanned the horizon, looking for the signs of someone following them. Someone watching them. But he didn’t see anything else suspicious, just the road leading east up toward Indigo and the rocks and trees they’d passed by. Even when he didn’t see anyone, a feeling still prickled the back of his neck. He’d heard tales of bands of natives who could hide in the brush and you’d never see them coming. Jasper didn’t think outlaws would be so good at fading into the background, even a band of outlaws as canny as the Casey Gang. Nevertheless, someone was out there. Two problems on this route in as many trips? That didn’t seem like a coincidence.

But no outlaws would have had reason to try to run him off the road two days before, and if someone was going to try now, well, that was what he wanted, wasn’t it?

Jasper looked back toward the stables, where the boys were leading the team that had brought them down this stage of the route. Hatch was on his way over, his amble quickened into a purposeful stride. Westin walked behind him, surer on his feet now, his face clean but grave.

“Valdez!” Hatch called when he was a couple of steps from the stage. “Set Tabitha to guard the man and get out here.”

Jasper wasn’t sure what sort of guard Tabitha would make, but Valdez slipped down from the stagecoach and joined the three of them.

“You hear about that tree?” Hatch asked Jasper, and continued speaking before Jasper could answer. “Blockage on the road ahead. They’re clearing it, but the woman inside says we’re stuck here for the next few hours. Maybe longer.”

Valdez set his eyes to scanning the horizon just as Jasper had. “Think that’s on purpose?”

Hatch shrugged his shoulders. “Ain’t certain. The townsfolk seem to think it was an accident.”

If they stayed here, would the Casey Gang come in force for Slip? Jasper thought of that day in the Nebraska Territory, a day he couldn’t remember from end to end, and tried not to shiver. How many men did Casey have, and how many would he risk to take back his brother? Not that it would be a risk. No one would hole up in the swing station ready to die to keep Slip Casey from his brother’s clutches. No one, maybe, but him, and he wanted them to come.

“We keep standing right here, waiting, they could shoot us like fish in a barrel,” Valdez said. “We should at least get inside.”

The thing was, it seemed too quick for Alec Casey to have found his brother already. Jasper hadn’t expected anyone to come for Slip until they were near Sonora. Maybe the tree really was an accident, fallen, not felled, not a plan put into motion.

But then Hatch started to speak, and Jasper realized he’d been right to begin with.

“There might be another option. When I told the lovely lady inside who served me that concoction—which I will not call coffee, friends—that we were in a hurry to get ourselves to Sonora, she said there was another road that could get us around the fallen tree.”

Valdez looked skeptical. “Another road?”

Another road. That was the trap. Jasper knew it like he knew the sky was blue.

Hatch went on to explain—there’d been some sort of find in the forest to the south, and the mine had done some work out there. He talked like he remembered it personally, which Jasper could believe; before Hatch had been a deputy, he’d worked for Simmons, and Simmons had been one of the mine’s men out here from the beginning.

But it wasn’t like outlaws were known to use the main roads. Maybe Alec Casey moved his people along these forgotten, half-made trails, and that was how he hit hard and fast and disappeared with piles of gold. How far away had he been just a week earlier? North of Modesto, the Pinkerton had said two days ago. Enough time to get here, surely, though how Alec Casey had found out about his brother’s capture and made it here already was something of a mystery.

“Way she talks, it wouldn’t be more than five or so miles before we’d join back up with the main road,” Hatch finished.

“Well, then, let’s get moving,” Jasper said. “I’ll rustle up the hostlers, tell them to stop taking their sweet time.”

“Hold up,” Valdez said, stopping Jasper from heading toward the stable with a hand on his shoulder. “Seems to me we need to make a decision first.”

“What’s there to decide?” Jasper asked.

“If we take that detour.”

“You want to wait here while the road gets cleared?” Jasper asked. “I thought we were meant to hurry?”

“Who knows how long it’ll be?” Valdez said. “We could ride out, offer a hand.”

“You think we can clear it?” Jasper asked. If the folks here at Long Barn hadn’t cleared the road yet, how could Valdez expect the five of them to do it, even if Slip Casey’s hands weren’t bound and Westin could lift his fair share?

“You got an ax in the boot?” Hatch asked, jerking his head back toward the stagecoach. Jasper did have an ax in the boot; he’d kept one with him for the better part of a year, along with a coil of rope. But Hatch hadn’t asked the question seriously. He continued before waiting for an answer. “You really think it’s a good idea to take this other road?”

“You’re the one who brought it up,” Jasper replied.

Hatch shrugged. “I was just passing word along.”

“We don’t want to be waiting around with these folks while the road gets cleared,” he said.

“How long could it be? Just a tree in the road.”

Jasper arched his brows, then turned his head toward the forest behind them, where trees rose up halfway to the sky, it looked like.

“I hardly think a tree like that has stood for a hundred years only to fall down in the middle of the night without even a storm brewing,” Hatch said.

Jasper’d had the same thought, and he could see the idea form on Valdez’s face, his frown more pronounced as he realized that the fallen tree might not have been an act of God. Jasper opened his mouth, though he didn’t know what he was going to say, something to take the edge off of his suspicion. But before he could, the stage door gave a shriek.

Then Slip Casey fell out of the stage.

When he hit the ground, a cloud of dust rose up all around him. Before he could move, Valdez’s mutt had also leaped out of the stage, landing much more gracefully than Slip himself. Her teeth were bared and a growl was rumbling deep in her chest. As adoringly as she usually looked at her master, she looked now like she was ready to rip Slip’s throat out with her sharp canines.

“Call off the dog!” Slip yelped, holding his hands up.

Valdez made some click-clacking sound with his tongue, and the dog stopped growling, settling back on her haunches but keeping her eyes focused on Slip.

“If you were trying to escape again, why not try the other door? Not the one so close to us,” Hatch asked, and Valdez cast a withering look at him as though he would thank Hatch not to give their prisoner any ideas.

“I wasn’t going for an escape, honest! I just thought if we were deciding our route, well, then I might try to lend my input.”

“Why in the world would we want that?” Westin asked. He looked genuinely perplexed at the idea.

“It’s my hanging we’ll be late for. I should have some say.”

“Back inside,” Valdez ordered. When Slip took his time climbing to his feet, Valdez marched over and jerked him the rest of the way up, then shoved him toward the door.

“Can I at least get something to eat?” Slip called as he clambered back into the coach. Valdez didn’t reply, instead ordering the dog back inside and shutting the door.

“Troublesome lout,” Valdez muttered.

“I think I’m starting to like him,” Hatch said.

“You would.” Whether because of Hatch or Slip Casey himself, the cloud of suspicion had blown off Valdez’s face.

“Are we diverting or not?” Jasper asked.

“There any particular reason you’re hankering to take this other way around?” Hatch asked.

Jasper looked up at him. “Say what you want to say, Hatch.”

“Just saying you gave in to this diversion real quick. Could it be you don’t mind so much if we walk right into a trap?”

Hatch was smarter than he looked, Jasper thought sourly.

Valdez’s bushy brows rose. “What do you mean by that?”

“Jasper here has good reason to want a run-in with Alec Casey.”

“That true?” Valdez asked. His face looked stormy again, this time pointed in Jasper’s direction.

Jasper wondered just who had told Hatch about his history with Casey. Not Charley. But who else knew? “None of this is any of your business. I got hired to do a job. I’m doing it.”

Hatch blew out a snort. “Yes, because we all know how good you are at your job.”

Jasper took a step forward and didn’t realize his fist was balled up tight until Valdez stepped between them. “Don’t you go throwing any punches,” he said. “I don’t want to have to lay out our driver.”

Jasper gave a sharp nod and stepped back. “It doesn’t matter what reasons I have. Simmons gave me orders—don’t delay, not for nothing. So we divert.”

Westin spoke up, his voice quiet but not inviting argument. “I would also like to get back as soon as I can.”

Valdez looked between Hatch and Jasper. “If Simmons said not to delay . . .” He trailed off, but his point was made. The two of them might work for Randall, but everyone knew Simmons was the one in charge in Indigo.

Hatched huffed. “Fine. Looks like I’m outvoted.”

Slip Casey poked his head out of the stage window. “Do I get a vote?”

On that, their answer was unanimous. “No.”