The farther he traveled, the more the wind picked up and the smoke thickened, like fog settling over the evergreens. As he reached a high point with boulders towering from the earth, he reined in, took out his spyglass, and studied the land surrounding Windy Peak for any motion or color that would indicate Ivy’s presence. From a distance, one of the rock formations wound upward from the bottom of a ravine, curving back and forth. Jericho guessed it could suffice for a snake.

Was that the spot Hance was seeking? Maybe they’d already discovered it. At the very least, Jericho needed to ride closer and scour the area.

Something in his peripheral vision caught his attention. He shifted his spyglass, and his stomach bottomed out. In the middle of thick clouds just to the north, red billowed above the treetops.

Fire. A swath of flames raged through the forest, the high winds fanning and causing them to jump from one tree to the next faster than he’d ever seen fire move. He didn’t know if these flames were a part of the larger area that had been burning over the past couple of weeks or if this was a new fire altogether. But what he did know was that it was moving rapidly toward Windy Peak. If Ivy was anywhere nearby, she would soon be in grave danger.

Desperation clogged his airways. He had to find her. And fast.

Chapter
17

Smoke stung Ivy’s eyes. But she blinked and attempted to focus. “We should be close now.” Her voice came out scratchy after breathing in the smoke-laden air for the past hour of searching.

The high walls of the red-brown granite shielded them from the intensity of the wind but couldn’t protect them from the smoke. Both Hance and Otis coughed into the neckerchiefs they’d raised over their mouths and noses.

“Maybe we should head back,” Otis called from a dozen paces down the rocky mountainside. Laboring to breathe, the stout man had stopped and was studying the sky, now obscured by gray mounds of smoke that contained an edge of dark fury, like thunderheads before a storm.

Upon reaching the rocky slopes, they’d left their horses behind since the route was too treacherous, and they’d continued by foot, the sparse, dry brush providing holds that allowed them to make the climb.

Ivy peered up the steep incline through the haze. The summit was within sight. “We’ve come this far—we can’t quit now.”

Lines of perspiration made trails through the grit on Hance’s forehead, and his spectacles slid down his nose. “The smoke seems to be getting worse.”