But he also had the feeling if he left Otis, somehow the man would figure out a way to go back for the gold and disappear forever. Then all the efforts Jericho had made over the past weeks would be for nothing. He’d lose Otis and lose the Department of Justice contract for Pinkerton.

“I’ll carry Ivy,” he said. “But you have to stay with me. I can’t leave you here by yourself.”

“If you tie me up, I won’t be able to get away.”

“Come on. Let’s go.” Jericho reached out and hefted Otis back to his feet. The man swayed and braced himself against the tree. Otis appeared genuinely sick and tired and weak. But that’s what a good con man could do. Fool everyone around him into pitying him.

At a shout from down the wagon path, Jericho’s pulse skipped. Someone was near, hopefully someone who could assist him.

“We need help!” Jericho called and waved his hands in the direction of the lower elevation.

Another shout came in reply. But Jericho couldn’t distinguish the words, and with the aspen and pine blocking his view, he wasn’t able to get a view of the newcomer. He hoped help was coming, but he took out his gun and readied it, just in case.

Seconds later, several riders came into view on the path below, and they were galloping hard and kicking up dust. Three muscular men who held themselves with confidence and determination.

Jericho would have recognized them anywhere. The McQuaid brothers: Wyatt, Flynn, and Brody.

“Hey!” Jericho called out, fighting back the strange need to weep with relief.

Brody was at the forefront and urged his mount faster over the gravelly rocks. Slightly bulkier than his brothers, Brody had the same dark hair and eyes as Wyatt and Ivy. Even if he resembled them in appearance, he was much quieter, almost brooding.

Brody must have returned from the Front Range over the past couple of days after Jericho started staying in town. As the burly man climbed the last bend of the road, his dark gaze swept over Ivy and halted on the knife in her chest. He charged the last of the distance and hardly gave his horse the chance to stop before he was sliding off and kneeling at Ivy’s side, his fingers on the pulse in her neck. “What happened?”

Jericho hesitated. How much should he reveal? “She got in the middle of my fight with a band of outlaws.”

Brody’s gaze flicked to Otis standing in the shadows of the darkening forest before returning to the wound. He carefully peeled back the section of her bodice so he could get a better view of the puncture. At the sight of the flaming skin and blood, his brows furrowed into a scowl—the typical anger Brody had always worn.