The sudden crackling sound brought Annie Wells to a complete stop. Dust swirled, coating her ragged tennis shoes as she turned to scan the rocky trail she’d just traveled, searching for the source of the noise. It had sounded like the unforgiving lash of a bullwhip. How many men could there be who used such a whip as a weapon? Only one whom she knew of. Sweat trickled down her forehead and into her eyes, stinging them. Her senses sharpened almost to the point of pain as she watched and listened. All she could see for miles was bone-white Wyoming badlands, cobalt sky, and the golden powder stirred up by the buzzards’ flight. All she could hear was the crack of the whip ricocheting eerily off the canyon walls. Annie waited, hardly daring to breathe, until the landscape grew still again. She’d been walking for miles, ever since the Greyhound bus let her off in Painted Pony, the closest town to the foothills where she was headed. The punishing journey had seemed endless, but now the parched, quivering air held a promise of something about to happen.
