Chapter One

      Arizona Territory, 1878

      John Wolfe had been dreading this day for two years. No matter how many ways he turned it around in his mind, feelings of guilt and betrayal twisted in his gut like a shot of bad whiskey. He tried to ignore those tormenting emotions while he lay sprawled on a slab of rock, slithering forward like a snake so he could peer over the ledge. But the moment he saw his adopted Apache brother kneeling below him, sipping water from the trickling spring, another wave of guilt and betrayal buffeted him.

      When a man was forced to turn against one of his own it made him feel like the worst kind of traitor.

      Silently, John unholstered his Colt, then took Raven’s measure down the sight. Dead or alive, John’s commander had told him. Made no nevermind to Jacob Shore. But it mattered to John Wolfe. It mattered a helluva lot. When a man had a foot planted in each of two contrasting civilizations, walking that fine line and trying to pretend indifference was pure hell.

      John had taught himself not to feel, not to react and not to care that he was as white as he was Apache. Yet seeing Raven in the valley below was like tearing open a wound that had never really healed, no matter how much he tried to pretend it had.

      Well, he was here to do a job, distasteful though it was, and he’d better get at it.

      “Don’t move,” John commanded in the Apache dialect.

      Raven froze, his cupped hand halfway to his mouth. Water trickled between his fingertips and ran down his bronzed arm. The Apache raised his eyes and squinted into the bright light of sunset to locate John on the outcropping of stone above him.

      John knew the exact instant Raven recognized him. Tension sizzled in the evening breeze like lightning. Slowly, Raven rose from his crouch, his body taut, his expression rife with loathing.

      “So the white-eyes sent you for me, did they, Brother?” Raven spat derisively. “Ah, but who else could they have sent? Who else knows the Apache’s mind and the Apache’s way better than an Apache turncoat?”

      Raven’s words were like an embedded knife twisting in John’s spine. Willfully, he ignored Raven’s mutinous glower and hateful words. He kept the Colt trained on Raven’s heart, wondering if this renegade still had one left after all the crimes he’d committed these past two years.

      With an economy of movement that was ingrained and practiced, John contorted his body until he was sitting upright, his