Grady Hart: The Business with Defiance (Episode 4, Part 5)

I don’t look back at San Antonio. There’s nothing for me there but dust and shadows. Grady, Sam, and I push south, the big nameless mare I’m riding keeping pace and rhythm with Sam’s horse and Grady’s stallion, Crow. We sold the other horses we took from the bank robbers while we were in San Antonio. The quiet stretches between us, broken only by the crunch of gravel under hoof. Grady’s face is the same as ever, all stone and silence, and Sam’s got that glint in his eye like he’s waiting for the next thing to jump out and surprise us. Neither one knows yet if they can trust me, and I’m not about to make it easy on them. I’m not sure I can trust them, either.

We ride for hours. Grady’s got a saddlebag full of cash from the robbers—the men who had kidnapped me and tied me to that damn tree—but he doesn’t know how much it matters to me. I could take it, leave these two behind, and start fresh someplace where nobody knows me. But I stay. I don’t know why—maybe it’s the pull of what Grady’s got planned down in Laredo. Maybe it’s the way he looks at me, like he’s trying to figure out what I’m hiding. Like he knows I’ve got a fire I haven’t let loose yet. And he’s right. I have some business to take care of, but that’s my business. None of his.