A cowboy is unexpectedly chosen as a husband by a Native girl, but his dark secret is slowly revealed.

"I don't have sympathies for murderers and thieves, no matter what color coat they wear," Ethan replied softly.

The courier’s face darkened with instantaneous fury. "You son of a bitch—"

The young gunfighter moved with impressive speed, his hand clearing leather in a blur of polished nickel and ivory. But Ethan had not spent twelve years handling wild cattle and dodging knife-thrusts in railhead dives to be bested by an arrogant border tough.

Before the courier’s revolver could level, Ethan stepped forward, his left hand shooting out like a striking serpent, catching the cylinder of the Smith & Wesson and clamping down with all the crushing strength of a working drover's hand. With his right fist, Ethan drove a devastating, short-range blow straight into the courier’s jaw.

The impact sounded like a hammer striking a pine board.

The young gunman’s head snapped back violently. His eyes rolled into his head, his knees turned to water, and he crashed onto the floorboards, taking the rickety table, the mutton bones, and the whiskey bottle down with him in a splintering roar.

Behind the bar, Silas Croggins reached frantically for his ten-gauge shotgun.

"Don't do it, Silas," Ethan said coldly, not even looking back as his own Colt cleared leather with a smooth, terrifying whisper, the muzzle resting steadily against the center of the old Confederate’s forehead. "You pull that hammer back, and you won't live to see the smoke clear."

Croggins froze, his hands trembling violently on the wooden fore-end of the shotgun. "Lord Almighty, mister... don't shoot! I don't care about Vance or his papers! Take whatever you want!"

"Drop the scattergun on the floor," Ethan ordered.

Croggins obeyed instantly, letting the heavy weapon clatter to the dirt floor behind the bar.

Ethan kept his Colt trained on the terrified stationkeeper while he knelt beside the unconscious courier. He quickly checked the man’s pockets, finding a thick roll of greenbacks, a gold pocket watch, and a heavy brass ring holding three keys. He pocketed the keys, stepped over the sprawled body, and kicked open the back door leading to the corral.

Outside, the twilight had deepened into a rich, dark indigo.

Ethan rushed to the courier’s blood-bay horse, inserted the smallest brass key into the padlock of the leather dispatch case, and popped it open. Inside was a thick packet of parchment documents, sealed with red territorial wax, alongside a leather-bound ledger containing names, dates, amounts of gold transferred, and official cavalry requisition numbers signed by the territorial governor himself.

"Ethan!" a voice whispered urgently from the shadows of the corral fence.

Ayana slipped through the wooden rails like a ghost, her short ash bow held ready in her hands, her eyes wide as she saw the leather documents in his grasp.

"We have it," Ethan said, his chest heaving as he stuffed the papers into his canvas saddlebag and swung onto Dutch’s back. "Every corrupt deed, every bribe, and the exact date the soldiers are marching."

A sudden gunshot cracked from the darkness behind the station house. A rifle bullet whistled through the corral rails, kicking up a shower of dry splinters three inches from Ethan’s shoulder.

"Get on your horse!" Ethan roared, spurring Dutch into a full gallop. "The stage is coming down the road, and Vance’s outriders are with it!"

The crack of rifle fire shattered the cool desert dusk.

A high-velocity slug struck the heavy pine corner-post of the corral, gouging out a palm-sized chunk of splintered wood that stung Ethan’s cheek like a swarm of hornets. Across the flats to the southwest, the yellow headlamps of the oncoming six-horse Concord stagecoach cut through the rising darkness, accompanied by the thunder of hooves and the harsh, unmistakable shouts of outriders riding hard to investigate the disturbance.

"Ride!" Ethan shouted, wheeling Dutch around so violently that the gray gelding’s iron shoes kicked up a rooster-tail of alkali dust.

Ayana did not hesitate. Vaulting onto her spotted Apache pony without touching stirrup or horn, she dug her heels into the animal’s flanks. The pony surged forward like an arrow released from a bent ash bough, matching Dutch stride for stride as they cleared the open station yard and plunged into the shadowed mouth of the dry wash leading eastward toward the jagged hills.

Behind them, three mounted gunmen broke from the stage road, their figures silhouetted against the lantern light of the station. They wore long canvas dusters and flat-brimmed slouch hats, firing repeating Winchesters from the saddle. Muzzle flashes blossomed in the dark like crimson fireflies, the flat crack-crack-crack of .44-40 cartridges reverberating between the gravel banks of the wash.