Dust moved between them.
Cal’s hand hung naturally at his side.
Not near his revolver.
Not far from it.
“You’re not Rand.”
“No.”
“Good.”
Cal’s voice remained calm.
“He made it too easy.”
Something changed in the man’s face.
Not anger.
Interest.
Behind him, one of the riders began moving toward the barn.
Trying to open an angle.
His horse crossed the dry wash.
Then struck the wire.
The animal jerked backward violently.
Its front legs lifted.
The rider nearly fell.
Another horse panicked.
The line broke.
And Clara fired.
The rifle cracked.
The bullet struck the ground directly in front of another horse.
The animal froze.
“Next one goes through bone.”
Clara’s voice crossed the yard.
Flat.
Certain.
Nobody doubted her.
The man in the center looked toward Cal.
“Interesting.”
“You can still ride away.”
The man considered it.
Then his hand moved.
Fast.
Cal was faster.
His revolver cleared leather.
One shot.
The man’s hand snapped backward.
His weapon fell into the dust.
Silence.
Again.
The riders did not freeze from surprise.
This time they froze from understanding.
Cal holstered his revolver.
“Ride out.”
Nobody argued.
One by one, the men turned their horses.
The injured leader stared at Cal.
His eyes were full of pain.
And something more dangerous.
Memory.
He was memorizing Cal.
Cal understood that.
He would tell his employer.
He would describe the stranger.
The speed.
The calm.
The way he had shot hands instead of hearts.
Dead men carried no warnings.
Living men carried stories.
When the last rider disappeared, Cal stood still.
Listening.
Only when the final echo of hooves disappeared did he lower his shoulders.
The cellar door creaked open.
Clara stepped out.
“You knew they’d split.”
“I hoped they would.”
She looked toward the wire.
“That wire saved time.”
Cal nodded.
“Time is all we needed.”
Clara studied him.
“You didn’t kill him.”
“No.”
“Why?”
Cal looked toward the empty horizon.
“Dead men don’t carry messages.”
Clara understood.
“They’ll tell him.”
“They will.”
“And he won’t stop.”
Cal looked toward the south.
“No.”
The quiet returned.
But it was different now.
Heavier.
Clara rested the Winchester against her shoulder.
“So what happens next?”
Cal did not answer immediately.
He watched the horizon.
Then said:
“Next, we make sure he runs out of places to stand.”
The Ghost Named Garrett Pruitt
That night, Clara finally asked Cal the question she had been avoiding.
They sat on the porch after sunset.
A lantern burned between them.
The open land stretched beneath a sky full of stars.
“Who are you?”
Cal looked at the darkness.
“You know my name.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
For a while, he said nothing.
Then he removed his hat.
His hair was dark, touched with gray near the temples.
“You ever hear of Garrett Pruitt?”
Clara frowned.
“Everyone in Haskell County has.”
Pruitt was a name people said carefully.
He owned cattle operations across two territories.
Rail interests.
Land companies.
Banks.
He was never officially accused of stealing anything.
He simply had a habit of buying property from people who suddenly had nowhere else to go.
“My father hated him,” Clara said.
“Your father was right.”
Cal leaned forward.
“Pruitt doesn’t want your ranch.”
Clara stared at him.
“Then why are his men here?”
“Because he wants what’s under it.”
Clara looked toward the spring.
The water moved quietly in the darkness.
“The spring?”
Cal nodded.
“There’s a proposed rail expansion south of here.”
Clara knew about the rumors.
“Water for construction.”
“And cattle.”
Cal continued.
“Pruitt wants to control every dependable water source within fifty miles.”