Against the black felt, the chalky line from dried sweat was all too visible and encrusted along the brim with dust, grease, and mud spots. The center was dented where a heifer had recently trampled it. And the hatband of braided horsehair hung loose.

Even if his hat wasn’t pretty, it was still his pride and joy. And he wouldn’t stand for anyone knocking it from his head.

With a jab backward, Wyatt elbowed Brawley’s stomach, forcing the man to double over. With the pressure gone, Wyatt spun, latched on to Brawley’s gun arm, and slammed it down hard against his knee, giving Brawley little choice but to release the revolver.

The weapon flew several feet, landing in the gravel, far enough away that Brawley couldn’t easily reach it.

“This here is a free country.” Wyatt swiped up his hat and situated it on his head. Although the sun was on its evening hike down to Sheep and Horseshoe Mountains, the rays were still strong and hot. “The miners can sell their oxen to anyone in the blazes they want to.”

Nursing his stomach, Brawley straightened. A black patch covered a missing eye but couldn’t hide the thin, white scars scattered across his cheek—wounds he’d gotten fighting Indians. “Me and my men were here in South Park first.”

That was debatable. Wyatt had arrived in the summer of 1860 and tried gold mining like thousands of other prospectors. After scraping by and managing to pan only enough nuggets and gold dust to fill his pockets, he’d tried his luck at something different—ranching.

With the passing of the Homestead Act earlier in the year, he’d been one of the first to file an application and pay the registration fee at the land office in Denver. He’d gotten himself the one hundred sixty acres allowed under President Lincoln’s new legislation fair and square.

His pasturelands spread out to the southeast of Fairplay. Wyatt had spent the spring and summer laboring from sunup to sundown, building a house and a barn on his claim. He and Judd had buckled down and made the place livable for both man and beast. And over recent weeks, he’d started adding more steers to his small herd.

And now, Roper Brawley was determined to keep him from succeeding.

Brawley crossed his arms and nodded at several cowhands loitering outside Cabinet Billiard Hall. At their boss’s signal, they sauntered toward Wyatt, their spurs jangling, their hands resting on the handles of their six-shooters tucked into their holsters.

Wyatt made eye contact with Judd, who stood next to the livery guarding the two bone-thin steers Wyatt had just purchased. The white-haired man limped forward too. He didn’t reach for his Colts—didn’t have to. Judd was the fastest gunslinger in the Rockies. He could shoot iron quicker than the twitch of a cow’s tail.