Hate him because he had been right.

He stood beside Forch’s corpse and closed one hand around the bullet casing, resting his other on the head of the trembling child.

“I will find my own way,” he whispered.

TWENTY-EIGHT YEARS LATER

The hideout door slammed against the other wall, shedding a burst of dust. A wall of mist fell in around the man who had kicked it open, outlining his silhouette: a mistcoat, tassels flaring from motion, a combat shotgun held up to the side.

“Fire!” Migs cried.

The lads unloaded. Eight men, armed to their teeth, fired at the shadowy figure from behind their barricade inside the old pub. Bullets swarmed like insects, but parted around this man in the long coat. They pelted the wall, drilling holes in the door and splintering the doorframe. They cut trails through the encroaching mist, but the lawman, all black in the gloom, didn’t so much as flinch.

Migs fired shot after shot, despairing. He emptied one pistol, then a second, then shouldered his rifle and fired as quickly as he could cock it. How had they gotten here? Rusts, how had this happened? It wasn’t supposed to have gone like this.

“It’s useless!” one of the lads cried. “He’s gonna kill us all, Migs!”

“Why’re you just standin’ there?” Migs shouted at the lawman. “Be at it already!” He fired twice more. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Maybe he’s distracting us,” one of the lads said, “so his pal can sneak up behind us.”

“Hey, that’s…” Migs hesitated, looking toward the one who had spoken. Round face. Simple, round coachman’s hat, like a bowler, but flatter on top. Who was that man again? He counted his crew.

Nine?

The lad next to Migs smiled, tipped his hat, then decked him in the face.

It was over blurringly quick. The fellow in the coachman’s cap laid out Slink and Guillian in an eyeblink. Then suddenly he was closer to the two on the far side, slapping them down with a pair of dueling canes. As Migs turned—fumbling for the gun he’d dropped—the lawman leaped over the barricade with tassels flying and kicked Drawers in the chin. The lawman spun, leveling his shotgun at the men on the other side.

They dropped their guns. Migs knelt, sweating, beside an overturned table. He waited for the gunshots.

They didn’t come.

“Ready for you, Captain!” the lawman shouted. A pile of constables rushed through the doorway, disturbing the mists. Outside, morning light was starting to dispel those anyway. Rusts. Had they really holed up in here all night?

The lawman swung his gun down toward Migs. “You might want to drop that gun, friend,” he said in a conversational tone.

Migs hesitated. “Just shoot me, lawman. I’m in too deep.”

“You shot two constables,” the man said, finger on the trigger. “But they’ll live, son. You won’t hang, if I have my way. Drop the gun.”

They’d called those same words before, from outside. This time, Migs found himself believing them. “Why?” he asked. “You coulda killed us all without breaking a sweat. Why?”