The silver bars weighed heavy in the wagon as Eli Dawson guided the team toward Carson City. Beside him, Lena Reyes kept one hand on her rifle and the other on the ledger book where she'd tallied every ounce of Bell's cursed fortune. Behind them, Holloway snored against a crate, his hat tipped low over his eyes.
They'd left Silver Ridge at dawn, the townsfolk waving handkerchiefs and calling blessings after them. The mining company's lawyers would fight, of course, but the U.S. Marshal's seal on their cargo meant this silver would finally do some good—schools instead of saloons, medicine instead of bullets.
Eli adjusted the sheriff's star on his chest. It still felt strange there.
Lena caught the motion. "Having second thoughts?"
"Just wondering what comes next," he admitted.
The answer came around the next bend.
---
### **THE AMBUSH**
The first bullet took the lead horse between the eyes.
Eli barely had time to shout before the canyon erupted in gunfire. He yanked Lena down as splinters exploded from the wagon bed. Holloway came awake like an old wolf, shotgun already barking at the shadows in the rocks above.
"Bandits?" Lena shouted over the gunfire.
Eli peered through the smoke. "Worse."
The attackers wore remnants of Silver Star colors—Bell's loyalists, desperate enough to try for one last score. At the canyon's mouth, a familiar figure sat astride a blood bay horse.
Cade Varro.
The foreman's face was half-ruined from Eli's bullet, his arm in a sling, but his remaining eye burned with hate. He raised his pistol—
***CRACK!***
Varro's head snapped back. He toppled from the saddle.
Eli turned.
Lena lowered her smoking Winchester. "Told you I'd get him first."
---
### **THE LAST RIDE**
The fight ended as suddenly as it began. The surviving raiders fled into the badlands, leaving their dead behind.
Holloway kicked a spent cartridge. "Should've known Bell's rot ran deeper than we thought."
Eli checked the wagon. One silver bar grazed by a bullet, but otherwise intact. He looked at Varro's body in the dirt, then at the long road ahead.
Lena reloaded. "We still doing this the legal way?"
Eli touched his star. "Always."
They buried Varro in an unmarked grave. No words. No marker. Just desert wind to carry him away.
---
### **THE PROMISE KEPT**
Carson City's bank manager nearly fainted when they unloaded the silver.
"Y-you're just *giving* this to the territory?"
Holloway spat tobacco. "Ain't ours to keep."
The paperwork took hours. Signatures. Seals. Endless bureaucratic nonsense. But when they stepped back into the sunlight, something had lifted from Eli's shoulders.
Lena squeezed his hand. "Feel better, Sheriff?"
He looked down at her ink-stained fingers, at the dusty streets of a town that wasn't theirs, at the open road beyond. For the first time in years, the future wasn't a weight—it was a horizon.
"Yeah," he said. "I do."
---
### **THE FAREWELL**
Holloway met them at the livery stable, two saddled horses waiting. "Figured you'd want to ride out tonight."
Eli frowned. "You're not coming?"
The old judge grinned. "Somebody's gotta keep those marshals honest. And I ain't done drinking yet." He tossed Eli a small bundle—the sheriff's star, polished bright. "Keep it. Never know when you'll need it again."
Lena kissed Holloway's cheek. "Don't get hanged without us."
They rode out as the sun set, the desert painting itself in gold and violet. Somewhere ahead lay new towns, new stories, new trouble.
Behind them, Silver Ridge faded into legend.
And that was just fine.