The days blurred into each other like brushstrokes on an old painting — quiet, dusty, a little worn around the edges. Jobs came and went: a stagecoach robbed, a crooked sheriff relieved of his "emergency fund," a railway car emptied under moonlight. Nothing bloody. Nothing wild.
And in the in-between, something started to settle in my chest.
Not fear.
Not guilt.
Something like belonging.
Hosea took me riding more often. Said it was good for a young man to "feel the land under him, not just the mud on his boots." He talked more, too — about old jobs, old regrets, men he trusted and men he'd buried.
One morning, he took me east of Grayridge, through a stretch of green hills and tall trees that seemed to hum with life.
"I want you to meet someone," he said, tugging his reins.
"Who?"
"You'll see."
We rode to a small homestead nestled under the shade of a bluff. Two goats wandered near the porch. A few chickens pecked in the dirt.
That's when I met Betsy.
She stood in the doorway with her hands on her hips, wiping flour on her apron, and gave Hosea a look that said she wasn't impressed with his timing.
"Took you long enough," she muttered.
Then she saw me, and her eyes softened. "You must be the boy."
"Wyatt," I said, trying not to sound nervous.
She gave me a once-over. "Hmph. Well, he doesn't look like a fool. That's promising."
I liked her instantly.
They fed me cornbread and beans, poured me black coffee so strong it made my spine twitch. Hosea sat beside her on the porch like a man who forgot for a second that he was an outlaw.
"You ever think about staying here for good?" I asked him, after Betsy went inside.
Hosea chuckled. "Every damn day."
"So why don't you?"
His smile faded a little. "Because Dutch needs me. And the boys. Because sometimes, you gotta give up something peaceful to try and build something bigger."
I didn't know what to say to that.
But the words stuck.
After that, I visited often. Sometimes alone. Sometimes after a job. Betsy showed me how to fix a busted shirt cuff, how to salt meat right. Hosea told stories by the fire, stories about Dutch when he was just a scrappy dreamer, and Arthur when he was still too stubborn to speak more than five words at a time.
They started to feel like family.
Not like the one I lost.
But like one I could choose.
The jobs continued. We robbed a riverboat off a gambling ring that had been fleecing coal workers. Arthur and I snuck through the dark with nothing but knives and whispers. Hosea had us rig the boat with oil to fake a fire. No one got hurt. Dutch called it "performance art."
And afterward, we shared the take with a burned-out mining camp on the ridge. Gave them coin. Tools. Food.
The look on those people's faces…
That made the rest of it make sense.
But what stuck with me more was what came after.
Dutch was drunk and talking big about a future in the west, about a place with no walls and no law and no debts.
I watched Arthur listening — half-believing.
And I watched Hosea — not speaking.
Just watching Dutch, like a man trying to figure out when the tide was going to turn.
And I realized something I hadn't let myself think before:
This wasn't just a gang. It was a fire waiting to spread.
Dutch had a vision.
Hosea had caution.
And Arthur? Arthur had his fists and his heart, both bruised from where they'd been dragged.
But none of them had a map to get out alive.
That night, as I lay in my bedroll under the stars, I made a decision I hadn't dared to make before.
I wanted to stay.
Not just survive.
Not just tag along.
I wanted to be part of this — whatever this was — and maybe, if I stayed close enough, if I was smart enough, I could change something.
Redirect the fire before it burned too much.
Warn them.
Save them.
I didn't know how. Not yet.
But I would learn.
Because I was Wyatt Boone now.
And this was my family.