Chapter Text
Chapter One:
The Cost of Business
They rode in a loose line across the bluff, angling down toward the narrow stretch of track where the rails curved through the basin like a silver scar. No trees, no shadows. Every sound carried too far.
Derek swung down without a word, boots crunching on frost-stiff dirt as he led his horse down the incline. The train was late, but they were early. Gerard’s rule: get there first, set the line, control the approach.
He tied the reins to a twisted juniper and moved toward a crag of rock above the tracks. Brett crouched there already, picking at the fuse of one of the charges. Mouth tight, hands steady. He didn’t look up when Derek came beside him.
“Fuse’s short,” Brett muttered. “Might have to move quick.”
Derek gave a short nod. Powder already burned in his throat, sharp and acrid.
Behind them, Matt clambered up with less grace, dropped into a crouch, and blew out a breath like he’d just run five miles. He shook out his hand as if it cramped.
“You ever think about what you’d do with a real cut of this haul?” he asked, not even bothering to lower his voice. “Real money. Enough to buy something solid.”
Brett didn’t glance up. “What, like a ranch?”
“A ranch, maybe. A shop. Hell, even a wife if I took leave of my senses.” Matt rubbed his jaw, grinning. “Me, I’d head south. Buy a place with real glass windows. A gate you can bolt from the inside.”
“That’d last a month,” Brett said flatly. “Two if you kept your mouth shut, which you wouldn’t.”
Matt barked a laugh. “Better than freezing my ass waiting for trains that don’t show.”
A sharp whistle split the air. They all twisted toward Donovan, down the line—one low call, then two fingers pointing east.
“Coming now,” Brett murmured.
Derek scanned the horizon. A thread of steam bled into the sky. Far enough they had minutes. Close enough that silence clamped down across the bluff.
The wind carried dust, dry grass, burning coal—a constant rasp against his face. He’d cleaned his rifle last night with meticulous care, the barrel catching dusk like a knife edge. Not superstition. Precision. Out here, on the flat Nebraska plains, that was all that stood between a man and a shallow grave.
Around him, the gang shifted restlessly. Saddles creaked. A stirrup clinked. A match scraped, a sudden, bright rasp in the quiet. Someone coughed. Derek tightened his grip, muscles coiled, gaze skimming the horizon.
Then a soft laugh drifted down the wind, sweet as sugar with a sharp edge. “Sweetheart, you’re strung tighter than a corset.”
Kate. Lounging on a flat boulder like a sun-warmed cobra, hat tipped low, one boot hooked over the other. Her revolver lay within reach, pearl grip catching the light. She’d cleaned it twice for this job—once last night, once this morning. A promise. Or a threat.
Derek's jaw flexed. He said nothing.
“You always get that look before a big job,” she drawled, lazy and cutting. “Used to call it nerves. Now? Smells like guilt.”
“Kate.” Ennis’s grunt came wet around whatever he was chewing. He spat into the dirt.
She didn’t look at him. “What? A girl can't chat with her ex?”
Nolan snorted, coat flared open, one knee pulled up. Still young enough to think this was entertainment.
Derek kept his hand loose on the rifle’s stock. He knew her game. Too long he’d given her the spark she wanted. Now he let silence open, a ravine for her words to fall into.
She let it stretch—silence pulled taut like old wire—before she said, light as ever, “You never used to be this quiet before a job.”
He didn’t look at her. Didn’t reply. God knew they’d ridden close enough, long enough, for her to know. She wasn’t asking for an answer.
Her boots crunched over frost-stiff weeds as she came closer. When she passed behind him, her hip brushed his shoulder—too pointed to be accident. She crouched on his right, fussing with her rifle strap—all noise, no purpose.
“You used to talk more,” she said. “Used to let me talk you down when you got that look.”
“What look?”
“The one that says you’d rather be anywhere else.” She plucked a brittle tuft of grass and twisted it between her fingers. “Jaw tight, like you’re chewing a bullet and trying to acquire a taste.”
Derek kept his eyes on the horizon. Smoke—thin, wavering. Could’ve been heat shimmer. Could’ve been nothing.
Kate leaned in close, breath ghosting his cheek. “Always did get cagey before a job. I used to think it meant you had a conscience.”
“You’re mistaking conscience for doubt,” Derek said.
“Same difference.” Her mouth curved; her eyes stayed flat.
He didn’t bite. Didn’t look away either.
There was history there, the kind no one named, stitched into sidelong glances and half-finished sentences. Kate stuck to him like a shadow—sometimes near, sometimes receding, but always waiting when he turned.
She rose, brushed the dust from her coat. “Try not to die before I get bored,” she said, and walked off without waiting for a reply.
Derek exhaled slow. The wind had shifted colder.
“Jesus,” Matt muttered, watching her go. “You two gonna kill each other, or—”
“Shut up,” Brett cut in.
The whistle shrieked again—louder now, closer.
Below, the train broke through the trees, steam billowing in a white plume against the gray-blue sky.
They scrambled for their mounts.
Derek swung into the saddle clean; the others followed in ragged order. Matt fumbled with his bandana, tugged it up too late, reins clumsy in one hand. Nolan was smooth as oil—mounted, poised, eyes sharp and unblinking.
Gerard stayed on foot. Never rode into the fray. Claimed it gave him the best vantage to command, but everyone knew it was about control. Rifle in the crook of his arm, he stepped to the bluff’s edge like a judge about to pass sentence.
The wind shifted, sharp and dry, stinging Derek’s eyes. He tightened his grip on the reins just as the train whistle split the air—a long, keening scream.
Then it appeared.
The black engine roared out of the gulch like a predator loosed from its den, steam boiling off its stack, wheels hammering hard enough to shake grit from the ledges above. Gerard didn’t hesitate. He lifted his rifle and cracked off two shots—sharp, precise. The signal.
Derek spurred his horse forward. The gang broke behind him in a scatter of violence: Donovan and Matt driving straight for the engine, pistols already flashing. Ennis wheeled off toward the rear, hulking in his saddle, all brute silence. Kate’s laugh knifed through the din as she cut for the passenger cars, wild and bright as shattered glass. Nolan drifted to the flank, rifle unslung, jaw set in a hard line.
Derek hunched low in the saddle, wind burning his face, the horse’s stride pounding through his bones. He angled for the second car—the baggage hold, where the crates waited.
Brett was ahead, crouched awkward in the stirrups, still learning to ride at speed with weight on him. He jumped too early, stumbled hard, then ducked in against the siding, fuse and charge in his fists.
“Lower,” Derek barked.
Brett adjusted without a word, jaw tight, sweat already slicking his temple despite the cold. Flint struck, spark hissed.
“Clear!”
Derek hauled his horse back just as the blast ripped the car open. Heat slapped his face. Metal shrieked. Wood and steel blew apart in a choking storm of smoke and splinters.
He was moving before the echo died.
He hit the floorboards in a roll, came up in a crouch. The air was thick with grit and burning powder, choking his lungs, bitter on his tongue. Heat pressed close, suffocating. Shapes loomed through the haze—crates, stenciled with the rail line’s mark, stacked like a barricade.
A guard lay sprawled by the doorway, limp, face blackened from the blast. Another crouched deeper inside, revolver lifted, eyes wide with shock and pain. He couldn’t see Derek. He was aiming at Brett, just ducking through the gap.
Derek fired first.
The bullet cracked through the smoke, sharp as a whip. The guard dropped, body folding awkwardly before sprawling across the planks. His revolver spun free, metal clattering until it came to rest at Brett’s boot. Brett flinched back. Just for a second—just enough to see the boy in him before the outlaw reasserted itself. His jaw set. He glanced at Derek, gave a short nod, and bent to the crates.
They worked fast. The first lid gave way to bundles of notes wrapped in canvas, stiff with ink and sweat. Brett’s breath hitched, just audible over the hiss of the train, but Derek didn’t linger. He pried open the second—gold bars stacked like bricks, stamped with government seals, edges dulled by grime. He lifted one, testing the heft. Too heavy. Not for the kind of flight they’d need.
The third crate cracked like a chest in a fable. Coins—thick, dull-gold eagles and half-unions. Not gleaming treasure, but real, solid wealth. Derek filled his sack in quick, deliberate sweeps. The weight grew fast, strap biting into his palm. Beside him, Brett worked quieter, hands nimble, though his eyes kept darting back—again and again—to the man cooling near the door.
Gunfire rattled from outside, muffled by walls and smoke. Someone screamed—ragged, pleading. Another voice answered with a laugh like broken glass. Kate. Always Kate, cutting joy from someone else’s fear.
Derek slung the sack high and ducked out into the blinding air. The train’s ruptured stack belched smoke that curled and smeared across the sky. Passengers shrieked down the line, a ragged tide of panic rolling car to car. His horse skittered at the racket, hooves striking sparks from the trackside gravel, but Derek caught the reins, hauled himself into the saddle in one practiced swing.
Up on the ridge, Gerard stood fixed as a statue, rifle tucked under his arm, arms folded like he was keeping time with an orchestra only he could hear. Derek hurled the first sack to him. Gerard caught it neat, one-handed, weighing it in his palm like fruit at a market stall. He didn’t check the contents—he didn’t need to. A small nod.
“Three more minutes,” Gerard called. His voice carried like a bell.
Derek wheeled back toward the breach. Smoke curled from the blasted doorway. For a beat, he held.
The guard lay where he’d fallen, chest soaked dark, revolver out of reach. One hand curled around a chain tugged free from under his collar, the wedding band at the end glinting faintly in the chaos. A life sketched in metal, stopped here in the dust.
Brett stepped over without looking down. His face was pale, but his mouth had gone hard, thin. He moved like someone refusing to trip on his own hesitation.
Derek said nothing. Words wouldn’t change it. He ducked back inside.
Matt had claimed the mailbags, grinning like a kid at a carnival, arms buried to the elbows in envelopes and small parcels. He wasn’t looking for anything in particular—just whatever rattled, glittered, or tore open with a secret inside.
Donovan lifted a blue velvet box with a flourish. “Brooch,” he announced, grin flashing white through soot. “Some poor lady’s birthday just got real disappointing.”
Matt barked a laugh and shook a fistful of stained letters like playing cards. “How about you, Hale? Need a bedtime story?”
Brett shot him a glare sharp enough to cut, but he didn’t answer.
Derek didn’t stay. He stepped back through the blasted doorway, caught his horse’s reins, and swung up smooth into the saddle. Behind him, the whistle gave a long, dying groan, like the train itself was bleeding out. Smoke curled into the sky in a thin, mournful column.
Passengers stumbled into the open: men dazed, women bloodied, faces gray with soot. A child screamed somewhere near the first car, high and panicked. A woman dropped to her knees in the dust and rocked, clutching something to her chest, her sobs torn to pieces by the wind.
Derek didn’t look back.
The sun was sliding behind the hills, light gone gold and long. Shadows stretched across the tracks, skeletal fingers grasping after the wreck.
Brett rode up alongside him, sack hugged tight against his chest, face the color of ash. His eyes cut toward Derek once, quick, searching—and then snapped away again like he couldn’t hold the look.
Nolan came next. Silent as ever. He moved through the haze like water, rifle balanced across his lap, gaze fixed ahead. No triumph. No doubt. Just inevitability.
Donovan followed with a shout, voice raw with exhilaration. Matt whistled low, loose, as if they were returning from a dance instead of riding out from a slaughter.
No one spoke of the guard.
The job was finished.
The sun bled low across the horizon by the time they left the wreck behind.
They rode hard at first, hooves hammering the ground, horses throwing up clouds of pale dust as Gerard cut them into a dried riverbed. The gulch ran northwest, bone-dry and narrow, half-choked with thorn and brush. He led them off the obvious trails, doubling back through abandoned cattle paths, carving a path only someone who knew the land by heart could find. Instinct ruled the getaway—scatter, vanish, fold into the prairie like smoke.
No Pinkertons yet. But someone would wire east. Someone always did.
Derek kept to the middle of the line—neither riding at Gerard’s shoulder nor trailing behind with the stragglers. Safe ground. Close enough to cover, far enough to avoid being mistaken for command. He didn’t look back, but his ears stayed tuned to the rhythm of the group: Nolan’s horse breathing smooth, Matt’s uneven, Donovan too loud, too proud, still giddy from blood and fire.
Brett rode close.
Neither had spoken since the baggage car. After a job, silence always fell heavy—like ash drifting slow after a fire. The rush ebbed out of your body grain by grain, leaving behind the hollow ache under your ribs. It wasn’t fear anymore, not exactly. More the aftertaste of how close death had leaned in, how easy it would’ve been to snuff you out.
For a while, only the land filled the air: a hawk’s cry high above, the leather creak of saddles, the faint clatter of rifles shifting against worn wood.
Then Brett’s voice broke it. Soft, careful. “You alright?”
Derek glanced over. “Yeah.”
“You shot that guard.”
Not an accusation. Not even surprise. Just said like he was pointing out the sky had gone dark.
“He had the drop on you,” Derek said.
Brett went quiet. Then a single nod. “Didn’t even see him.”
The wind tugged at Derek’s coat, dust bitter on his tongue. He didn’t reply.
“I’ve had closer calls,” Brett added, voice rougher now. “Still. Thanks.”
Derek grunted. Not false modesty. Just truth. He didn’t like being thanked for killing a man. Necessary or not.
Up ahead, Gerard raised a fist. The column slowed at once, dropping from a lope to a wary walk. The gulch they entered was narrow, walls steep and close, the kind of place that begged for an ambush if anyone had guessed their line of retreat.
Derek’s gaze climbed the ridges without thought, scanning every outcrop, every patch of brush where a barrel could glint. Shoulders squared, jaw locked. Habit carved into bone.
Beside him, Brett rode looser in the saddle, but his hands betrayed him—white on the reins, not fear so much as focus. His silence wasn’t blank. It was working through something.
“You ever wonder how many more of these we’ll do?” Brett asked finally.
The question hung in the cold air. Derek didn’t answer. Not with Gerard close enough to hear, not with half the gang in earshot. You didn’t speak wishes out loud in this outfit. Not more, not less, not different. Men who did ended up buried under shallow cairns, their names forgotten by morning.
Brett must’ve known it. He didn’t push. Just gave a small shrug, eyes fixed ahead. “I mean… guess we all wonder sometimes. Only natural, ain’t it?”
Derek’s reply came low, rough as gravel. “Long as Gerard says there’s another, there’ll be another.”
“Right.” Brett’s mouth twisted, though his voice stayed even. “As long as Gerard says. Right.”
There was something in it Derek couldn’t pin—no open defiance, no whine of exhaustion. Just a muted note, like grief for a version of himself that hadn’t survived the choosing.
They rode on in silence. Hooves drummed the packed earth in steady rhythm, carrying them out of the gulch and into a sky that bled red, then purple, then the black of bruises.
Camp wasn’t far. A half-burned grove marked the arroyo’s edge, skeletal trees charred to black spires by some lightning strike years back. The place always looked like a graveyard. Which, in a way, it was.
Smoke curled above the twisted branches. Theo and Corey had a fire already crackling, the air thick with the grease-salt of pork and the sharp bite of onion. It smelled almost domestic, if you ignored the rifles leaned in easy reach and the blackened husks of trees looming like headstones around them.
“You ever think about… leaving?” Brett asked suddenly, thumb rolling the brim of his hat like it was the only thing keeping his hands busy.
Derek’s head snapped toward him.
Brett kept his gaze fixed on the trail. A short, humorless laugh slipped out, brittle as dry grass. “Stupid question. You’ve been with the gang, what, half your life? Ennis said you were fourteen.”
Derek’s jaw locked. He hated when Ennis told that story—like it proved something noble, like survival was loyalty instead of desperation.
He dropped his voice, pitched low as the horses slowed near camp. “You thinking about it?”
Brett didn’t answer right away. Behind them, Matt whooped loud and reckless, spurring his horse past like silence itself was a curse. Nolan followed, that half-laugh, half-feral bark chasing after him until both vanished into the dark.
The quiet that followed was heavier.
Brett finally spoke, voice muted, almost lost to the wind. “Sometimes I think about what it’d be like. Somewhere quiet. Where no one knows my name. Start fresh. Like I just sprang clean from the earth.”
Derek glanced sidelong, but Brett’s face stayed turned away, features shadowed by the last smear of dusk.
The trail narrowed, funneling between two wind-scoured boulders. Dead branches clawed at their coats. A jackrabbit bolted from cover, spooking a horse into a sidestep, but nobody hollered. Too tired. Too worn.
The sky above was streaked in bruised purple, first pale stars cutting through.
“Don’t tell Gerard,” Brett muttered.
“I won’t.”
The smell of woodsmoke thickened, curling heavy with pork fat and onions. Campfire glow licked the blackened trees ahead, turning them into jagged silhouettes. Two figures by the fire spotted them cresting the trail and sprang up, whoops echoing sharp against the arroyo walls.
“Look what the cat dragged back!” Theo grinned, arms thrown wide. “And here I thought you’d all died somewhere east of God’s patience.”
Corey’s wave was smaller, smile softer—but just as bright. Derek couldn’t remember ever being that young, or that open.
“We were about to start a pool,” Corey said, stepping up to wrestle a saddlebag off Matt’s horse.
Matt whooped, tossing a pouch of silver with a careless flick. “Hold that for me, handsome—want it back if I survive the month.”
Theo snagged it one-handed, bowing like he’d just stolen the stage. “So what’s the verdict? Sky come down, or just a few chickens scattered?”
“We got the payroll,” Gerard barked, sliding from his horse. “And gold. Enough to keep us fed and fed well—unless some of you piss it away on card tables or perfume thicker than morals.” His eyes cut toward Derek. Held. “Anything else? Cost of business. Always is.”
Derek didn’t blink. Gerard gave a short nod, as if they’d reached agreement. “Just the cost of business,” he repeated.
Theo clapped his hands once, breaking the taut line of silence. “Then it’s a celebration. Pot’s ready. Eat fast, choke, and we’ll divvy up your share.”
Donovan whooped as he barreled past. Ennis grunted something that might’ve been approval. Saddlebags hit the dirt, boots thumped, and the camp swelled loud—laughter too quick, chatter too sharp. That was the rhythm of it: blood to food, fear to noise. Drown the echoes before they caught hold.
Derek moved slower. He passed his reins to Corey with a nod, skirting the fire instead of joining. Pork fat and onions thickened the air. The ground still radiated the day’s heat, but the night was turning cold, biting sharper with each breath.
The fire threw a low glow across the grove, shadows shifting long and restless. Some men edged close, loud and bright, while others drifted back—silent silhouettes, speaking softer now, like night had given them permission to think again.
Derek brushed the dust from his pants, shoulders curving under the day’s weight. Every joint stiff, worn. Past the horses, he spotted Brett crouched near his bedroll, half-turned from the fire. A bowl in one hand, a page in the other, angled toward the last strip of light. Not stealing a glance—reading, intent.
“You eat yet?” Derek asked.
Brett looked up quick, startled. The letter vanished against his chest by reflex. “A little. There’s still stew left, if you want.”
Derek nodded toward the page. “Mailbag poker go well?”
Brett hesitated, then shrugged. “Didn’t take it off the train. Was already mine.” He opened the paper again, smoothing creases with his thumb.
Derek watched. “You’ve been writing someone.”
For a beat, only the fire’s pop and the cough of someone in the dark. Then: “Yeah.”
Across camp, Nolan barked at something Kate said, but it sounded far away.
“Someone around here?” Derek asked.
Brett’s mouth tugged sideways, not a smile. “No. California. Put my name to one of those marriage notices. Didn’t expect an answer, but he wrote back.”
Derek raised a brow.
“I didn’t tell him who I really was,” Brett added quick, defensive. “Or about the gang. It wasn’t supposed to be serious. Just wanted to hear from someone who didn’t talk like—like we’re only worth the gold we pull or the blood we spill.”
Derek’s throat dried. “You still writing him?”
“Yeah,” Brett said softer. “He’s funny. Kind. Got opinions about train routes and plum trees and what breed of dog makes the best guard animal. Thinks I’m a day laborer.” That drew a real laugh, brief and warm. “Told him I was digging post holes halfway through the territories.”
Derek stepped closer, resting one hand on the saddle of a nearby horse. “And what’s he want?”
Brett looked up. “To marry me.”
Derek stilled.
“I thought it was a joke. Some random bastard pulling one over. But he’s real. And he’s not like us.” Brett’s thumb traced the paper’s worn edge. “Calls himself Stiles. Fool name, but… he writes like the world’s got soft edges. Says his father’s got orchards, land enough to build on.”
Derek’s gaze held. “So you are thinking about cutting out.”
“I don’t know.” Brett’s jaw worked, head shaking. “Some days I think I could. That I want to. Other days—” He broke off, the fire’s hiss filling the gap.
“Doesn’t usually end well, leaving,” Derek said at last.
Brett studied him. “But you’ve thought about it. You said as much earlier.”
Silence. The answer sat between them anyway.
Brett folded the letter with careful fingers, reverent. “He asked me to come before frost sets in. Said he’d understand if I didn’t. But that I could still write. That he’d wait.”
Derek met his eyes. “You believe him?”
Brett’s voice softened. “I want to.”
The fire popped, sharp as a pistol crack. A pot clanged, someone scraping it clean. The celebration had guttered down to coals and weary bones.
Brett tucked the letter into his coat, close against his chest. “I think I just wanted to believe somebody could want me without knowing any of this.”
Derek was still folding the words into himself when a shadow fell across the firelight. Kate stepped forward, hands on her hips, mouth tilted in amused reproach.
“If you boys ain’t planning to kiss, clear off. Bedrolls. Early start. Or do I need to tuck you in myself?” Her voice was low, edged sharp enough to slice the quiet.
Brett flushed, scrambling upright, the letter vanishing like contraband. He nodded quick and slipped past her, a pup bolting from a boot.
Kate’s gaze lingered on Derek. Smile sweet, eyes hard. “And here I thought only I got the rendezvous by lantern light.”
Heat prickled Derek’s neck. He rubbed at it, muttering, “You’re the only one who’d think to ruin a quiet moment.”
She leaned close, breath warm against his cheek. “Don’t get lost in the bushes, Derek. You never know what might find you.”
Derek’s eyes flicked away. When he looked back, Kate was already moving toward the fire, her coat tails flicking behind her like a flame caught in a breeze.
The night pressed in, thick with quiet and questions neither man dared give voice. Brett’s letters weighed heavy—hope folded in paper, fragile as glass—against the truth of the life that bound them.
For now, the fire held. Tomorrow, the road. Longer, darker, waiting.