The sun beat down on Roan Maverick, a hammer on an anvil. His horse, Dust Devil, kicked up clouds of fine red powder with every step. The land stretched out, wide and empty, under a sky that was too big to hold. Cacti stood like silent sentinels, their shadows short and sharp. Water was scarce, and the heat made the air dance above the rocks. Roan’s face was tanned and lined, his eyes sharp from years spent watching the horizon. He was a man who asked for little and gave even less, but he held to a hard-won code of his own.
He topped a low rise and saw it: a small homestead, nestled beside a dry creek bed. But something was wrong. The gate hung loose on one hinge, and the small cabin’s door was broken inward. A lone, black plume of smoke drifted lazily from a pile of ashes near the well. Roan felt a familiar tightening in his gut. He spurred Dust Devil forward.
The scene at the cabin was stark. A wagon was overturned, its wheels pointing uselessly to the sky. Crates lay smashed, their contents scattered and broken. There was a rough, new grave with a simple wooden cross. A name, faded by a recent hand, was scratched into the wood: “Eliza May.” Roan dismounted, his boots crunching on broken glass. He saw tracks: many horses, moving fast, heading east. Boot prints of men, not women or children. This was no accident. This was the work of raiders, mean-spirited men who took what they wanted and left only ruin.
Roan stood for a long moment, his gaze sweeping the devastation. He knew no one here, but the sight of such injustice struck deep. He took a long drink from his canteen, then filled it again from the homestead’s trickling well – a small mercy the raiders had missed. He checked Dust Devil’s shoes, tightened the saddle cinch. The tracks were clear enough for now.
He rode east, the sun already beginning its slow dip towards the western mountains. The heat did not lessen. Roan thought of the woman in the grave, of what must have happened. Anger, slow and steady like a prairie fire, began to burn in him. He pushed Dust Devil harder.
Days turned into a blur of dust and endless miles. The trail led through a maze of canyons, then across a wide, flat plain. Roan ate dried jerky and drank sparingly. His water ran low, and the sun seemed to drain the strength from his bones. But the tracks of the raiders, led by a man known only as Jeb Kincaid, kept him going. Kincaid was a shadow Roan had heard whispers of before, a man whose word was only as good as his gun.
He found them on the third evening, camped in a hidden ravine. Three men, around a small fire, eating what looked like stolen canned goods. One was a big man, his laugh loud and crude. That would be Kincaid. Roan dismounted silently a quarter-mile away, tying Dust Devil to a scrub oak. He moved like a ghost through the twilight, his rifle held ready.
He stepped into the camp circle, his voice cutting through the night. “Evening, gentlemen.”
The three men froze. Kincaid’s hand went for his pistol, but Roan was faster. His rifle was already aimed at Kincaid’s chest. “Don’t,” Roan said, his voice flat. “That woman back at the homestead. Eliza May. You put her in the ground.”
Kincaid scowled. “What’s it to you, stranger?”
“Justice,” Roan replied. “Now, drop your weapons. All of you.”
The other two men looked at Kincaid, fear in their eyes. Kincaid cursed, but the cold certainty in Roan’s eyes made him slowly unbuckle his gun belt. His two companions quickly followed suit.
Roan made them empty their pockets, finding a few silver coins and a small locket, undoubtedly Eliza May’s. He told them, “You ride out of here, leave your horses and supplies. Walk back to wherever you came from. If I ever see your faces in these parts again, I won’t be so generous.”
They grumbled, but Roan’s gaze was unwavering. They stood up, defeated, and walked away into the darkness, leaving their horses, their guns, and their plunder. Roan collected the stolen items, planning to leave them where someone might find them and return them to the right hands. He put the locket in his own pocket, a promise to ensure it found its way home.
He mounted Dust Devil again. The moon was high now, casting long, strange shadows. The air was cooler, but the vastness of the land remained, silent and indifferent. Roan Maverick rode west, a lone figure under the indifferent stars, his own kind of order restored.
The End