The smell of iron and oil clung to the morning air like a second skin. Down by the rail depot, where the dust didn't settle for long, a wagon sat half-loaded—pelts bundled tight, the hides still slick with yesterday's sweat and blood.
Reid Maddox leaned against the post outside the livery stable, arms folded, watching the transaction with quiet intent. The man doing business was lean and scarred, sinew and rage beneath a battered coat. He had the kind of presence that bent the wind. No one in Edgewater spoke to him unless spoken to first.
Jase Murdock.
A name Maddox hadn't heard in years. A name he'd never forgotten.
"You plan to take that haul south?" the trader asked, his hands shaking as he folded canvas over the load. "I wouldn't advise it. Cavalry's been patrolling hard lately—general's orders. No hunting across the treaty line."
Murdock grinned, dry as a sun-baked creek. "I do a lot of things you wouldn't advise."
His young skinner—barely more than a boy—silently loaded the last bundle and tied it down. He didn't flinch when Murdock brushed past, knife dangling loose in his hand. The blade caught the sun like a glinting threat.
"You worry too much," Murdock muttered, his voice low and rough like gravel in the throat. "Long as I breathe, I'll hunt where I please. Law or not."
That's when he saw Maddox.
Their eyes met across the square, tension sharp as wire. The years hadn't dulled it. If anything, the old hate had calcified into something heavier.
"You again," Murdock said, stalking forward like a wolf from the tree line. "Like the last time. You come to finish it?"
Maddox stood straight, thumbs brushing the edges of his gunbelt. "This time's different. I've got a badge."
Murdock's smile curdled. "That piece of tin won't stop a man from bleeding."
"You cross the line into treaty lands, and it might be your blood in the dust, not buffalo."
Behind Maddox, townsfolk pretended not to listen—heads ducked, shoulders turned. But their ears stayed open. Everyone remembered Murdock from the old days. The man who called himself the Long Arm, who left Edgewater in a blaze of gunfire and whiskey brawls.
"Marshal Maddox," came a voice soft and low.
Kit Vance stepped out of the saloon doorway, her dress a splash of crimson in the drab morning. She didn't smile. "He's trouble, Reid."
"I know," Maddox said, still watching Murdock's back as he disappeared down the road. "Always was."
Maddox found the boy later, alone in the brush where the wagons camped. He was skinning a deer with precision that came from hardship, not training.
"You've got talent," Maddox said, crouching near. "But no name."
The boy didn't look up. "He calls me Injun."
"And when he's angry?"
"Dog Eater."
Maddox frowned. "What do your people call you?"
A long pause, then: "Golden Calf."
"Blackfoot?"
The boy nodded. The cuts on his arms, fresh and bleeding, marked mourning. Maddox knew the rite. The boy had lost someone—father, maybe a brother.
"You staying with him?" Maddox asked. "Even knowing where he's headed?"
"I go where he goes."
"He's not the man he used to be," Maddox said. "Once, maybe, he had good medicine. But now… he's just killing for pride."
The boy looked at him, dark eyes heavy with something unreadable.
"You've seen it too," Maddox said. "But you're still with him."
"He was good medicine," the boy said quietly. "Once."
Back in town, Maddox confronted Ross, the man financing Murdock's hunt. "Where's he going?" the marshal asked.
Ross played dumb, but sweat gave him away. "All I know is I get hides. He gets coin. Ain't no law against business."
"There is if he goes south," Maddox said. "Those buffalo herds down there? They're all the people have left."
Ross shrugged. "Maybe. But I don't ask where he hunts."
Maddox's eyes narrowed. "Well, I do. And if he crosses that line, I'll come for him myself."
That night, Maddox sat outside the jailhouse, watching the stars inch across the sky. The memories pressed in—years ago, when he'd been young and green, barely out of Missouri. Murdock and his men had beaten him half to death for interfering with their "sport." He'd woken up bloodied and broken by the river.
He hadn't forgotten.
Kit joined him on the steps. "You sure about this?" she asked.
"I'm sure."
"Then be careful," she said, squeezing his hand.
Dawn broke hot and still. Caleb Rowe rode in from the ridge, dust on his boots.
"Murdock's gone," the deputy said. "Took off just before sun-up. South, by the looks of it."
Maddox buckled on his gunbelt. "Then I ride too."
"You can tell the mayor, maybe let the cavalry—"
"No," Maddox said, mounting up. "This one's mine."
He found them three days later, deep in treaty land, smoke rising from a distant fire. The ground was stained with blood, pelts scattered in heaps, the smell of rot thick in the air.
Golden Calf was waiting.
Murdock lay crumpled on the ridge, a smoking rifle beside him, chest blown open by his own medicine.
"He was fast," the boy said quietly. "But not fast enough."
"You shot him?"
Golden Calf nodded. "He wasn't good medicine anymore."
Maddox holstered his pistol. "He was your kin?"
"My father," the boy said.
Maddox looked away, then back. "You did what needed doing. But now I've got to do my part."
Golden Calf raised his chin. "Will you jail me?"
"I'll take you in. But I don't reckon anyone will blame you."
The boy stepped forward, standing beside Maddox as the wind swept across the ridge.
"I'll ride with you, Marshal."
"Good," Maddox said. "Let's go."