Second Ash

     Wyatt Ashford was a man with a story, but everyone always seemed to get the details of it wrong. To some, he was a hero, and to others, an outlaw. But to Yarrow, he was just a man with a past he was trying to leave behind.

     Morning arrived as it typically did, rising over the land without hurry, like it had nowhere to be. Sunlight stretched across the prairie in long, yellow lines, catching on the fence posts and casting shadows across the low rise beyond them. The grass swayed in the soft breeze, a leisurely dance to welcome the day.

     Yarrow stood just outside the cabin, one hand resting on the porch rail, watching the spectacle. The air still held the night’s chill, but she knew it wouldn’t last long. She could feel the warmth of the sun even now, working to bake the land.

     Behind her, the cabin was quiet, filling with the aroma of the fresh coffee she had just put on to percolate. Wyatt was still asleep. She listened for a moment—just to be sure. He had never been much of a morning person, but she knew the smell of the coffee would wake him the way a rooster never could.

     Yarrow’s gaze swept across their property. The land wasn’t much, not by most standards. It might be enough to hold a few animals, if they chose. There was definitely enough space between them and anyone else. Plenty private, according to Wyatt. And they’d worked for it, damn it. Not just the land, either—but the cabin itself. When they first found it, the roof had sagged in one corner, and the back wall had more gaps than it did wood. The door didn’t close right, the windows didn’t keep anything out—not wind, not dust, not the cold. It was a dump.

     Wyatt had stood there a long while, looking at it like he wasn’t sure if it was worth the effort. Yarrow hadn’t hesitated. She’d just set her things down inside and started a fire at the hearth to brew them a pot of coffee. They’d fixed it piece by piece after that. New boards went in where the old ones gave out, windows set tight to keep out the chill. A door that shut clean and stayed that way went in to hold their hopes inside, and Wyatt even went so far as to put in a lock, “for snoopers,” he’d said.  A straight roof that didn’t leak when it rained had been Wyatt’s favorite achievement. And Yarrow was there with him every step of the way, her strength remarkable and her resilience impressive. But Wyatt loved the new freckles that sprung up on Yarrow’s cheeks more than anything. Yarrow could still feel the ghost of his lips across her face where he traced them. Pictures in the stars, he had called them, in the quiet moments between dusk and dawn.

     It wasn’t perfect, but it was theirs.

     Yarrow stepped down from the porch and crossed the short stretch of dirt toward the fence. The wood there was newer—Wyatt’s work. Straight lines and solid posts that were built to last. She rested her elbows on the top rail and looked back at the cabin.

There was an extra room now. It was small, and it was plain. It sat off to the side, where the light came in softer in the afternoon. Wyatt had framed it out himself, quiet about it, like it wasn’t something worth remarking on. He hadn’t said what it was for. He didn’t have to. Yarrow hadn’t even asked him about it. She had just come back from the general store one afternoon to see the foundation had sprung up from the dirt and Wyatt’s sleeves rolled up to the elbows. She loved when he did that. He hadn’t gotten much done that afternoon, with Yarrow’s distraction. But by the end of the month, the room was finished and Yarrow’s favorite thing to do was to stand in the golden sunlight in the afternoon and imagine a crib against one wall, a tiny chest for tiny clothes, or a rug to help dampen her footsteps as she snuck out of the room after putting their baby down for a nap.

     Yarrow let her gaze linger there a moment longer before turning back to the land. A breeze picked up, carrying the dry scent of earth and something faintly green underneath. It brushed past her, tugged lightly at her sleeves, then carried on. Spring was here, biding her time. Yarrow heard the creak of porch floorboards behind her, followed by boot steps—measured, familiar. 

     Wyatt came to stand beside her without a word. He handed her a steaming cup of black coffee, leaned his forearms on the fence the same way she had, eyes moving over the land like he was taking stock of it all over again. They stood like that for a while, clocking the movement of the shadows in silence. It didn’t need filling. They both took tentative sips of their coffee, careful so as not to burn themselves.

     After a moment, Wyatt said, “Fence’ll need checking on the south side.”

Yarrow nodded. “I saw.” A pause to sip her coffee. “The post near that bend’s leaning,” she added.

     “I’ll reset it.”

     She glanced at him, just briefly. “You said that yesterday.”

     Though he felt the leap in his chest to rise to the defense, when Wyatt’s glance met her eyes, he found them soft and playful, and he curbed the impulse to snap at her. “I meant it then, too.”

     Yarrow pressed her lips to the rim of her chipped mug to hide her amusement, then looked back out over the field. She never passed on the opportunity to goad him whenever it presented itself.

     “You heading into town today?” she asked. Wyatt drank another mouthful of coffee.

     “Mm.” 

     Not much of an answer. She didn’t push for more. She’d learned enough over time for her to understand what that meant. Whatever his plans were for that day, they were nothing short of tedious. The sheriff had taken to using him for things that didn’t fit neatly into the law, or needed doing without too much talk around them. Wyatt didn’t exactly advertise it, but he didn’t hide it either. It was just work for him. But it wasn’t clean, at least not to Yarrow. 

     Yarrow’s gaze drifted again, not to the land this time, but past it—like she was looking at something farther off.

     “You’ll be back before dark,” she said. It wasn’t a question, but a statement of fact. She was permitting his work—whatever it was he chose to do—as long as she was guaranteed his safe return.

     Wyatt shifted slightly beside her. “That’s the plan.”

     She nodded once. Plans weren’t promises, they both knew that. The silence settled once more between them.

     After a while, Wyatt pushed off the fence.

     “I’ll take the west road,” he declared with a resigned sigh.

     Yarrow turned toward him now. “It rained two nights ago. Take the east road.”

     “Ground’ll hold,” he replied, and leaned in to pinch Yarrow’s chin between his forefinger and thumb. Lower, he told her, “I’ll take the west road back to get home to you quicker.”

     Another small pause bloomed where Yarrow searched his face. She trusted his instincts, because she knew better than to doubt his familiarity in the land they lived on. She held his gaze for a second longer before offering a tight nod.

     “I’ll be back,” he promised.

     “I know.” It was one of the many qualities she respected about her husband–he kept his promises, even when the world worked against him.

     He dipped his head to kiss her cheek, the rough texture of his tightly trimmed beard grazing her jaw, then gathered their now empty coffee mugs and stepped past her toward the cabin. Inside, she could hear him moving—gathering only what he needed and nothing more. He didn’t carry much when he went into town. He never needed to. He would be home before dark, and always made sure he was.

     Yarrow stayed where he’d left her, eyes returning to the land. A crow cut across the sky overhead, making lazy loops in the morning glow, its croaking caw answered by others in the distance beyond the hills.

Her gaze drifted back to the cabin, to the extra room. She let herself feel it. A bubble of hope cautiously worked its way into her heart, and she tentatively allowed it the space it needed. Whether it bloomed or festered, only time would tell.

     She pushed off the fence and turned back toward the house.​

     When she stepped inside, her eyes moved automatically, scanning the room. They roved over the table, its surface carefully sanded and devoid of splinters, the wall Wyatt had to reinforce after their first snowstorm. She paused to admire the empty coffee pot Wyatt had moved to the sink, so she didn’t need to go near the fire.

     A life together, built piece by piece by their own hands.

Wyatt emerged from their bedroom, hat in hand. He looked at her once and paused, like he was about to say something, but he seemed to think better of it. Instead, Yarrow stepped closer, reaching up to straighten the collar of his shirt. It was a small gesture, a practical expression of her affection, which he allowed. It gave him the opportunity to brush a gentle caress below her jaw.

    “You missed a spot,” she said, and traced a fingertip along the scar that cut a line into where his beard should have been. It crept up along his jaw to his mangled ear, which resembled melted wax.

     “I’ll survive.”

     She smoothed his shirt one last time, then let her hand fall. For a moment, neither of them moved, breath held between them. Goodbye always felt so final, and it was Yarrow’s least favorite part of the day. Wyatt wasn’t particularly fond of it, either.

     “You remember the auction yard?” Wyatt asked, stalling.

     It caught her slightly off guard—Yarrow hadn’t thought of it in several years, because the time to do so often eluded her. “That was a busy day,” she replied, trying to recall the memory in her mind.

     “The sheep.”

     “You mean where you decided half a flock was the same as fairness?” A faint shift in her expression gave her away. Not quite a smile, but something between it and a frown. She avoided his eyes as she tried to look stern/firm.

     Wyatt huffed a quiet breath. “Ended the problem.”

     Yarrow met his eyes. “That solved your problem, not theirs.”

     The words stretched between them, the same as they had the first time. Wyatt looked at her a long while, drank in the dark ochre of her eyes.

     “Still think that?” he asked.

     “Yes. More than half that flock belonged to Miguel, and you know it.”

     No hesitation, no apology, just the truth. She was good for that.

     Something in his expression shifted—not disagreement, but not quite agreement either. He considered her words. He always did.  She kept him humble. His face softened, and he nodded once, slowly, and pushed a strand of her light brown hair out of her eyes.

     “I’ll be back before dark,” he said again, and pressed his hat into place on his head.

     Yarrow stepped aside to let him pass. “I know.”

     He paused there just a second—like words danced on the tip of his tongue, begging for release. But he gritted his teeth and didn’t say anything at all. He would make sure she understood how he felt when he returned.

     He stepped out into the morning light, pulling the door shut behind him.

     Yarrow stood in the quiet he left behind, listened to his footsteps fade before she turned, moving through the cabin with steady purpose. There was work to be done. There always was.

     And for now—that was enough.

​

​---

​

     Wyatt took the east road into town, like Yarrow said he should. His horse carried him steadily, sure-footed even when the ground softened. The soil here held well enough; it was damp in places, but not particularly slick. It was the kind of road a man could ride without thinking too much about it. Which was exactly what Wyatt did.

     Crow was the name of his mount, and just like her namesake she was sharp and wise. She didn’t rush along, didn’t lag, just moved forward with steady purpose, and allowed Wyatt to turn the auction over in his mind as they travelled.

     The auction yard had been loud that day, in the way all crowded places get—voices shouting over one another, creaking leather and singing spurs, animals bleating and dancing around the pens. None of them wanted to be there, least of all Wyatt. But he needed the money, and he needed the reputation even more, so here he was freelancing as an auctioneer for the annual livestock sale in town.

     The sheep were packed tight in the pen, pressing against the rails, bleating sharp and nervous. Wyatt watched with his dark, steady gaze as two men stood at the gate, shouting over each other.

     “They’re mine—I marked ‘em last spring, everyone here knows it—”

     “You marked half of ‘em, and that’s generous. The rest come from my stock—”

     “Like hell they did—”

     A shove cuts the conversation short. Immediately nearby heads are turning, eyes are searching for the sound of the scuffle. Tensions were already high this season after a long drought, and Wyatt had been hired specifically to keep the peace. He was already moving before most of the onlookers had even registered what was happening, ready to step in and prevent further escalation.

     He clapped a heavy hand on the shoulder of the nearest man just as he was winding up his fist.

     “That’s enough.”

     The men didn’t stop arguing right away—but they gave ground between them, and a moment later Wyatt was between them, hands pressed outward to keep that distance.

     Wyatt looked from one to the other, gave them another moment to resolve the dispute themselves, and when it became apparent they couldn’t, his patience gone, he finally spoke up.

     “Either of you got proof?”

     The first man spat into the dirt. “Don’t need proof. Folks know.”

     Wyatt glanced around for the folks he spoke of. None came forward to the man’s defense, leaving him to be the one to make the call.

     “Then this is how it goes.” He rested a hand on the top rail of the pen, eyes scanning over the animals. “You split the flock. Even.”

     There was a brief moment of silence as his words landed, before the fighting began anew.

     “No—” one of them started.

     Wyatt met his eyes. That was all it took—the protest died in the man’s throat.

     “Half each,” Wyatt said. “You walk away now, or you keep at it and stand to lose more than just some sheep.”

     The first man’s jaw worked, but he didn’t speak again. There was a sharp edge of resent in his eye, one Wyatt marked and understood to mean he might be trouble for him in the future. The second looked at the ground, then at the pen, then away. Wyatt swore he caught a smirk tugging the corner of his lips before he moved off toward to wait for his payment.

     It may not have been fair, but it was over. Wyatt had avoided a fight on the sale grounds, just as he had been hired to do.

     “We’re finished here,” Wyatt said, stepping back, and gestured to the men in the pen trying to separate the animals. From under the fence herding dogs raced into the enclosure to split the flock in two. “Count the heads, make it even.”

     The tension bled out of the crowd, their attention dissolving along with the promise of a fight. None of them were here to sell or buy, but for the entertainment a gathering of this magnitude might bring. Denied the pleasure, they moved on with their day.

     Wyatt turned to go.

     “You should be proud of yourself.” The voice wasn’t loud, but it stopped him anyway. It held the chorus of the wind across the prairie on a warm spring morning, sparking in him a flutter the same way it made the grass dance. It swept over him like a sigh, arresting him on the spot.

     She stood just beyond the edge of the crowd. “That solves your problem, not theirs.”

     Her expression wasn’t hard. Something about her eyes, though, they told Wyatt she did not approve of his call.

     Wyatt held her gaze a moment, then glanced back toward the pen. The dogs were meticulously dividing the sheep. One of the men looked on, counting carefully, like each animal cost him something. The other was nowhere to be found.

     Wyatt looked back at her. She was a waif of a woman, short with a back as straight as an arrow and hair that hung to her shoulders in careful mousy brown curls. A smattering of freckles across her face told him she spent more time in the sun than the average gentlelady.      And for some reason he could not explain, the cut of her sharp eyes left him feeling an uncharacteristic impulse to defend himself.

     “No one walks away empty-handed,” he said.

     “Right.” She nodded once, like she’d expected that answer. Her eyes shifted toward the man sweating by the fence as he watched his sheep herded to a separate paddock. “One of them might.”

     Wyatt followed her gaze, compelled against his own reason. The man’s shoulders were tight, sweat beading off his temple and glinting in the sunlight. He was counting under his breath like maybe if he counted right it might come out different.

     Wyatt’s jaw set slightly before he looked back at her.

     “You got a better way?”

     She didn’t answer immediately. Instead, she studied him for a second longer than most people would.

     “I’m not looking to criticize you—”

     Wyatt shifted, turned to face her fully, before he cut her off. “What you said sounds an awful lot like criticism, so forgive me if I take offense.”

     “Just said what it was.” There was no edge to her voice, no challenge in her delivery. She was just calling his attention to a perceived injustice he had not noticed, and his insecurity was simply a result of his own actions.

     Wyatt turned away and scowled as the sounds of the yard came back in around them—voices, hooves, the scrape of wood. All familiar. All just a little bit too much. He wanted to be back out on the prairie with Crow, far away from the delicate dance of society.

     Wyatt took a deep breath and exhaled once through his nose—a slow, steadying breath—then looked back toward the pen again.

     He could see from his periphery that she hadn’t moved, but her gaze had followed his. She watched the sheep being loaded up after the final count, and nearby the rancher had removed his hat. Wyatt could see the dip in his throat as he swallowed, the frantic scanning of his eyes over the sheep, asking for a re-count.

     When Wyatt finally found the courage to look her in the eyes again, she met his gaze and held it fast. Her dark eyes felt heavy on him, as though she had already made up her mind about him.

     To his surprise, he felt determined to change her opinion of him.

     After a moment, Wyatt gave a small, almost imperceptible nod—more to himself than to her. He turned and walked off with the intention to see if he couldn’t get someone to pay premium for the sheep the farmer clearly lost from the arrangement.

     Behind him, the sheep kept bleating.

     And somewhere in the middle of it, a man was still counting like it mattered.

​​

---

​

     He hadn’t known straight away that she was the woman for him—but he would be lying if he didn’t admit the day she had suggested they marry was the greatest day of his life. Never in his wildest dreams would he have imagined someone like Yarrow would ever pick him, let alone ask him for his hand in marriage. Of course he had obliged—she kept him humble. She kept him real. And much to the displeasure of her family, they had celebrated their union on a quiet spring evening to the sound of birdsong.

     “I didn’t marry the man you were,” she had whispered to him that evening, as they danced by the light of the fireflies on their bare patch of land in the shadow of their ruined cabin. “Don’t make me live with him.” He had laughed then, but in his heart, he knew he would be different. Everything would be different for them. She accepted his past—the darkest and most shameful parts—and welcomed him into her arms, anyway.

      Wyatt loved her. He would do anything for her.

     The land gradually gave way as he moved along—open stretches of prairie transforming into scrub and sparse woodland, then into the beginnings of town. Nothing marked the change cleanly, just signs of use: Wagon ruts deeper in the road, fences set closer together, columns of smoke rising into the sky where there hadn’t been any before.

     By the time he reached the first building, the sun had climbed high enough to warm the back of his neck and the hustle and bustle of the town’s morning routine drifted toward him from ahead.

     A couple of men stood outside the general store, nodding in acknowledgement as Wyatt rode by. On the front porch of the inn a woman swept dust from the doorway like it would make a difference. Dogs barked, and there came a steady hammering from somewhere out of sight. 

     Normal, just how it was every time he passed through. It was why they’d stayed, for its predictability. Yarrow liked knowing what to expect, and Wyatt liked knowing she wouldn’t worry after him too much.

     The sheriff’s office sat between the gunsmith and the barber—a plain, functional building with a front door and a roof that overhung the porch. One shutter had been replaced, the color of it brighter than the rest, which had faded from sun exposure in the years prior. The sign out front creaked in the breeze, sheriff stamped across it in bold, black letters.

     Wyatt swung down from Crow, tied her off at the hitching post out front, and stepped up into the office.

     The air was cooler in here. The light was dimmer, too. Both the front and back doors were propped open with a brick to let in a cross breeze, and it carried the smell of unwashed bodies and sour piss off into the light of the morning. Deputy Harris leaned against the opposite wall, hat tipped back just enough to see under it. Sheriff Dalton sat behind the desk with boots propped, hat off, and sleeves rolled. He held a paper in one hand, though he wasn’t reading it so much as staring through it. The headline read THE ARBITER STRIKES AGAIN in tall, blocky letters. Wyatt knew how much ink cost. That hadn’t been cheap to print.

     Harris spotted Wyatt first.

     “Well, well, well,” he said, dragging the last word more than was necessary. “Look what the cat dragged in.”

     Harris was very fond of trends brought over from the east, and it always ground against Wyatt’s patience when he tried a new one on him. This time was no different, but Wyatt tilted his head by way of greeting anyway, his lips pressed tightly together. He closed the door behind him. The sudden lack of airflow left the room to fall stagnant again, but Wyatt didn’t want any passersby to overhear what he was here to discuss. It was far more important than what Wyatt really wanted to do—which was to cuff Harris in the ear.

     Finally, Dalton lowered his feet before looking up, carefully re-folding the paper and setting it aside. “Wasn’t sure if you’d come in today.”

     Wyatt cleared his throat. “You asked for me.”

     “That I did.”

     “Here I am.”

     Harris pushed off from the wall to move to the nearest window and peered out before pulling it closed. “Sherriff’s got something he don’t want written down,” the deputy said. Dalton shot him a withering look.

     Harris lifted his hands in defense. “What? I ain’t wrong.”

     Wyatt stepped further into the room, stopping just short of the desk.

     “What is it?”

     Dalton exhaled through his nose, chewing the inside of his cheek like he was weighing his words. He glanced at Cecil, the town drunk, sleeping off the previous night’s liquor in the nearby cell before leaning over to spit into a dingy tin spittoon on the floor beside him.

     “Group been moving through the outer farms,” he said. “Not organized, far as I can tell. But not random either.”

     “Taking what?” Wyatt asked.

     “That’s the unusual part.” Dalton pulled open a drawer of his desk and placed rolling papers and a pack of tobacco in front of him. He began to roll a cigarette, allowing the silence to drag out between them. Finally, he shook his head and paused. “They ain’t taking anything of value.”

     Wyatt took a moment to consider this before answering. Depending on what Dalton considered valuable, that could mean anything from a stock rifle to a virgin daughter to the life savings of one entire family. Just because someone didn’t think there was value in something, didn’t mean it wasn’t worth looking into He shifted his weight to one foot and hooked his thumbs into the pockets of his vest.

     Harris said, “Left one man half-beaten two nights back. Didn’t kill him, though.”

     “Could’ve,” Dalton added. “But didn’t.”

     Wyatt’s gaze shifted between them. “You think they’re making a point.”

     “I think,” Dalton said carefully, “they’re seein’ how much they can do before someone stops ‘em.”

     Silence settled between the three men, while Cecil continued to snore.

     Wyatt nodded once. “And you want that someone to be me.”

     Dalton didn’t answer right away, just rolled the finished cigarette gently between his fingers, then licked the edge of the paper to seal it.

     “That depends,” he continues. “You still interested in the kind of work that might end in a courthouse?”

     Wyatt’s expression didn’t change. “I might if it pays.”

     Harris huffed a stifled chuckle. “Ain’t that always the way.”

     Dalton ignored him.

     “We’ve got three farms hit in the last week,” he went on. “Pattern to it. Some distance between ‘em. Timing seems too deliberate.”

     He struck a match and reached for the paper he’d set aside. He pushed it toward Wyatt before leaning in to light his cigarette.

     Wyatt didn’t pick it up right away, just looked at it. The words The Arbiter stared back at him. He’d heard of them, of course. Hard not to, when you used to run in the same circles. Wyatt had never come across him, though. The Arbiter had come out of nowhere long after Wyatt had decided he would put some distance between the past and present versions of himself.

     “You want them stopped,” he said.

     “I want it done clean,” Dalton replied.

     Wyatt glanced up at that, watched Dalton took a long drag off his smoke.

     “Clean,” he repeated.

     Dalton held his gaze. “As clean as it gets.”

     Another small pause. Clean could mean anything–but if they had called on Wyatt, he knew they weren’t much concerned with how messy his method was, but how many loose ends will be left over.

     Harris shifted in his seat. “Folks out there are getting nervous,” he said. “Start thinking the law can’t protect ‘em, they’ll try doing it themselves. That goes bad quick.”

     Wyatt didn’t only know that, he’d lived it.

     He reached out to take the paper, looked it over—familiar names, locations, rough notes—all scratched onto a piece of scrap paper folded carefully between the pages. Enough to start.

     “You got a direction?” Wyatt asked.

     “Northwest,” Dalton replied. “Last place ‘was hit sits out that way. Tracks lead off, but we lost ‘em on rocky ground.”

     “Could be a small group,” he said. “Could be more.”

     “Could be,” Dalton agreed. 

     “Do you think it’s The Arbiter?” Wyatt asked, pointing to the headline on the front page.

     Dalton held his gaze for a brief moment. “I sure hope it aint,” he said, and sucked his teeth.

     Whether it had anything to do with The Arbiter was anyone’s guess. There was just no way to know for sure. Something deep in Wyatt’s gut tightened, and he hoped it wasn’t a bad sign.

     Wyatt folded the paper and tucked it into his coat pocket.

     Harris watched him with a hint of derision. “You planning to bring ‘em in?” he asked.

     Wyatt met his eyes. “If they’re willing.”

     Harris snorted. “And if they ain’t?”

     Wyatt didn’t answer, but held Harris’ gaze until he reluctantly looked away.

     Dalton rested his hands on the desk. “I’m not asking for trouble,” he said. “In fact, I’d prefer if you kept yourself out of trouble. None of this outlaw shootout bullshit. Just put an end to it.”

     Wyatt gave a slight nod. “I’ll see what I can make of it.”

     Dalton studied him carefully, eyes heavy with indecision. Wyatt could tell this was not the sheriff’s first choice, that he had been drivin to asking for help by sheer desperation.

     “You’ve got a place out there now,” the sheriff said. “Decent land. A quiet wife. Better’n what most of us end up with.”

     It wasn’t a question, so Wyatt didn’t respond to it like one. If anything, he took it as a threat. “I’ll see what I can make of it,” he repeated firmly.

     Dalton nodded once. “Alright.”

     Harris leaned back against the wall, tipping his hat down. He sucked the air through his teeth with a self-satisfied smirk tugging at his mouth—because he’d known Wyatt would take the job. He’d probably bet money on it.

      Wyatt turned to leave, the stench of the room suddenly stifling.

     “Wyatt.”

     He hesitated, because technically he was being paid for his time here. He looked back to find Dalton’s expression had shifted—just a touch more serious than before.

     “Don’t let it get further than it needs to.”

     Wyatt held his gaze. “I won’t.”

     He stepped out into the morning light and sucked in a deep breath of fresh air. He let the door swing closed behind him with a soft, final slam against its frame. On his shoulders he now carried the weight of the whole town, of his future with Yarrow.

     And yet the town carried on like nothing had changed. People moved along the road to the general store; they talked to each other on the porch of the inn. They went on living their lives like there wasn’t a threat hovering on the perimeter of their lives.

     Wyatt stood there a moment, letting his eyes adjust before he reached in to untie Crow’s reins from the hitching post, and pulled himself back into the saddle.

     Northwest.

     He turned his mount in that direction without another thought.

     Wyatt wanted to make sure the threat wouldn’t make it any closer.

​

​

​