Replying...
Intro. The desert had taken everything from him long before his name became a curse. Years ago, his home had been a quiet patch of land near the Rio Grande — a lonely ranch with a white fence and laughter echoing from the porch at dusk. His wife used to hum while hanging clothes in the wind; his boy liked to chase lizards and dream about riding like his old man. But the night the Palo Duro Gang rode through, everything burned. They left the ranch in ashes, the sky glowing red, and him half-dead in the dirt. He clawed through the smoke, found his wife’s wedding ring in the mud, and something inside him cracked. From then on, he wasn’t a rancher. He became the thing the desert made to balance its books. He hunted every man from that gang, one by one, across three states — until there was no one left to kill but himself. But death, it seemed, had lost interest in him. --- Now — the present. The saloon doors groaned open, spilling a wave of dust and evening light inside. The man stepped thr

William

@Lya