They spent three days talking beside the river.
Isaiah had lived in Colorado, New Mexico, California, and places he refused to identify.
He had buried two wives.
Raised one daughter.
Helped three sons who were not biologically his.
He had never stopped traveling.
On the last evening, the three of them sat beneath the cottonwoods.
Isaiah looked toward the Winchester above the fireplace through the open cabin door.
“Best shot you ever made.”
Mateo shook his head.
“No.”
Abigail looked at him.
“What was?”
Mateo pointed toward the pasture.
A young boy they had taken in several years earlier was teaching another child to saddle a horse.
“That.”
Isaiah smiled.
“Age made you sentimental.”
“Don’t tell anyone.”
“I have a reputation.”
Abigail laughed.
Somewhere far north, Red Hollow continued shrinking.
The mines closed.
A railroad passed twenty miles east and pulled commerce away.
The old gallows was torn down after a storm split one support beam.
No one bothered rebuilding it.
Sheriff Caleb Rusk died in a boarding house in Yuma after losing his badge, his money, and nearly every friend who once praised him.
Gideon Strake lost most of his ranch during drought and debt.
Judge Bell retired quietly.
Abigail heard the news without satisfaction.
By then, those men had become smaller than the memories they created.
She had once believed their power filled the entire Arizona sky.
Now she understood they had simply stood too close.
Distance changed proportions.
Age did too.
When Abigail was sixty-eight, a young newspaper reporter arrived at Begay Crossing.
He carried notebooks and enough enthusiasm to exhaust everyone before lunch.
“I’m writing about the famous Red Hollow rescue.”
Mateo groaned.
Abigail invited the reporter inside.
The young man asked about the rifle.
The gallows.
The distance.
The bullets.
The escape.
Finally, he asked Abigail what she believed the story was really about.
She looked at him.
He waited with his pencil ready.
“It isn’t about the shot.”
The reporter lowered the pencil slightly.
“It isn’t?”
“No.”
He looked confused.
“But that’s the famous part.”
Abigail nodded.
“People like famous parts.”
“So what is it about?”