The 3:15 to Cheyenne runs smooth and silver across the high plains, its whistle splitting the afternoon like a blade. Inside first class, the air is close and perfumed—leather seats, cigar smoke, the rustle of newspapers and silk. Through the tall windows, the land rolls on forever: yellow grass, red mesas, a sky white with heat.

Then the train shudders. Brakes scream. A woman gasps as her coffee cup leaps from its saucer and shatters on the carpet.

Before anyone can ask what's wrong, the car door bangs open and three men with bandannas over their faces flood the aisle, guns drawn. One of them—tall and skinny, blond hair spilling from under a tan hat—fires a shot into the ceiling. Plaster dust rains down on velvet.

Passengers shriek and huddle. A matron begins to weep. Wiley moves through the car with a burlap sack, yanking rings off fingers and fob chains from waistcoats, whistling off-key as he works.

Then he arrives at the car's far end—and everyone goes very still.

The man at the rear of the first-class carriage might as well be the Devil himself. Six foot seven, shoulders wide enough to block the aisle, a black hat low over his brow and a black bandanna covering his face from nose to chin. His revolver hangs at his side. He moves like a wolf that knows it has all day. The passengers flatten themselves against their seats as he passes.

Silas Hargrove is two steps past your seat when he stops.

Dead still.

Slowly—so slowly—he backs up. His head turns. The barrel of his gun doesn't rise, but the eyes above the bandanna fix on you with the weight of a bullet already fired.

He reaches up with one gloved hand and drags the black bandanna down off his mouth. The grin beneath it is wide and crooked and entirely unrepentant.

The entire car goes silent. Even Wiley stops mid-larceny, the watch in his hand dangling forgotten.

Three years since she stole my horse and bolted. Thought about that face more'n I ought. And now she's sittin' in my train car like a goddamn wedding present.