Chapter Three
Three Weeks Later
That day, the town of Deadwood stank of horse sweat, sawdust, and suspicion.
Weston Crane stepped off the wagon road and onto the packed dirt of the main street, his boots leaving faint scuffs in the dust with each step.
He straightened his spine, though every bone in his body ached from weeks on foot.
The soles of his boots were worn thin, his coat stained from rain and trail grit, and his jaw lined with days of unshaven stubble, he could feel it under his hand.
At thirty-two, he felt like what he was: tired, broke, and not from around here.
And the townsfolk saw that, as well. Eyes followed him from porches and storefronts.
A woman ushered her child away with a quick hand.
Two men on a bench stopped talking mid-sentence to mutter something under their breath.
Weston didn’t hear the words, but he knew the tone.
He’d heard it before in Missouri, in Wyoming, in every nowhere town he’d passed through since the fall.
He knew he didn’t look like the man he used to be. Back then, before everything fell apart, he’d worn clean shirts and polished boots, owned his own spread and a good horse. Folks had called him dependable. Honest. They’d shaken his hand, looked him in the eye.
But that was before he'd lost everything. People didn’t know the man he once was.
He’d been head of his family’s ranch, riding tall beside his father.
He’d been trusted by neighbors, and respected for his quiet strength.
They didn’t see the years he’d spent trying to keep it all together after his father’s heart gave out, after consumption took hold of his mother and left her coughing up blood, after it came for his sister next and carried her off just as quietly.
They didn’t see the man who stayed up late trying to save the land while the sky stayed dry and the bank came knocking. They just saw what was left. Dust on his boots. A coat worn thin. A face lined by grief and bad sleep. And they judged, the way folks always did.
But Weston had stopped caring about that. Judgments didn’t break a man; they just reminded him he was already broken.
Let them look. Let them talk. He wasn’t here to prove himself to strangers. He was just looking for a place to land before the ground gave out under him again.
He kept walking. He was too hungry to care. The general store sat in the middle of town, painted white with red trim. The sign above the door stood steadily above. Weston stepped inside and paused, blinking in the dim light. The scent of tobacco, flour, and stale coffee hit him all at once.
A man stood behind the counter with his arms crossed.
He was stocky, with a thick beard and doubtful eyes that narrowed the moment Weston stepped through the door.
Weston had seen that look too many times to be surprised.
He already knew this man would greet him like he wasn’t worth the dirt on his boots, like his very presence dragged down the value of the shelves.
Weston nodded once. “Just need a loaf of bread,” he said, reaching into his coat and pulling out the last few coins he had left, clinking them into his callused palm.
The storekeeper didn’t move. He looked Weston up and down like he was a stray dog. “We don’t serve beggars,” he said flatly.
Weston’s jaw tightened. “Didn’t ask for charity.”
“Same difference,” the man replied. “Try the saloon. Maybe they’ll toss you a biscuit if you bark loud enough.”
Heat rose in Weston’s chest, but he didn’t answer. He pocketed the coins slowly, turned on his heel, and walked out without another word. Pride was a thin blanket when a man was cold and hungry, but he’d rather shiver than beg.
***
Weston stepped back out into the afternoon glare. The wind kicked up a little, carrying the scent of manure and smoke, and something acrid beneath it all. It was resentment and bitterness, or just the stink of people who’d decided they were better than the man beside them.
He walked on.
The blacksmith was the first. A thick-armed man with soot on his face and a hammer in his grip, wiping sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. Weston stood at the edge of the forge’s open mouth, with his hands in plain sight.
“Are you hiring?” he asked.
The blacksmith didn’t even look up. “Not for you, I ain’t.”
Weston nodded once, took the rejection like a nail to the boot, and moved on.
Next was the livery. A boy, barely old enough to shave, ran it with his father, or so Weston guessed from the way the older man barked orders. Weston offered to muck stalls, shoe horses, even clean tack. Hard work didn’t scare him; it never had.
But the old man squinted at him like he was dog rot. “Don’t need no trouble. And you look like you bring plenty.”
“I’m asking for one chance,” Weston said, trying to sound as convincing as possible, even if he, too wasn’t sure anymore he deserved one. “And you’ll see that I have the right skills.”
“Then you best look somewhere else.”
Somewhere else. Always somewhere else. Weston tipped his hat out of habit, though his throat was dry with shame, and kept walking. He asked again at the carpenter’s yard. The feed store. Even the undertaker.
Same looks. Same answers. One man asked if Weston had a criminal past, just because of the way he looked. Another told him he smelled like crime itself. One woman went so far as to cross the street when he turned toward her shop, as if hard luck were contagious.
Weston tipped his hat and called after her, “Don’t worry, ma’am. I only bite when I’m fed.”
She didn’t laugh. Didn’t look back either.
Tough crowd.
He should’ve been used to it by now. But it still scraped deep inside him.
As he wandered back toward the edge of town, past a church with peeling paint and a crooked cross, a memory surfaced, sharp and uninvited.
He saw his sister Lottie, maybe fifteen, sitting by the window of the old ranch house.
Her dress was threadbare at the cuffs, but her hair was brushed and braided.
She’d been reading out loud to their mother, whose breath came in shallow, wheezing gasps.
He remembered the way Lottie’s voice faltered when their mother stopped responding.
Weston blinked hard, shook his head.
Not now.
He didn’t have time for memories. He sat on the edge of a dry creek bed just beyond town. The sun was starting to dip behind the pines, and the air had cooled enough that he could see his breath when he exhaled. His stomach knotted, not just from hunger now but from despair.
He used to have hands that fed a family, mended fences, calmed spooked colts. Now they just begged for scraps.
He rubbed the back of his neck, wincing at the grit caked there. He hadn’t seen a real bed in weeks. Not since that one rancher outside of Casper let him sleep in the hayloft after mending a busted gate. A single night. Then back to the road again.
People used to wave when they saw him coming. Kids used to call him “Mister Crane” and run to hold the gate open. Now he couldn’t even get someone to look him in the eye.
How many more steps before I’m not even a man anymore?
The wind shifted. More smoke was in the air. His gut twisted again. Still, he stood. There was always one more step to take. One more patch of cold ground to sleep on. One more town that might not shut its door in his face.
He headed for the tree line. Night would come fast, and he’d need to find a place to camp before it did.
***
The woods outside Deadwood weren’t much.
They were just a sparse patch of pine and scrub clinging to the edge of the prairie like it had been forgotten there.
Weston had made camp beneath a cluster of bent trees, as their needles whispered overhead in the evening breeze.
The fire he built was small; it was more glow than flame, the kind a man used when he didn’t want to be noticed.
He crouched close to the heat and stretched out his hands. His knuckles were raw and split from too many weeks on the trail. His stomach growled even more, louder in the stillness. He ignored it. Hunger had long since stopped feeling urgent. Now it was just a dull ache, like everything else.
He had half a heel of bread from two nights ago, and its was hard as stone. He soaked it in his canteen and chewed slowly. His jaw ached with each bite. It wasn’t really food, but it was something to keep his mouth busy. Something to keep the silence at bay.
Above the firelight, the stars blinked awake, one by one.
The sky out here had always been too big, too quiet.
It reminded him of the ranch, how the air used to smell like grass and horses, how his sister would sit on the porch humming as she sewed, how his mother used to bake, even in the heat of the afternoon, just because it made the place feel like home.
And he remembered his brother, too. Caleb was five years older, taller than any of them, and full of big dreams. Weston was sixteen when Caleb rode off to become a trail boss, promising to send money back, promising he’d come home when the season ended.
He never did. Letters stopped coming after a while.
Sometimes Weston wondered if he was still alive out there, somewhere under a sky just like this one.
He could still hear Caleb’s laugh. It was loud and warm, the kind that made you feel like everything was going to turn out fine. He used to throw Weston over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes when they were boys.
“I’ll make a ranch hand outta you yet,” he would holler.
Caleb had taught him to ride, to rope, to hold his ground. He’d been the one to say, “Don’t let the world turn you hard, West. Stay soft where it counts.”
Weston stared into the fire, as he felt that ache in his chest tightening again.
Maybe his brother had found a better life.
Maybe he hadn’t. Either way, he was gone, too, just like the rest. And Weston was here, left sitting in the dark; half a man with half a loaf of bread and a scrap of newspaper folded in his hand.
He rubbed his face hard, as if that might press the memories back down.
With a sigh, he reached into his coat pocket and unfolded the scrap of newspaper he’d taken from the board outside the telegraph office earlier that day. It was torn along the edge and smudged with dirt, but the print was still legible.
“Mail-Order Husband Wanted.
Hardworking, respectable woman seeks capable man for partnership in ranching and raising a five-year-old girl. Must be honest, strong, and not afraid of hard work. Inquire by post. Room and board provided. Marriage optional.”
Weston stared at the ad, signed with a simple N. Quinn. Then read it again. He let out a dry laugh that sounded a bit brittle in the dark.
A mail-order husband. Lord, help me.
He folded the paper in half, then in half again, then held it in his hand without moving. A cool gust rustled through the trees, lifting ash from the fire.
It’s foolish. Desperate. Ridiculous, even. But what isn’t these days?
He’d been sleeping under trees and inside barns. Eating scraps when he could find them. No home. No kin. No real reason to keep going except that he hadn’t found a place to stop.
What if this is it?
He could almost hear his father’s voice now, stern as he was. “You want something, boy, you ride toward it. Not away.”
Weston looked down at the paper again. A woman trying to save her ranch.
A little girl. A roof. Maybe even a second chance.
He didn’t know what kind of man would answer something like this.
Maybe one who was out of options, like he was?
Weston leaned back against his saddle roll with the paper still in hand, and let his eyes drift shut.
Tomorrow. I’ll decide tomorrow.