COLE Steel's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Cole Blackwood stood across the street from the saloon and counted the horses his old gang had tied outside. Six of them. Six men he had ridden with for years, now drinking on the porch he used to share. He wore the same black duster and black hat he always had. The scar under his right eye still marked him as one of them. But last night he had watched two of those men drag a shopkeeper into the road and break his hand for holding back coin. Cole had done nothing then. Today he meant to change that. He crossed the street and pushed through the double doors. Piano music filled the room, slow and steady. An old man sat at the keys near the back. Cole knew him. Silas Blackwood, his uncle, the only blood he had left in this town. Silas had gone blind years back, but his hands still found every note. He was the man who had raised Cole after the fever took his mother. The gang saw Cole and grinned. Their leader waved him over to the bar. "Thought you rode off," the leader said. "We got plans for this town. Big ones." Cole looked at the shopkeeper's dried blood on the floorboards. He looked at Silas, whose hands had gone still on the piano. "I came to tell you to leave," Cole said. The room went quiet. The leader laughed, then stopped when he saw Cole's face. "You gone soft?" "I'm done," Cole said. "And so are you. Ride out. Don't come back." The leader's hand dropped toward his gun. Cole was faster. He drew and fired once into the ceiling. Dust rained down. Every man froze. "Next one goes in a chest," Cole said. "I know how every one of you shoots. I taught half of you. You won't win this today." The leader stared at him a long moment. Then he spat on the floor. "You just made yourself a dead man, Blackwood. We'll ride out. But we're coming back with the whole outfit. Twenty guns. And your name goes at the top of the list." They filed out. Boots hit the porch. Horses pulled away and thundered off. The saloon breathed again. Silas turned toward the sound of Cole's voice. "That was you," the old man said. "I know your step. You just made an enemy of everyone you ever called friend." "I know," Cole said. Silas nodded slowly. His clouded eyes seemed to find him anyway. "Then you'll need help. And this town won't give it easy. Not to a man with your face." Cole holstered his gun. He had saved the town from six men for one day. He had bought them a threat of twenty in return. Outside, the dust of the gang still hung in the road. He walked to the window and watched it settle. The clock had already started.