Arlo Briggs had two pistols and no way to prove he could use them. He stood at the back of the Rowdy Saloon in his oversized duster and cracked boots, saved four months for those guns, and the gang he wanted still saw a scrawny kid in a costume. Six of their men had laughed him out of a saloon once. He meant to ride with them anyway. But a man did not buy into the Redrock outfit with money alone. He bought in with a reputation, and Arlo had none. Marcus Chen leaned on the bar beside him, nursing a drink he hadn't paid for. Marcus already rode with the gang. He was the boss's younger brother, which meant his word carried weight, and he was the only man in town who called Arlo a friend. "I can speak for you," Marcus said. "But my brother won't take my word on a kid he's never seen shoot. Nobody will." "Then they'll see me shoot." Marcus laughed, short and tired. "You walk up and say that, they'll stand you a drink and forget your name by morning." Ruby Valentine was finishing her last song on the little stage. When she sang, the drinkers set down their glasses. When she stopped, the room always turned mean. She stepped off the boards and crossed to the bar like she owned it. "Buy the boy his chance," she told Marcus. She tipped her head at the three whiskey bottles lined on the shelf behind the bartender. "Those. Nobody can miss them standing still. Anybody can miss them falling." Arlo looked at her. "You want me to hit three bottles in the air." "I want to see if you're worth my breath," Ruby said. "I carry names upward. I don't carry liars." Marcus set coins on the bar for the three bottles. The bartender swept them up and the room went quiet, the way it did when Ruby sang. Men turned on their stools. Here was something worth watching. Ruby took the three bottles herself. "Ready when you draw, kid." Arlo pulled both pistols. His hands were steady from four months of hauling freight. Ruby threw the bottles high, one, two, three. He fired. Glass burst above the bar. He fired again, and again, both hands working. Three sprays of whiskey and glass rained down on the floorboards. For a breath, nobody moved. Then a man by the window started it, and the whole saloon was stamping and hollering. Marcus stared, then grinned. "Now I've got something to tell my brother," he said. Ruby wiped a drop of whiskey from her cheek. "Word travels fast in this town," she said. "By tomorrow the Redrock outfit will know your name. The six who laughed will know it too." She did not smile. "You'd better hope they want the boy who can shoot more than they want the boy they ran off."

Ruby was right. By noon the six men were hunting Arlo through Thornwall. He heard their boots on the planks and ducked into a dead alley. His reputation had spread, just as she promised. Now it might get him killed before it ever got him into the gang. Ruby found him first. She stepped into the alley like she'd known where he'd run. Her gypsy belt chimed, and she pressed a hand flat against it to silence it. "Six men, one of you," she said. "That's not a fight. That's a funeral." "Then help me," Arlo said. She pulled a boarded brothel's loose plank aside and shoved him through the gap. Inside, dust hung in the dark. Broken chairs lay where someone had dropped them years ago. "They'll check every open door," she said. "Not one that's nailed shut." Arlo caught his breath. "I can't hide forever. If they corner me, I'm done." Ruby drew a folded letter from her belt. The edges were burned. A wax seal held it shut. "Then don't hide. Turn them on each other." She handed it to him. "I wrote it myself. It names the loudest one as a snitch who sold gang secrets. Plant it on him." Arlo read the smeared lines. Half the words ran together, blotted out. But the meaning held. A man confessing betrayal to the law. "They'll kill him," he said. "Better him than you." Ruby didn't blink. "He's the one who laughed hardest." Arlo remembered that laugh. It had followed him out of the saloon for six months. He folded the letter into his coat. He waited until dusk. The loudest man drank alone at a trough behind a feed store, pistol loose on his hip. Arlo walked up slow, bumped him hard, and slid the letter into his back pocket as the man shoved him off. "Watch yourself, boy," the man said. "Already did," Arlo said, and walked. An hour later, the other five found the letter. Arlo watched from the brothel's gap. The five dragged the loud man into the street. He shouted that it wasn't his hand, wasn't his seal. Nobody listened. Fists came first. Then a gun. The shot rolled flat across the dark, and the loud man dropped and did not move. The five stood over him. One picked up the burned letter, turned it, and frowned. He held it to the lamplight. Then he looked at the seal again, longer this time. Ruby appeared beside Arlo. "It's done," she said. "One less man hunting you." Arlo watched the man study the seal. "He doesn't believe it." Ruby went quiet. "That seal," she said. "It's the boss's mark. I lifted it off a letter in his desk." Her jaw set. "They'll trace it back. To me. Or to you." The five turned from the body and started checking doors, one by one, down the street.