Every year, the distance of Mateo’s shot grew longer.
Two hundred yards became three hundred.
Three hundred became five hundred.
Eventually, someone claimed he fired from the top of a mountain.
Mateo heard that version from a cattle driver and nearly choked on his coffee.
“I’d need the hand of God.”
Abigail smiled.
“They’re giving you one.”
“I don’t want it.”
“You’re difficult to please.”
“I want accuracy.”
“You married the wrong woman.”
They laughed.
But some nights, when laughter faded, the old memories returned.
Abigail sometimes dreamed of the trapdoor.
Mateo sometimes woke hearing the rifle shot.
Trauma did not disappear because life became good.
It simply stopped owning every room.
One evening, almost thirty years after Red Hollow, Abigail found Mateo sitting by the river.
His old Winchester rested across his knees.
She sat beside him slowly.
“Thinking?”
“Unfortunately.”
“About what?”
“The rope.”
Abigail looked toward the water.
“You still do?”
“Sometimes.”
He rubbed one thumb along the wooden stock.
“I remember aiming.”
She waited.
“I remember thinking that if I moved even the width of your finger, I might hit you.”
Abigail placed her hand over his.
“You didn’t.”
“What if I had?”
“You didn’t.”
He looked at her.
“You always answer that.”
“Because you keep asking the same question.”
He smiled faintly.
“I was terrified.”
Abigail leaned against him.
“So was I.”
“You looked calm.”
“I was trying to make Caleb Rusk angry.”
“It worked.”
“That helped.”
They watched the river.
After a while, Mateo said, “Do you regret it?”
“Which part?”
“Me.”
Abigail laughed.
“That is an impressively foolish question for a man your age.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
She looked at him.
“I regret the jail.”
He nodded.
“The gallows.”
Another nod.
“I regret every person who stood there and watched.”
Mateo waited.
“But loving you?”
She squeezed his hand.
“No.”
His shoulders relaxed.
“Good.”
“You were worried after thirty years?”
“A man likes confirmation.”
Abigail smiled.
“Then ask again when we’re ninety.”
“If I live that long.”
“You will.”
“How do you know?”
“I have experience dragging you toward better decisions.”
The following spring, Isaiah Freeman returned.
He was nearly eighty.
His horse looked younger than he did.
Abigail saw him from the porch and shouted his name.
Isaiah climbed down slowly.
“I warned you about sentimental behavior.”
She hugged him anyway.
Mateo came from the stable.
For several seconds, the two men simply looked at each other.
Then Mateo smiled.
“You’re still alive.”
Isaiah frowned.
“You sound disappointed.”
“I lost money.”
“You bet against me?”
“Never.”
Isaiah laughed.
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?”
She thought for a moment.
“A town believed it could decide what kind of love counted as respectable.”
The reporter began writing.
“A sheriff believed a badge could turn jealousy into law.”
More writing.
“A rancher believed money could make lies heavier than truth.”
She looked toward Mateo.
“And one man decided none of them were entitled to the last word.”
The reporter smiled.
“That sounds like the shot.”
Abigail shook her head.