I heard my door open and close. Softly. The air felt heavy in the room, like being submerged underwater. Abby smelled like a sage and mint leaves. The French perfume couldn’t hide the raw nature within her. I could feel her eyes on my scarred and tattooed back. A whiff of coffee followed in behind her.

  "What's the word of the day?" I heard the hardness in her voice. No way for a blooming young lady to sound. She hadn't shared the nights on the range. The gunfights against outlaws with a handful of bullets. The experience of cutting down bodies from a slaughtered town with vultures feasting on the bones of whole families. Yet still, her tone reflected a life with Judge Nagy. When you are that close to the devil, no one walks away clean.

  "Ambivalent," I said.

  Ambivalent... Good word choice. I could smell the juniper perfume she’s so fond of wearing. I watched her reflection in my dirt-scratched mirror as I dried my body off. I heard her gasp when she peeked in the repaired white dish. Jagged splinters lay in the water mixed with my blood, courtesy of my poor workmanship on my front door. Who was I trying to impress with my carpentry?

  Abby: Are you angry with me?

  Corris: I am angry at your father's request through you.

  Abby: That's not fair, Corris Lee.

  Corris: It never is with him, is it?

  Abby: You are dodging my question, Corris.

  Corris: Seems to be contagious. Prolly something in the air.

  Abby: Probably. Not prolly. I taught you better than that.

  Corris: Look at you. A chip off the old anvil.

  Abby struggled to keep up, but not from a lack of effort. She hadn't grown the barbs yet in conversation. Her heart, like her chastity, has yet to be deboned by an expert butcher. Growing up a Nagy will force her to produce the fangs necessary for survival. It's a family trait.

  Abby: If you've seen Asher. You would understand why I agreed with daddy. They hurt him, Corris. They changed him.

  Corris: I stand corrected. You ain't teething anymore. Your fangs are filling in nicely.

  Abby: What's that supposed to mean?

  Corris: Chip off the old anvil.

  Abby Nagy isn't your typical belle. Her mold casing is one of a kind. Honed down a bit different from her family. To be so young with grace and a quiet confidence that women her senior haven't been able to master. To Abby, it came naturally. Others would have had a strong emotional response to my antagonizing comments.

  But for her? She didn't get flustered, letting the sound drain from the room. She allowed the tension to reside before walking around my bed. She gently sat down next to me, her purpled gloves in her lap. Abby learned a lot being weaned in the Nagy clan—how to navigate a room. When to talk and when to let a conversation ride itself out. Using questions like dinner invitations. Answering without saying much in return. Always with your cards held close to the chest. With me though. The bond between us runs deep. Thicker than blood. The only family I have ever known, outside the Grimsbys.

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  Judge Nagy raised all his children in a similar vein. Teaching them his divine rhetoric of their blood being from the gods. They would be true believers, or they would die in the process. However, for Abby, she must be like her mother before she fled the clan's gilded cage. When other girls were dressing their dolls. Abby spent those formative years being prepared for what many women could only dream. Inside the ivory halls of the frontier. Amongst the wolves.

  “Just so we are clear. You want me to hunt down the Grim Gang and stop their lungs. This doesn't sound like you, Abby. Sounds like William.”

  Abby: I...I have to say... Ambivalent is a good word to share together.

  Corris: What's that supposed to mean?

  Abby: Daddy is willing to offer my hand to you.

  Corris: If I do this butchery?

  Abby: You get me at the end of this. Asher deserves his day of justice.

  A sharp radiating pain erupted from my chest, radiating down my right arm. The scar that ran like the Dorain train rails through the Colorado mountains snaking to every muscle group. Bolts of agony nearly brought a tear to my eye. Then the pressure eased a bit. In a minute or two, my world would returned. This isn't a new sensation. It always accompanied by a piercing headache. Like a rifle shot to the head.

  Always happens when I sense a predator's scent. An apex predator. One that had long gutted his mother when there weren't any more milk to give. It weaned itself from the teat by sheer malice.

  "Your father could have a hundred men fill a hundred coffins by sundown and you are asking me to track down these jackals by myself? Naw, something doesn't lay right. Either you or your father think of me the fool."

  My English broke there. Happens when my blood boils. That damn headache as well didn't help. When my base self senses danger, my world shifts in color. From the reddish hues and orange landscapes dotted with browning grass plains, everything begins to bleed into each other. Becoming a collage of gray. Forever altering. Adjusting to darker blacks and dull whites. The contrast is unmistakable. I can smell the creature hunting nearby no matter how hard it tries to camouflage itself. This is one of those times because I don't think Abby knows the full scope of Judge Nagy's damnable request.

  I needed answers, however, it wouldn't come from Abby. The Judge wouldn't confide in a woman. Not even his own daughter.

  If he did, the answer would be smoke and mirrors. The mission is too easy to spot. A literal straight line from me to the target. Nothing is that straight and perfect outside of God. Man can't drill through mountains on a whim. Regardless of how many Chinese are thrown into the mines. This task is personal. The Nagys didn't want justice. They wantedna reckoning.

  Abby: Do you believe Deuteronomy 19:18-21 is right?

  Corris: "and the judges shall make diligent inquisition; and behold, if the witness is a false witness, and has testified falsely against his brother, then you shall do to him as he had thought to do to his brother. So you shall remove the evil from among you. Those who remain shall hear, and fear, and will never again commit any such evil among you. Your eyes shall not pity: life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot...Yeah I would say so.

  Abby: No one will go after the Grimsby Gang unless they have a death wish. They carry generational grudges.

  Corris: Since I don't have family. I am the most obvious choice.

  Abby: Corris, I'm your family...

  Corris: You may come to regret it.

  Abby: I don't regret anything with us. Asher needs this. I need this. My brother is the reason I am unspoiled today. Preserved…for both of us.

  Corris: Your father is really going to allow…

  Abby: Yes. I am your prize. No more longing, Corris. This will be real freedom for both of us.

  Corris: Why not Pope? Why not send him?

  Abby: No one knows the Red Mesa and the men within it better than you. No one I trust with my brother’s need for justice.

  Corris: How much commitment is…

  Abby: Come here, Corris Lee. We don't leave until the morning.

  Abby’s eyes held mine, those striking blue irises unwavering. She slowly shifted her weight on the mattress, turning her body fully towards me, resting her elbow on a pillow. The high collar of the black dress seemed suddenly too stiff, too confining. A single, dark strand of hair had escaped its tight binding and clung to the line of her throat.

  Corris: Now is not the time, woman, to play games with my head.

  Abby: I wouldn't do that to you, Corris. The scent of juniper and mint was overpowering now, closer than the air. She lifted one hand, her gloved fingers curling slightly, and patted the mattress beside her, an explicit, silent order. "Come sit with me..." Her voice was soft, not a question, but the final stroke of the knife, telling me she knew exactly where my boundaries lay, and she was already on the inside.

  The air still felt heavy. My bruised ribs made it hard to take in air after tangling with the Chief’s son, but it wasn't the pain that stopped me. It was the absolute, raw awareness of her. I must admit I never could have imagined this side of Abby. Of c

  ourse I never met her mother to find out how she was taught to take care of a man.