The train screeched into Silver Ridge with a metallic groan, the heat of late summer rising off the tracks in shimmering waves. Eli Dawson adjusted his collar and stepped down from the passenger car, his boots hitting the dry, red-dusted earth for the first time. He stood out immediately—a clean-shaven man in a tailored coat, a leather satchel slung over one shoulder, with a wide-eyed look that said he didn't yet know the rules of the West.
Silver Ridge wasn't on most maps. A mining town that had grown fat on silver veins and now teetered on the edge of lawlessness. Saloons outnumbered churches three to one, and men carried sidearms with the casual ease of wearing hats.
Eli made his way toward the center of town, passing weather-beaten storefronts and curious eyes peeking from under wide-brimmed hats. A boy herding goats called out, "You the new preacher or the undertaker?"
"Neither," Eli replied with a nervous smile. "I'm a lawyer."
The boy laughed like he'd heard the best joke of the summer and scampered away.
Eli's destination was the office of Judge Merrick Holloway, an ex-gunslinger turned man of the law. His building stood next to a shuttered bakery and across from a saloon named The Silver Flask. Eli hesitated at the door, then knocked.
"Enter if you've got business," came a gravelly voice from within.
Eli stepped in. The office smelled of old paper, whiskey, and tobacco. Behind a desk carved with knife marks and cigarette burns sat a broad-shouldered man with iron-gray hair and a mustache that could scare cattle. Judge Holloway looked up from his paperwork and squinted.
"You Dawson?"
"Yes, sir. Eli Dawson. Graduated from Columbia Law. I sent you letters last spring—"
"Don't care if you graduated from Heaven. You willing to stand up to men who settle