The valley road curved like a snake that forgot how to move.Matt kept to the middle where the gravel bit less, reins loose, mind working harder than the horse.The crate rattled again, bottles faint against the hollow quiet. He could still smell town on him — grease, sweat, and the gun oil that clung to everything down there.
He didn't look back, but he felt it.That pull.Like a weight hooked between his shoulder blades, reeling him slow.Some places you left. Some places left a handprint on your back.
By the time he hit the ridge, the sun had given up. Only a thin seam of orange clung to the world.He reined in at the overlook and listened.Nothing but the wind scraping at the brush.Nothing but his heart, tapping time like it wanted out.
Then, under it — a sound too steady to be wind.Hoofbeats.One horse. Far back, coming slow.
Matt slid the crate off and checked the revolver. Six chambers. Thirty more in the pocket.He wasn't looking for trouble, but trouble had its own directions.
He waited.The hoofbeats stopped where the road bent below.He couldn't see the rider, only the faint heat shimmer where a body might've been.He watched until the shadows turned to one shade, then turned his horse toward home.
The shack sat half a mile off the road, behind a split fence no one mended anymore.Roof sagged like a tired lung.A lantern burned low in the window — habit, not comfort.
Inside smelled of smoke and corn mash.He set the crate down, wiped his hands, and poured a finger's worth into a tin cup.No toast. No prayer.Just the old burn working down his throat, the kind that made a man feel alive by reminding him how close he wasn't.
Outside, something moved.Soft. Careful.
Matt set the cup down.Waited.There — wood creaked on the porch.
He reached for the revolver and stayed still, listening.
A single knock.Polite.Two beats between each tap.
He opened the door an inch.The man from the corner stood there — hat brim low, coat wet with road dust.
"Town's closed," Matt said.
The man smiled thin, the way a knife flashes before it's used."Didn't come for town."
Matt didn't like how the man's eyes didn't move, how they seemed to look through things instead of at them.
"You trade shine?" the man asked.
"Done for the day."
"Maybe I'm not here for the day."
That line sat in the air a second too long.
Matt's rule whispered again — don't stir the water — but something in him tightened anyway.Maybe it was the way the man's coat bulged, or maybe it was the way he said here, like he wasn't talking about the shack at all.
Matt eased the door wider. "You armed?"
The man didn't blink."Everyone's armed. Just depends what with."
Wind hissed through the gaps in the boards.The lantern wavered.
Matt could have ended it there. Could've shut the door, pretended the valley had nothing left to say.
Instead, he said, "What's your price?"
The man tilted his head."You already paid."
Matt's hand twitched near the holster."What for?"
"For what's waiting."
The man stepped back into the dark, boots whispering on gravel.Didn't look back. Didn't need to.Matt stayed frozen at the door until the hoofbeats faded again into the hollow road.
When he finally looked down, the crate by the wall was gone — but the bottles still sat there, neat and full.
Only the shine inside wasn't clear anymore.It shimmered faint gold, like light caught from somewhere it shouldn't be.
Matt touched one bottle. It was warm.
He didn't drink. Not that night.