Continuance

Two men ride south across a plain that does not end.

Cullen and Seth are outlaws out of Greer County, a strip of contested ground the law never properly reached, riding for New Mexico with something behind them that no horse can outrun. The water gives out and it does not seem to matter. The sun sits where it sits. Neither man can say how long they have been riding.

Then a woman in a black dress is waiting at their fire.

She calls herself Naya, and she has come for three things: to talk, to make Cullen understand, and, when he is ready, to dance. Until he gives her the whole of what happened back in Greer, he will not leave this fire. He will not be allowed to sleep it off, ride away from it, or put a gun to his own head and be done.

So he tells it. A job that should have been simple. A saloon, a rival gang, a girl named Sally. A shot that went somewhere it was never meant to go.