The stone walls grew as they rode. The fort sat on its low hill like a square of gray rock somebody had cut and set down on purpose. The walls rose maybe twice a man’s height, rough?faced limestone blocks fitted together, their tops lined with a low parapet where men stood in dark silhouettes, rifles in their hands.

  A ditch ran around the base, not deep enough to swallow a horse, but enough that a man would have to scramble. There were sharpened stakes set in clusters along it—chevaux?de?frise, the sheriff had once called those things in a book, though the boy had never seen real ones until now. A gate of thick timbers banded with iron broke the wall facing them. It stood shut, two soldiers on the catwalk above, looking down.

  Ben shifted in the saddle under Lily and Mary, rolling his shoulders as if to ease some weight the fort itself had put on him.

  “Doesn’t look like much,” Lily whispered. She sounded disappointed. “I thought forts were… taller.”

  “They did this quick,” Kieran said. “Army only started haulin’ stone up here few months back. Needed somethin’ between the Llano and San Antone or the Kiowa would be ridin’ straight to the coast. The actual walls were put up just a few days ago when the slaves were brought in.”

  He tipped his chin at the walls.

  “That there’s meant to be the front line. Kiowa push south, Lipan come up from the hill country, Comanche circle round—” He whistled low. “This is what’s meant to say no. The walls are meant to say no to the monsters–they’re new.”

  “Does it?” Mary asked. Her voice was very small. She clutched Ember under one arm like the doll might fall if she loosened a finger. “Does it say no to all of those monsters?”

  Kieran’s mouth pulled sideways.

  “Depends how many ride and how awake the men on those walls are,” he said. “Depends on a lot of things, but it hasn’t been torn down yet. So, I guess it works.”

  Jim snorted.

  Ben glanced at the boy over his shoulder.

  “Whatever else,” he said, “it’s better than an open road with three kids and a pocket full o’ corpses.”

  The boy watched.

  He watched the way the walls sat—not quite on the highest rise, a little down from it. That bothered him. High ground mattered. He watched where the ditch dipped lower on the north side, the way water had carved out a shallow wash under the wall where the stone met earth. He watched the men on the parapet, counting—one, two, three, four, five—that he could see, rifles leaning in their hands, cartridges in little pouches at their belts.

  There was a flag on a pole inside, the Stars and Stripes hanging heavy in the morning stillness. Smoke climbed from a few chimneys, white and thin.

  He tried to picture all of it with a Comanche warband around it. Fifty, sixty horsemen maybe. Maybe more. Men who knew this land like their own hands, circling just beyond rifle range, whooping and firing, cutting off water, setting fire to anything that burned. The wall might keep them out for a long enough time.

  But long enough for what? For monsters to show up while they waited? That hairy thing he called a few days ago could easily jump over this wall.

  Inside his chest, something stayed cold.

  A voice barked from the wall.

  “Riders on the south road! Hold up there!”

  Ben reined in. Dust settled around the horses’ legs.

  “It’s Wallow!” he shouted back. “Texas Rangers, back from patrol!”

  There was movement on the catwalk. One of the blue?coated soldiers shaded his eyes with a hand.

  “You left with twelve,” he called down. “You’re comin’ back with three. Who’s that mess riding with you?”

  “Stories for the captain,” Ben said. “Open your damn gate.”

  The man on the wall hesitated, then lifted a hand and waved. Down by the gate, someone shouted; chains rattled, hinges groaned. The heavy timbers swung inward, slow at first, then wider.

  They rode in at a walk.

  The inside of Fort Mason opened around them.

  The walls made a rough square. Inside, the ground had been scraped level into a hard, pale yard, the dirt churned by boots and hooves. On the east side, a long low building of stone and white?washed plank sat with its doors thrown open—barracks, from the rows of bunks visible in the dimness. On the west, a cluster of smaller stone houses, roofed with shingle and sod, hugged the wall. One had a narrow porch and glass in the windows; that would be the officers’ quarters. Another had a crude cross nailed above the door and a bell hanging from a simple frame beside it.

  “The church,” Mary breathed. Relief softened her face for the first time that morning. “There’s a chapel.”

  “Chaplain’s out with a patrol,” Ben said. “He’ll be happy to hear somebody’s still talkin’ to his boss.”

  His eyes slid briefly heavenward, then back down.

  Between buildings and walls, life moved.

  Soldiers in faded blue and dust?brown shirts crossed the parade ground, some with muskets on their shoulders, some with buckets in their hands. A group of them drilled near the far wall under a sergeant’s barked commands, stepping and turning in rough unison, bayonets flashing. A pair of men in butternut trousers stood by a two?wheeled gun, a stubby iron barrel that pointed over the wall through a cut embrasure.

  Near the gate, three wagons had been drawn into a crooked line, their canvas covers thrown back. Men in plain shirts and hats—traders, not soldiers—sorted sacks and crates. A signboard nailed to a post near them read SUTLER in rough black letters. Barrels stood stacked behind, stenciled FLOUR and COFFEE and SALT.

  The boy smelled beans cooking somewhere, grease and coffee and wet leather all mixed together.

  A group of men moved along the edge of the yard by the quartermaster’s shed, shirts soaked dark down their backs, hands on the shafts of a heavy handcart stacked with stones. Their skin was dark. Not the deep brown of a Comanche or the wind?burned tan of a Mexican vaquero. Darker. Like fresh?turned earth after rain. Like the inside of burned wood.

  Iron glinted at their ankles. Chains dragged soft over the packed dirt.

  A white man in a hat that had never seen dust walked alongside them, a coil of whip hanging loose in one hand, a pistol on his hip. He didn’t pull the whip back, didn’t crack it. He didn’t have to. The dark?skinned men leaned into the cart without being told twice.

  The boy had never seen people like that.

  He stared before he knew he was staring.

  They didn’t look strange in the way the green?skins had. They didn’t have tusks or wrong?colored blood. They just looked like men. Men with shoulders thick from work, backs bowed, eyes turned down. One of them had a rag tied around his head, gray at the temples. Another’s shirt had slipped, showing scars across his shoulders like someone had laid rope there hot.

  Lily followed his gaze. Her fingers tightened in Ben’s coat.

  “What… what are they?” she whispered.

  Mary glanced over, then away quickly. Her mouth went thin.

  “Negroes,” she said under her breath. “Slaves. They belong to somebody here. Maybe the sutler. Maybe the captain.”

  She swallowed. “Mama said you ain’t supposed to look too long.”

  The boy didn’t look away fast enough. One of the men—the older one with gray in his hair—lifted his head just a little. Their eyes met for half a heartbeat.

  The man’s gaze flicked down, then up, taking in the boy’s bare feet in borrowed boots, the hat too big for his head, the rifle slung easy across his back. There was something in his eyes. Not quite curiosity. Not quite anything the boy had words for. Then he dropped his gaze again and bent back to the cart, muscles standing out in his arms.

  The boy’s fingers twitched on the reins.

  Men in chains, he thought. Like animals. Why?

  He didn’t say it out loud. There were too many ears.

  “Eyes front, boy,” Jim murmured, low.

  They angled toward the stables—a long, dark building along the north wall, the smell of hay and manure spilling from its open doors. A couple of boys ran out to take reins, one in a rough blue fatigue jacket, the other in a torn shirt that had once been white. The second had skin nearly as dark as the stone haulers’, though he wore no chain. He moved quick and silent, hands sure on the horses’ heads.

  “Afternoon, Rangers,” the older bluecoat boy said. “Captain’s been expectin’ you back since yesterday. Figured you must’ve run off to join the circus.”

  “Ran into somethin’ uglier,” Ben said, swinging his leg over and dropping to the ground in one easy motion. Lily squeaked and clung as he steadied her with one hand, then lifted her down like she weighed nothing. “Where is he?”

  “In his office,” the boy said, jerking his chin toward a squat stone building near the officers’ row. “Sergeant said bring you straight.”

  The rangers swung down one by one. The boy slid off Jim’s saddle, legs steady. He took Lily’s hand out of habit. Mary dismounted awkwardly with Kieran’s help, knees buckling a little when her boots hit dirt.

  Ben gave instructions to the stable boys—water these first, watch that mare’s leg, don’t let anyone walk off with that sorrel unless they had his say?so. The dark?skinned stable hand listened with eyes lowered, nodding quick at each word.

  The boy stayed quiet. He watched everything. The number of saddles on their racks. The rifles stacked in the corner. The way one horse shied when a cannon boomed faintly in the distance—just training, some men drilling the gun.

  “Come on,” Jim said, clapping a hand lightly on his shoulder. “Time to go kiss the captain’s ring and beg him not to kick us back out.”

  They crossed the yard together—three Rangers, three children.

  The soldiers’ eyes followed them.

  Some of the looks were just curious. Some were hard. A few flicked over the boy, over his rifle and the way he carried himself, and lingered a little too long.

  The captain’s office was a narrow room in the stone building by the officers’ row. A sergeant with a hard jaw and chewed?raw lip met them at the door.

  “Wallow,” he said. “McNamara. Booth.”

  His eyes cut to the children, taking in small dirty faces and the doll in Mary’s arms. Something like disapproval tightened the corners of his mouth. “You brought half a nursery with you?”

  “Found ‘em on the road,” Ben said evenly. “Figured the captain’d rather they were inside his walls than outside ‘em with monsters.”

  The sergeant grunted, then stood aside.

  “Captain’ll see you,” he said. “All of you, he said. His words.”

  They went in.

  The office smelled of ink, dust, and pipe smoke. Light slanted through a small window behind a plain wooden desk, falling over maps tacked to the walls—Texas sketched in faint lines, rivers like veins, little crosses marking forts and towns. There was a rack of rifles on one side, a bookcase on the other, shelves mostly empty save for a Bible, a ledger, and a stack of folded papers.

  The man behind the desk looked up as they entered.

  He was tall even sitting, shoulders squared, his blue coat buttoned despite the heat. His hair was dark gone to iron at the temples, cut close. A narrow mustache, neat enough to have been measured, sat over a mouth that looked like it knew how to be kind and how not to be. Deep lines bracketed it. His eyes were pale gray, steady as he took them all in: Ben’s bandaged arm, Kieran’s split scalp, Jim’s stiff way of holding his side. Then the children.

  His expression eased, just a fraction.

  “Rangers,” he said. His voice had the clipped cadence of someone who’d spent a lot of years giving orders. “You’re late.”

  “Yes, sir,” Ben said. “We brought company and trouble both. Figured you’d prefer we sorted some of it out first.”

  “Mm.” The captain’s gaze brushed over Lily, Mary, the boy. “We’ll get to that. Stand easy, gentlemen.”

  The rangers relaxed a notch, hats coming off. The boy followed their lead, tugging Ben’s hat from his own head and holding it in front of him. Lily shifted closer to his side. Mary hovered by the door, half hiding Ember behind her back.

  The captain rose.

  Up close, the boy saw the lines of him better—the way his coat sat straight despite dried blood on one cuff, the way his boots were polished to a dull shine, the way his right hand bore a pale scar along the knuckles as if something had once tried to cut them off. There were faint smudges under his eyes. He looked like a man who slept less than he ought.

  He stepped around the desk.

  “Ladies,” he said, and he bowed, proper, to Mary and Lily. It wasn’t deep, not silly, but it was respectful. “You’re safe inside this post for the moment. I am Captain Nathaniel Hargrove, commanding Fort Mason.”

  “M?Mary Hooper, sir,” Mary said. Her voice wobbled. “From San Antonio. Or… I was.”

  He inclined his head.

  “Miss Hooper,” he said. “My condolences on whatever brings you so far from home in such company. We’ll see you fed and rested.”

  He looked to Lily. “And you, miss?”

  “Lily,” she said. Her chin lifted, even as her fingers curled in her brother’s shirt.

  “He’s my brother.” She nodded toward the boy. “We don’t… we don’t rightly have anyplace.”

  The captain’s eyes rested on the boy.

  “And the brother?” he asked. “Does he answer to any name?”

  Ben’s mouth twitched.

  “Mostly to ‘boy’, sir,” he said, before the silence could stretch too long. “Haven’t had time to christen him proper. But he’s the one standing here instead o’ twelve more headstones, so I reckon we can call him whatever he likes.”

  The captain studied the boy, not unkindly. His gaze was like a quartermaster checking a piece of equipment—what shape it was in, what it might be used for, how likely it was to break.

  “You armed, son?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir,” the boy said.

  He jerked his chin toward the revolver at his belt and the rifle on his back, but didn’t touch either. The captain’s eyes flicked over them, taking in worn grips, scuffed barrel, the easy way they sat on a thirteen?year?old’s frame.

  He nodded once.

  “We’ll come to that,” he said. He turned back toward his desk and gestured at the chairs lined along one wall. “All of you, sit. This will take a bit. Sergeant, close the door.”

  The door shut with a soft thump. The room grew smaller.

  They sat—Ben, Kieran, Jim in the straight?back chairs, Lily and Mary squeezed together on the smallest one, Ember wedged between them. The boy remained standing, unconsciously, hat in his hands. He liked having his back to a wall. There wasn’t one free, but standing felt closer to that than sitting did.

  Captain Hargrove lowered himself into his own chair, steepled his fingers over the neat stack of papers before him, and fixed the rangers with that pale, steady gaze.

  “You left this post four days ago,” he said. “Twelve Rangers, one civilian scout, tasked with locating a missing stage on the San Antonio road and determining whether Comanche, Kiowa, or bandits were responsible. That’s the last clear order I gave you. You return late, short nine men and the scout, and in company of three children.”

  His jaw ticked once. “Explain.”

  So they did.

  Ben did most of the talking, his words plain and flat as if he were reading them off a report in his head. Kieran added pieces where Irish eyes had seen angles others hadn’t. Jim filled in gaps with a grim humor that didn’t quite hide the way his hands tightened when he spoke of certain things.

  They told him how many men had gone out from Fort Mason and how many would never ride back under their own power. Ben’s voice went quieter there.

  “We couldn’t carry ‘em all back on horseflesh, sir,” he said. “Not with three little ones and gear. But the System let us… store some things away.”

  The captain’s brows drew together for the first time in open surprise.

  “You have… bodies in your Inventories,” he said carefully. “My men?”

  “Yes, sir,” Kieran said, swallowing. “Feels like a sin, if I’m honest. But the alternative was leavin’ them to the coyotes. This way we can bury ‘em in decent soil, with crosses and names if we have ‘em.”

  Silence sat in the room for a moment.

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  The captain rubbed the bridge of his nose as if warding off a headache.

  “Everything about this new world feels like a sin some days, McNamara,” he said at last. “I won’t fault you for finding a way to keep my soldiers from rot. We’ll see them in the ground proper before the sun’s down.”

  He leaned back, shoulders easing for a heartbeat, then tensed again.

  “And these green?skins,” he said. “Based on your description of ‘em, might just be the same creatures we fought yesterday.”

  Ben blinked.

  “You were hit too, sir?” he asked.

  The captain snorted, humorless.

  “You think you Rangers have the only misfortunes?” he said. “Yesterday just before dawn, a party of them—twenty, maybe more, hard to count in the dark—came out of the scrub to the north. Big. Green. Armor like some barbarian out of a storybook. Axes could cut a man in two if he stood still for it. We barely had time to get half my company on the wall.”

  His mouth compressed.

  “They came at us like they’d been drilled,” he went on. “Not like Indians. Indians will circle, feint, probe for weakness. These things ran straight at the gate and tried to climb the stone like it was a tree. Took a dozen of them climbing on each other before they learned they couldn’t get purchase on mortar.”

  “Did you kill ‘em?” Lily blurted. Then she flushed and looked down. “Sorry, sir. I just…”

  He looked at her, and some of the tightness in his face eased again.

  “Yes, Miss… Lily, was it?” he said. “We killed them. Eventually. My men fired until their rifles were too fouled to load quick. We put the howitzer to work.”

  He jerked his thumb toward the wall where the boy had seen the squat cannon. “At that range, grape will tear anything apart, armor or no. But we lost three men. Five more wounded. One of the things got into the ditch. Took four bayonets to keep it from coming over the parapet.”

  Kieran crossed himself, lips moving in a quick prayer. Jim swore under his breath.

  “Seems the world’s got no shortage o’ monsters,” Jim muttered. “Only shortage o’ men to shoot ‘em.”

  “So you see,” the captain said quietly, “this is not a place for children.”

  Mary’s fingers tightened around Ember until the cloth creaked.

  “But Papa said—” She bit the words off, eyes filling, and forced them out again. “Papa said the fort would be safe. He said… he said soldiers would keep us safe from Comanches and bandits and such.”

  “And he was right,” Captain Hargrove said, and somehow he made that not a lie. “Before… all this. Before whatever voice crawled into our skulls and started handing out numbers and tricks. The United States Army knows how to fight men with horses. It does not know yet how to fight things out of nightmares.”

  He looked at the three of them, one by one.

  “You have already seen too much,” he said. “Your town, Miss Lily. Your parents, Miss Hooper. That… creature on the road.”

  His gaze lingered on the boy a moment longer, considering the calm in his face and the way his hands didn’t shake. “Children should not have to kill anything but rats and chickens, if that.”

  “Too late,” the boy said, before he could stop himself.

  The captain’s eyes sharpened on him. Then, slowly, he nodded.

  “Yes,” he said. “Too late.”

  He exhaled, a sound that were almost a sigh. “All the same, I’ll not keep you on the very edge of Comancheria if there is a better alternative.”

  He reached for a map on his desk, flipped it open with practiced fingers. His finger traced from Fort Mason’s little square symbol eastward and northward.

  “There’s nothing west of us but more wild,” he said. “Comanche, Lipan, Kiowa, and now these green things. South is San Saba and then back toward San Antonio, which I doubt offers you much comfort now.”

  His mouth tightened briefly at the thought of that city’s own troubles. “But north—north there’s the Brazos, and beyond that, Dallas. Growing town. Settlers. Trade. Maybe by now they’ve put up walls and learned enough of the System to make use of it. If there is anywhere within reach more likely to hold than this stone box, it’s a proper town with more men than I can count from my doorstep.”

  “Dallas,” Mary repeated, tasting the word. It was farther than she’d ever thought of going. It sounded as far away as the moon.

  “How far?” the boy asked. It came out like asking about a sack of flour. Weight. Cost.

  “Two hundred miles, more or less, if the roads are passable and the bridges still stand,” the captain said. “More, if you have to detour around burned crossings. It isn’t a journey for the three of you alone. Not yet.”

  He pressed his lips together. “But staying here forever is not an option either. Fort Mason is meant to be a shield, not a shelter for families. It will be tested. Harder than it has been.”

  He let those words sit a moment. The air in the little office felt thick.

  “For now,” he said at last, “you’ve come a long way, and you’ve done this command a service I cannot measure. These men”—he nodded toward the rangers—“owe their lives to that boy’s pistol. That makes me owe you as well. I will not pay that debt with a bowl of beans and a boot out the gate.”

  He straightened in his chair.

  “You may have board and lodging here for as long as I can spare it,” he said.

  “Beds under a roof. Regular meals. Such safety as these walls and my men can provide. In return—” His gaze went back to the boy, flat and direct. “—the boy joins the post militia.”

  Mary drew in a sharp breath. Lily’s head snapped around.

  “What’s a militia?” Lily demanded, before the boy could ask.

  “A fancy word for every man who can carry a gun when we ring the bell,” Jim muttered.

  The captain’s mouth twitched.

  “Mr. Booth is not wrong,” he said. “Regular Army enlistment has age requirements and oaths I will not ask of a child. But everything that’s been happening has… blurred the lines. I have teamsters and cooks who can swing a musket better than half my recruits because some monster decided to try and eat them last week and the System decided they should live. When we are attacked, I call on all of them. I would call on you as well.”

  “To stand on the wall,” the boy said slowly. “Shoot anything that comes at it.”

  “Yes,” the captain said. “To drill with my men when you are not otherwise occupied. To learn how we fight in lines, not just from behind rocks. To keep your weapon clean. To answer when the bugle sounds. In return, you and your sister and Miss Hooper will eat from Army stores, sleep under Army shingles, and have men between you and whatever roams the dark.”

  He paused. “And I will see if I can’t wring a small pay allotment out of the quartermaster. Militia service ought to be worth more than a thank?you.”

  The boy’s first instinct was to say no.

  He could picture duties stacking up like flour sacks—stand here, walk there, do this because a man with a bar on his shoulder said so. He remembered the sheriff’s badge and the way the man had stood between him and Mr. Cobb, and how that had ended anyway.

  He also pictured Lily’s bare feet dragging on the road. Mary’s thin hands shaking around the doll. The way hunger sat like a quiet animal behind their ribs even now, waiting.

  He looked at Lily.

  Her eyes were wide, her mouth a thin line. She did not like all this talk of fighting. She did not like numbers in her head. But she looked back at him and there was trust there too, stubborn. Whatever you say, that look said. I’ll follow.

  He looked at Mary.

  She clutched Ember, but she held the captain’s gaze when he glanced at her, just for a second. She had nowhere else to go. Dallas was a dream farther down the trail than any of them could see.

  He swallowed.

  “All right,” he said. “I’ll do it.”

  Lily made a small, wounded sound. Mary let out a breath she hadn’t known she’d been holding.

  Captain Hargrove nodded once, as if that settled some inner ledger.

  “Good,” he said. “Then we’re in agreement. I’ll have you written on the rolls as… auxiliary militia. We’ll find some fiction to keep the clerks in Austin happy. Until then—”

  He raised his voice slightly.

  “Sergeant!”

  The door opened a crack. The same hard?jawed sergeant stuck his head in.

  “Sir?”

  “See Miss Hooper and Miss Lily”—he caught himself, glanced at the girl—“Miss… ah…”

  “Just Lily,” she supplied, a little sullen.

  “Miss Lily,” he echoed, not missing a beat. “See them to the laundresses’ quarters. Mrs. Brant owes me three favors. She can find them cots and see they get a wash and a hot meal. Nothing with too much pork; they look half starved, the fat’ll knock them over.”

  “Yes, sir,” the sergeant said.

  He stepped into the room fully, softening a fraction when he looked at the girls.

  “Come along, ladies,” he said. “We’ll get you set right.”

  Lily’s hand clamped around her brother’s.

  “You’re comin’ too,” she said.

  “Soon,” the boy said. “They gotta talk about Ranger things. I’ll find you after.”

  She searched his face, looking for any hint of a lie. He let her see only calm.

  “Promise?” she whispered.

  “Promise,” he said.

  She nodded once, then unwound her fingers slowly, like letting go of a ledge. Mary stood, legs wobbly, and followed the sergeant, Ember tucked under one arm like a little burned baby. At the door, Mary paused and glanced back.

  “Thank you, Captain,” she said, voice barely above a whisper. “For the beds. And… and for lettin’ him stay.”

  Captain Hargrove’s mouth softened.

  “Don’t thank me yet, Miss Hooper,” he said. “Wait until you’ve tried Army coffee.”

  She managed the ghost of a smile, then was gone.

  The room felt larger without them and emptier at the same time.

  The captain let out another breath, quieter than the last.

  “All right,” he said. “We’ve wept enough on my floor. Wallow, McNamara, Booth—you’ll bunk where you please tonight. See the surgeon, see the cook. At first light tomorrow, I’ll decide whether to send you back out or chain you to the gate.”

  He lifted a hand before they could protest. “For now, there is one more matter. Your dead.”

  Ben’s jaw clenched.

  “Yes, sir,” he said.

  They walked out together, through the office and across the parade ground, out another gate in the wall that led to a small knoll just beyond the ditch. A few wooden crosses already stood there, crooked in the wind. Some had names burned into them. Some were blank.

  A chaplain in a faded black coat waited there, hat in his hands, eyes red?rimmed. A couple of soldiers stood off to one side with shovels.

  “Let’s have them,” the captain said quietly.

  The boy reached inside himself.

  [Inventory]

  The pressure that had been sitting just behind his eyes eased the moment he focused on it. It felt like opening a heavy cellar door and letting air rush in. The body slid out of nothingness and into the grass at his feet as if someone had set it down there with invisible hands.

  The soldiers stirred, one swearing softly. The chaplain crossed himself. Captain Hargrove’s features didn’t change, but the muscles in his jaw jumped again.

  “Again,” he said.

  They did it again and again. Kieran produced one, jaw tight, eyes closing each time he whispered “Inventory” under his breath like a penance. Jim’s hands shook the first time a friend appeared at his boots, then steadied on the next. Ben brought out two, then three, each man laid gently on the grass in a line.

  The boy emptied his share. Each time, that invisible weight lightened a little more. It never tugged at the Hollow the way death did; these souls were long gone, scattered beyond whatever reach he had.

  When they were done, nine men lay side by side in the shifting shade of the little hill.

  The soldiers set to digging.

  The boy joined them.

  The shovel felt small in his hands, almost insubstantial. His arms did not shake; his breath stayed easy. Dirt flew in steady, neat arcs.

  He was careful not to make it look too easy.

  He let himself breathe harder than he needed to, wiped sweat from his forehead now and then, set his jaw like the men beside him. Even so, he couldn’t quite hide how quick his shovel bit, how deep each cut went.

  He felt eyes on him. He didn’t look up.

  Ben said a few words over the first filled grave—simple things, names and places and a muttered,

  “You did your duty, boys.” Kieran added a low prayer in his own language. The chaplain read from his Bible, voice thick, about dust returning to dust. Jim stood with his hat in his hands, lips pressed together.

  The captain removed his hat too. So did the soldiers. For a little while, the only sound was shovels and the soft thump of dirt on canvas?wrapped bodies.

  When the last mound was smoothed, the boy leaned on his shovel and looked at them.

  They were just humps of earth. They looked small. Fleas on the skin of the world. None of the men’s strength or laughter or fear showed there.

  Maybe the System had written numbers for what they’d done. Maybe it hadn’t. He found that he didn’t care much about that part.

  “So,” he said quietly, when the soldiers had walked away and it was just the Rangers, the captain, the chaplain drifting back toward the fort. “Where you goin’ now?”

  Ben scratched at his beard, eyes on the fresh dirt.

  “Good question,” he said. “We were supposed to be the fort’s eyes on the San Antone road. Twelve men, four squads, rotate out. Now we’re three.”

  He huffed out a breath that wasn’t quite a laugh. “Hard to be much of a line with three.”

  “Captain’ll fold us into patrols,” Jim said. “Use us to plug holes ‘til the Legislature sends more fools with stars. That or he’ll send us runnin’ messages between posts like pack mules.”

  Kieran shrugged, shoulders loose in a way that didn’t reach his eyes.

  “I came across an ocean to fight for pay,” he said. “Didn’t expect the devils at the end of my rifle to have tusks. I’ll go where they point me ‘til either I’m rich, I’m dead, or this System nonsense stops countin’.”

  He spat lightly in the dirt. “I wouldn’t bet on the last one and I’m probably not getting rich unless I start mining gold.”

  The captain cleared his throat.

  “That decision will wait one night,” he said. “You’re no use to me half dead on your feet. But Mr. Booth is right; I’ll likely have to scatter you among Army patrols for a while. You won’t be a Ranger company again until Austin decides to spare more men.”

  He looked to the boy.

  “You, however, stay,” he said. “At least until Miss Hooper and your sister have their feet under them and I can find someone headed north with enough rifles to see you to the Brazos alive.”

  Ben turned at that. His gaze went from the captain to the boy, then back.

  “That’s it then,” he said. “We leave you to the tender mercies of bluebellies.”

  He stuck out his hand.

  The boy looked at it, then took it. Ben’s grip was as firm as the first time, calloused palm swallowing his smaller one.

  “You ever get tired of Army rules,” Ben said quietly, “or they get tired of you, and you find yourself loose on the trails again, you look for Rangers. Ask for Ben Wallow at any post from here to El Paso, if it still stands. They’ll point you my way if I’m breathin’.”

  The boy nodded once.

  “Thank you,” he said. “For the hat. For the horse. For not leavin’ us.”

  Ben’s mouth crooked into that almost?smile.

  “Get used to better things than hats, Ranger,” he said softly. “World’s gone mean, but it throws bones sometimes. You caught one. Don’t choke on it.”

  Kieran stepped in, clapped him on the shoulder with his good hand.

  “Keep your head down and your powder dry, lad,” he said. “And if you ever see Saint Peter before I do, tell him Kieran McNamara wants a word about the fine print on all this.”

  Jim, true to form, rolled his eyes and then grinned, sharp and tired.

  “You make me look bad out there, kid,” he said. “I don’t like bein’ the second?best shot in any outfit. Try not to get killed ‘til I can come back and steal your tricks.”

  The boy almost smiled back.

  “I’ll try,” he said. “You too.”

  They put their hats back on. The three Rangers walked down the hill toward the fort, boots scuffing at the edge of the ditch. At the gate, a bugle sounded a short call. Men made way for them. In a little while, they’d be scattered through the fort’s workings like shot in a barrel.

  The boy watched until they were gone from sight.

  He felt… odd. Not empty. Not full either. Just like another piece of the world had shifted under his feet and he was waiting to see where the new balance settled.

  “Come,” Captain Hargrove said.

  The boy turned.

  “Where?” he asked.

  The captain’s mouth tightened, but there was something almost like satisfaction tucked in the corner.

  “If you’re on my militia rolls, we might as well see what sort of tool I’ve just been handed,” he said. “You can shoot, they tell me. I’ve seen boys boast before. Let’s find out.”

  They walked around the outside of the wall a short way, then through a narrow sally port and out to a strip of hard?packed ground behind the fort. Someone had raised a rough berm of dirt there as a backstop. A few planks had been planted upright in the ground at varying distances, circles of charcoal marked on them, some pocked with old bullet holes.

  A couple of soldiers already stood there, one loading a musket, the other cleaning a pistol at a crate. They straightened when the captain approached.

  “At ease,” he said. “This won’t take long. Private Jones, fetch that spare target plank over there. Private Marsh, you will kindly keep count and keep your opinions to yourself.”

  The soldiers moved quick. A fresh board went up fifty paces out, a black circle smudged on its center with a stick of coal.

  The captain reached for the musket leaning against the berm.

  “This is a Model ’42 smoothbore,” he said, almost absently, as if he were in front of a class. “Forty?two inches of barrel. Percussion cap. Kicks like a mule, likes to foul, and refuses to shoot straight on a damp day. It is also the backbone of this post’s firepower, so you’d best learn to love it.”

  The captain demonstrated loading—powder from the cartridge, ball, ramrod down and up in a smooth, practiced motion. Cap on the nipple. He raised, sighted along the barrel at the black smudge, and fired.

  The gun jumped. Smoke spat. When it cleared, there was a jagged hole a hand’s breadth wide at the edge of the circle, splinters feathered outward.

  “At fifty yards, with this slag, I will accept that,” he said. He handed the musket to the boy, butt first. “Your turn. Mind the recoil. It’ll kick more than your squirrel rifle.”

  The boy took the weapon.

  It was a bit heavier than his own rifle, the balance different. He let his hands find their grip. Front hand under the barrel, back hand around the stock, cheek against the wood.

  He’d watched the captain load. He did it himself—tear, pour, bite the paper and spit it out, ram. It felt a lot slower compared to the revolver, but his new strength made the motions easy. He seated the ball firmly, careful not to double?charge, remembering Ben’s warning about blown cylinders and lost fingers. Different mechanism, same danger.

  Cap on. He drew a breath, set his feet.

  The target didn’t look far.

  He lifted the gun, finding the front sight with his eye, lining it with the groove at the rear as best he could. The circle on the plank was just a smudge in his vision. He let his breath out halfway and held it, finger tightening gently on the trigger. The world cleared away into silver glass and all thoughts and whispers and all the sounds disappeared.

  The musket barked. Smoke hit his face, sharp and bitter.

  Out on the plank, wood spat white. When the wind cleared the haze, there was a new hole almost dead center.

  Private Marsh made a small choking sound. Private Jones swore softly.

  The captain’s brows went up.

  “Again,” he said.

  They loaded and fired three more times.

  Each shot, the boy adjusted for the way the musket pulled, the way the wind touched the barrel, the way the last recoil had settled his stance. Each shot, he felt his body learn, little muscles in his shoulders and hands taking note. Each time, the hole in the board widened, not from missing but from eating the same spot.

  On the third, something in his head hiccuped.

  Minor bonus gained!

  +1 Dexterity.

  Reason: Repeated Action (Marksmanship).

  The words etched themselves across the inside of his skull, cold and clear, then sank away. His fingers felt… surer. Like they knew where they belonged before he told them.

  He lowered the smoking musket, squinting through the thinning haze.

  The black circle on the plank was gone. In its place, a ragged hole the size of a man’s fist had chewed through, daylight showing around the edges.

  Captain Hargrove stepped forward, boots crunching on spent caps, and peered at the target. He reached out, ran his fingers along the splintered edge, as if making sure it was real wood and not some trick.

  He turned back slowly.

  “Have you… done any formal drilling?” he asked. “With an instructor. Not just potshooting at squirrels.”

  “None,” the boy said. “Ben worked with me on the revolver. That’s it.”

  The captain stared at him for a long heartbeat.

  “God help us,” he murmured. It didn’t sound like a prayer, exactly.

  He held out a hand.

  “Your pistol,” he said. “Let’s see if it’s the iron or the hand.”

  The boy drew his own Colt, thumbed the hammer back enough to open the loading cut, and checked the chambers out of habit. All loaded. He handed it over, butt first.

  The captain weighed it.

  “Decent piece,” he said. “Colt navy model.”

  He cocked it, sighted one?handed at a new plank set twenty paces off, and fired six shots in measured rhythm.

  He wasn’t a bad shot. Four of the six hit the board. Two cut the outer ring of the charcoal circle. Two landed a little wide. He handed the revolver back.

  “Your turn,” he said.

  The boy took it, feeling the familiar weight settle into his palm like a returning bird. He rolled his shoulders, loosened his wrist.

  Twenty paces felt… close.

  He picked a knot in the wood just above the charcoal ring. Breathed in. Breathed out. The world narrowed to the iron notch, the front sight, the small dark spot.

  He fired.

  The recoil was less than the musket’s, a sharp little snap. The bullet hit where he’d looked. The knot jumped, a small splinter of wood spitting out.

  He moved the barrel a hair. Another spot. Another squeeze.

  Bang. Bang. Bang.

  Six shots. Six little holes in a rough circle small enough he could have covered it with the palm of his hand. One of them cut through the exact center of the charcoal mark, smearing it into nothing.

  The air smelled thick of smoke and burnt powder now. His ears rang faintly.

  Nobody said anything.

  Private Marsh’s mouth hung open. Private Jones made a sound halfway between a laugh and a low “holy…” before clamping his lips shut at the captain’s glance.

  Captain Hargrove just looked at the boy.

  For a long moment, that was all. A soldier’s eyes, weighing, measuring, recalculating whatever plan he’d walked into this clearing with.

  Finally, he let out a slow breath and shook his head once, like a man who’d bet a dollar and been handed a gold coin instead.

  “Well, son,” he said quietly. “I have seen men twice your age and half again your size shoot that well… on their best day… after ten years of drill.”

  His gaze flicked to the fort rising behind them, to the hills beyond, to the distant line where sky met scrub.

  “Whatever devilry this System has worked on us,” he went on, voice roughened by equal parts awe and something like fear, “it seems it’s put a rifle in my hands that can think for itself.”

  He looked back at the boy, pale eyes very steady.

  “I do believe,” he said, each word slow and certain, “that Fort Mason just got itself the finest shot on the frontier.”