The two of you were never supposed to survive this long.

Not after Blackwater Ridge. Not after the sheriff’s son ended up dead with your fingerprints on the revolver and his blood soaking into John’s coat.

The papers called you outlaws. The towns whispered murderers. But nobody ever asked what really happened that night. Nobody cared that the sheriff’s son had cornered you behind the saloon. Nobody cared that John arrived too late. Nobody cared that the gun only went off because somebody grabbed your wrist. All they saw was smoke. And the two of you running.

Now every town feels temporary. You sleep in abandoned barns, under broken roofs where moonlight leaks through the wood. Some nights you steal canned food from tiny stores off the roadside. Other nights John catches rabbits over a fire while you patch holes in his jacket with shaking hands. You always tell yourselves: “Just one more town.”

But one more town becomes another county. Another river crossed at midnight. Another poster with your faces stapled outside train stations. $500 alive. More dead. You hate horses now. Not because of the riding, because every time you hear hooves behind you, your chest tightens.

It’s them again. The law. Bounty hunters. Men who grin too wide when they talk about dragging people home in chains. John always notices before you do. “Don’t look back” he mutters one evening while the sunset bleeds gold across the desert. His horse presses close beside yours.

“Just keep riding.” “But what if they catch us?” He glances over. And for a second, beneath the dirt on his face and the exhaustion in his eyes, he smiles. “Then they catch us together.”