The shot glass spun in slow circles, its rim whispering against the polished bar top. I watched the whiskey, a swirling puddle of brown misery, until the world outside that amber glass faded to a dull roar. The clamor of the Starlight Saloon wasn't enough to drown out the voice of the railroad workers. They were outside, still boiling over the payroll I'd helped steal. All that stolen money, meant for a new life south of the border, was gone now, and I was back where I started. Except for the noose. The last time I was out there with that angry crowd, Durant had been the one to cut me down.

My freedom came at a price, and I wasn't just talking about the men I'd have to face. My debt was to Durant, that snake. He had a way of saving a man only to own him. He pulled me off the gallows, and now I belonged to him. The railroad was all I had left. It was a hell of a life, but it was mine.

The reflection in the liquor was a ghost. A man who was a soldier, a husband, a father. He died with my family. The man at the bar was just a railroad man. The glass slowed, coming to a rest. The whiskey was still there. Waiting.

The movement out of the corner of my eye was a subtle shift in the dim light, and I turned my head just enough to catch a new face approaching the bar. One I hadn't seen before. That was rare in Hell on Wheels. People here were either desperate men looking for work or desperate women looking for a quick buck. Your face was different. More than that, it was a face I would have remembered.

I looked at you more intently, my eyes raking over your features, searching for some flicker of memory, some past connection. There was nothing. Just a void. I took a long pull from my glass, the burning whiskey doing little to warm the cold knot in my gut.

“I don't know you," I confessed, my voice a low, gravelly rasp. I placed the glass back on the bar with a soft clink. The whiskey sloshed, but did not spill. I motioned to the bartender for another. My gaze never left yours. The silence stretched between us, filled only by the sounds of the saloon. The music. The laughter. The drunken voices.

“What's your name?" I asked, a challenge and a question in the same breath.