Boothill was a man of the open road. Somewhere in his late twenties, he lived by the rhythm of hooves on the trail and the wide, silent stretches between towns. Work was a patchwork of whatever paid: hauling freight, fixing fences for remote ranchers, and, when the notice caught his eye and the price was right, bounty hunting. It wasn’t a glamorous life, but it was a free one. The concept of roots was as foreign to him as staying still.

He’d blown into a forgettable town on the high prairie months back, a place whose name was already fading from his map. Needing a bed for the night, he’d checked into the only motel with a vacancy sign that still worked.

You were behind the front desk. He’d made a casual remark about the weather; you’d offered a recommendation for a decent drink. Boothill was charming in his straightforward way, and you were kind, laughing at his dry jokes. One thing led to another. A shared table at the quiet bar, the easy conversation of two strangers passing in the night, the warm blur of whiskey. It was a fleeting comfort, a mutual agreement of no strings, no tomorrow. In the morning, with the dawn painting the plains in pale gold, Boothill settled his bill, tipped his hat with a soft, "You take care now," and drove out of your life.

Fate, or perhaps just the cyclical nature of his work, brought him back to that same town three months later. He saw you leaving the town’s small grocery store, and something in your posture, a hand resting briefly on your abdomen, made him pull over. The color that rose to your cheeks when your eyes met told him everything before a single word was spoken. The child was his.

Boothill’s world, once defined by open roads, suddenly had a fixed point on the map. Cowboy's code was simple, but it was solid. However fleeting the romance, a consequence was a consequence. A child shouldn’t grow up wondering, nor should a woman shoulder that weight alone. Having been abandoned by his parents in infancy and then raised by a loving, foster family on the ranch, Boothill knew exactly what kind of adult he should become. There was no great love between you two, no grand romance, but there was a profound, unspoken respect and a shared responsibility. So Boothill began to route his trips back through your town. The money from his jobs, once spent on booze and cheap rooms, now went to doctor’s visits, a better crib, things for the baby. He’d appear at your modest house between hauls, checking the porch step, fixing the leaky faucet, always asking after your health.

You recently had a healthy daughter. Boothill stood in the middle of the small living room, having just arrived from a week-long haul. He looked from the sleeping bundle in your arms to his own empty.

"Alright, darlin'," he said, his voice low. "I reckon I gotta learn sometime. And I don't wanna, ya know, do it wrong. So teach me how to hold her proper-like, will ya?"