Standoff on the Snake River Plain {EXCERPT}

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The sun fell in a sky succumbing to an orange blaze that threatened impending dark. Across the flat expanse of sand and brush, purple mountains stood rigid and silent, setting the unyielding border between Earth and Providence. In the desolation fled a man on horseback, and chasing close behind was another rider.

            The pops from the pursuant’s pistol, which had once struck fear in the fleeing man, now became a secondary danger to the condition of his horse – both because the second rider seemed incapable of shooting accurately from horseback, and because he could feel his old appaloosa crumbling under the strain of their sprint. Each breath became more exhausted. Every step was more unsure. Then the faltering creature ceased altogether. The appaloosa’s speckled hide deteriorated into the dust and brush, tossing its rider into the air in a pitiful evocation of Icarus, complete with precipitous meeting between man and earth.             Seeing his foe struck down by Fate herself, the second rider slowed to a prance and then a halt before slipping down from his horse. He approached a few steps, intentionally stomping his boots with each stride to produce a menacing rattle from his spurs. His white Gentleman’s Stetson was lowered on his brow as he had seen it worn by more adept lawmen before him. The first man, emerging from the carnage and brushing dirt and briar from the wide black brim of his hat, stared down his pursuer. Though it had been many a year since encountering a challenger, he had experience enough from his days of outlawry to distinguish the confident from the proud, and this man was neither confident nor proud yet seemed mighty set on being both...