Silas | Wild West Husband

There were plenty of crimes that could get a man hanged in the town of Deadwood Crossing. If you were unlucky enough, you’d find yourself swinging at high noon with the whole town watching. Some places were worse than others. Outlaws ran them to the ground until no lawman dared set foot there, it was better to move than life through that hell, if they were even allowed to do so. Deadwood Crossing wasn’t so bad, not anymore. Once upon a time, Silas Mercer had been the one to drag the worst criminals and bring them to justice. Sheriff Mercer, gun quick as lightning, hand steady as stone, and justice untouched.

But that was years ago.

Silas walked away from the badge when the blood on his hands began to weigh heavier than the tin star on his chest. Too many graves in his name, too many nights staring down the barrel of his own choices. So many hours wasted wondering if that career path had been the right thing. Luckily all those years of work allowed him to save money, enough to buy a spread of land, a house with a porch, and a piece of quiet. No more dusty inns, gun smoke and wounds to tend to all alone.

Now? His life was calm, way too quiet for his own liking. Every single day was the exact same. Cattle grazing under the sun, the only sound the creak of wood and the sigh of the wind. He almost missed the chaos, but it wasn’t enough to make him go back into gathering up criminals.

Deadwood Crossing had grown tame anyway. Petty thefts, drunken brawls, nothing worth a bullet. Until one family ruined everything.

The father had crossed a line. The man had rustled cattle off Silas’s land, sold them off in secret, and when Silas’s hired hands caught wind of it, they didn’t come back alive. Folks whispered about bandits, bad luck, maybe even wild animals. Silas knew better. He knew where the blood trailed back to. The debt was too heavy to ever be repaid in coin or cattle, and it could potentially ruin them for years to come.

Normally, that would’ve been simple business. Jail time and debt until the day they died, but the man had a daughter. And Silas saw something in her, something steady that he wanted for himself. He wasn’t inexperienced, over the years he’d had plenty of women. Lovers in every town, fleeting faces in rented rooms, or common whores looking to ease the stress within rugged men. But they were shallow, greedy, or wild enough to burn him out. He was getting older, and the years hadn’t made him softer, not at all, they’d made him sharper, hungrier and smarter.

So he laid out his plan. Her father never truly committed the crime, not all of it anyway. Silas just nudged the scales, set things up so the family fell under suspicion and they would be blamed. The crime wasn’t bad enough to hang them, but enough to give him leverage. The townsfolk saw him as their savior, the one who spared them. Fools. If only they knew they’d handed their daughter to the wolf at their door.

Did he feel guilt? Maybe, in some part deep inside of him. But then he remembered the prize, and guilt burned to ashes.

Today was the day, and he’d take what was his. He saddled up Ironheart, his brown warhorse of a stallion, broad-shouldered and mean as his master, and rode down the dirt road toward their home. Dust curled in his wake as hooves thundered against the earth in every gallop his companion took.

When he dismounted, his boots hit the ground heavy, stirring up another cloud of dust. He walked towards the house, his shadow long under the hot morning sun. He knocked the door once, and didn’t do it again, he was the kind of person that didn’t like to beg. Eventually he was greeted and invited inside of their humble home.

“Thank you so much again for saving us, our daughter will behave well for you,” the mother said nervously at the door.

Silas dipped his chin, his voice low and calm, carrying the weight of something final. “She’ll have no trouble with me. I’ll see to it.”

Inside, the house was modest, smelling of woodsmoke and old quilts. Silas’s eyes moved over every detail as he stepped in, boots thudding on worn floorboards. And then, at last, he saw her: his prize. The reason for every scheme and sin that brought him here.

For a long moment he didn’t move, just let his eyes linger all over her. The girl wasn’t some painted saloon beauty, nor one of the restless widows who used to sidle close for coin and comfort. Exactly what he’d been starving for without admitting it.

The edge of his mouth curved, just enough to show it wasn’t all stone in him. His voice came low, slow, the kind that filled a room without ever needing to rise and would make everyone go quiet.

“Well now,” he said, tilting his hat back just a fraction. “Looks like you’ll finally come home with me.”