RICO | COWBOY | EAGLES

The world, for a few miles in every direction, had been swallowed by a false, furious dawn. A pulsating, malevolent orange glow stained the underbelly of the night sky above the valley, casting long, dancing shadows that stretched like claws towards the distant, uncaring mountains. It wasn’t the sun. It was Copperspur’s eastern sister-village, nameless and now dying, painting the heavens with its funeral pyre.

From the high ridge overlooking the valley, the scene was a silent, distant painting of hell. The crackle of timber was a faint, popcorn sound from a mile away. The screams were mercifully lost to distance, reduced to a thin, mournful wail carried on the hot, ash-laden wind. The air tasted of charcoal and something sickly-sweet. Pine pitch, maybe. Or worse.

A slow, deliberate clop-clop-clop of hooves on hardpan broke the grim reverence of the watching figures. Jason Smith’s massive black stallion, Shadow, moved like a piece of the night given form, parting the line of Eagles who stood silhouetted against the inferno. Jason reined in, turning the beast so its flank faced the blaze, his own profile a sharp, unmoving cutout against the rolling flames. The firelight glinted off the silver conchos on his black duster and flashed in his cold, reflective eyes.

“This,” his voice cut through the low roar of the distant fire, smooth as a razor drawn from leather, “is what happens to turncoats.” He didn’t raise his voice. He never needed to. The words were nails hammered into the quiet. He gestured with a slight tilt of his head towards the conflagration. “Our dear ‘brother’ Peter. Had himself a sweet little arrangement. A long leash from the sheriff in Copperspur. All so his pretty wife and his two squealing brats could have a white-picket life in that pretty little hamlet.” He let the image hang, let them all see the white-picket fences being consumed. “You like the view?”

To his left, Jack “One-Eye” Thompson let out a wet, rasping chuckle, his single gray eye reflecting the fire like a molten coin. He chewed on nothing, his jaw working, a beast tasting the scent of carnage. Thomas “Lucky” O’Neil, leaning against a scraggly pine, flashed his brilliant, insincere grin, the flames making his green eyes look demonic. “A mite warm for my taste, boss,” he drawled, but the amusement in his tone was real. He enjoyed the theater of it.

And Rico. Rico was practically vibrating. He stood a little apart, his breath coming in short, excited puffs that fogged in the strangely chill night air away from the heat. His heart hammered against his ribs like a trapped bird. This. This was power. This was legend being written in fire and blood, and he was here to witness it. He drank in the sight of Jason—calm, absolute, a god presiding over his own created hell—and felt a dizzying mix of awe, terror, and a desperate, clawing desire to be that, to be him. The orange light painted his youthful face, highlighting the fervent gleam in his hazel eyes, the way his too-long tongue darted out to wet his lips.

“Nothing left of a traitor,” Jason continued, his gaze sweeping over each of them, lingering for a heartbeat on Samuel’s impassive face, on Slim’s stoic, shadowed profile, on Maria’s silent, watchful form. “Burns clean. His whore. His get. Him.” A pause, heavy as a tombstone. “‘Cept the head. A man needs to see the eyes go cold to believe it.”

With a casual movement of his boot, he nudged a burlap sack lying in the dust by Shadow’s hooves. It was dark, soaked through with a liquid that looked black in the firelight but everyone knew wasn’t water. It made a soft, dense thump. A length of rope tethered it to his saddle horn. “A lesson for us all. Neat, packaged. Don’t you think, Rico?”

Rico’s head snapped up. His name. Jason had said his name. A jolt of pure, undiluted adrenaline shot through him, colder and sharper than the night air. He straightened his spine, puffing out his chest, trying to mimic the casual lethality of the men around him. He managed a sharp nod, his voice coming out tighter than he wanted. “Yes, sir. A real... a real powerful lesson.”

A ghost of something, amusement, contempt, assessment, flickered in Jason’s eyes. In one fluid motion, he leaned down, unhooked the rope, and lifted the sodden sack. It dripped. He held it out, not like a precious object, but like a piece of trash to be disposed of. “Take it. Ride to Copperspur. Deliver it to Sheriff Brandt’s office. Give him the regards of the Eagles.”

The world narrowed to that sack. The weight of it, both physical and symbolic, was immense. This wasn’t scouting or holding horses. This was a message. He was the messenger. The one trusted to carry Jason’s wrath right to the law’s doorstep. Rico stepped forward, his boots scuffing in the dirt, and took the sack. It was heavier than he expected, the fabric coarse and damp against his fingers. The metallic, coppery smell hit him, cutting through the woodsmoke. His stomach did a slow roll, but he clutched it tighter, the wetness seeping into his shirt cuff. This was proof. Proof of his worth.

“Don’t dally,” Jason said, his voice dropping back to its normal, deadly quiet. “And don’t get caught with it. The lesson is for Brandt, not for you to learn on a gallows.”

Then Jason Smith turned Shadow away from the ridge, from his men, from the blazing testament to his will. He didn’t look back. He simply melted back into the darkness from which he’d come, leaving them with the fire and the task. The job was done. The message sent. He hadn’t needed an army to burn a town and behead a traitor. He’d done it alone. That was the real lesson.

And Rico was holding a piece of it.

The ride to Copperspur was a blur of shadow, adrenaline, and thundering blood. The sack, now tied securely to his own saddle horn, bounced with a sickening rhythm against the horse’s flank. Every jolt felt like an accusation, a promise. The false dawn of the burning village faded behind him, replaced by the deep, true black of the mountain night, punctuated only by a sliver of cold moon and a blanket of indifferent stars.

He wasn’t scared. He told himself that, chanting it in time with the hoofbeats. He was electrified. This was it. The moment he stepped from being Rico-the-loudmouth to Rico-the-Eagle, the one who delivered the boss’s word in a bloody bag. He pictured Sheriff “Stoneface” Brandt’s expression—the shock, the fury, the impotent rage. He imagined standing in that office, dripping defiance, and saying the words: “Compliments of the Eagles.” He practiced his posture in the saddle, squaring his shoulders, trying to freeze his face into something cold and hard like Slim’s, something unreadable like Samuel’s. He mostly looked constipated.

The fear was there, of course, a cold worm wriggling beneath the hot rush of glory. It whispered of posses, of ambush, of a noose waiting in Silverton. But he smothered it with louder thoughts of Jason’s approving nod, of Jack’s grudging respect, of finally, finally earning his place not just in the bunkhouse, but in the legend.

The scattered lights of Copperspur appeared, a smudge of yellow in the vast dark. The noisy, clattering chaos of the mining town during the day was subdued, but not silent. Even this late, Copperspur didn’t truly sleep. It drank. The distant tinny plink of a out-of-tune piano and a roar of slurry laughter spilled from the direction of The Rusty Nail. The main street was mostly dark, pools of oily light from a few stubborn lanterns creating islands in the gloom.

His throat was dust-dry, scratchy from smoke and excitement. The sheriff’s office was at the end of the street, a dark, silent block. He had the package. He had the message. But a sudden, rebellious thought struck him. He couldn’t walk in there parched, his heart rabbiting in his chest. He needed... fortification. A shot of liquid courage to steady his hands, to put the right swagger in his step. And maybe... maybe a different kind of warmth before he faced the cold lawman.

He guided his horse toward the saloon. Tying the reins to a post, he gave the damp sack a pat, a macabre gesture of reassurance, and pushed through the swinging doors.

The Rusty Nail was a cave of noise, smoke, and sweating bodies. Kerosene lamps hung from beams, casting a shaky, jaundiced light over a scene of desperate merriment. Miners in dirt-stained clothes bellied up to the bar or hunched over card tables, their laughter too loud, their movements loose with exhaustion and whiskey. The air was thick with the smells of cheap tobacco, spilled beer, and unwashed humanity.

Rico shouldered his way to the bar, ignoring the glances thrown at his flashy, travel-dusted clothes. He slapped a coin down. “Whiskey. The good stuff,” he barked, trying to sound like a man who knew the difference. Big Tom, the mountainous bartender, slid a glass of amber liquid that was most certainly not the good stuff toward him without a word.

Rico threw it back. It burned a path to his stomach, a familiar, comforting fire. It steadied him. It also sharpened his senses, made the room swim into a sharper, more interesting focus. His eyes, scanning the crowd, didn’t land on the grizzled miners. They found the islands of softer color, of exposed skin and knowing smiles tucked in shadowy corners and along the upstairs railing. Women. Some tired-looking, some with hard eyes, some laughing with a practiced ease.

And then he saw {{obj}}.

It wasn’t anything in particular, maybe just the way the lamplight caught {{poss}} form, or a momentary stillness in the swirling chaos. But {{sub}} stood out to him. A focus point in the blur. Maybe it was {{poss}} eyes, maybe it was the set of {{poss}} shoulders. To Rico, pulsing with mission and whiskey and a desperate need to prove he was more than the kid holding the bloody bag, {{sub}} looked like a promise. A distraction. A trophy.

He didn’t think. Impulse was his compass. He scooped up his empty glass, sauntered away from the bar, and weaved through the tables until he was within {{poss}}’s space. He leaned in, the scents of smoke, horse, and the faint, iron-tinged dampness from the sack still clinging to him cutting through the saloon’s fug. A reckless, cocky grin spread across his face, not reaching his overly-bright eyes.

“Well, hey there,” he said, his voice lowered, trying for a smoky drawl but landing somewhere between a whisper and a conspiratorial rasp. His long tongue flicked out to catch a stray drop of whiskey on his lip. “Damn, it’s a loud night. My head’s spinnin’ from the ride.” He leaned closer, his hazel eyes locking onto {{poss}}’s. The smell of cheap whiskey on his breath was warm. “Tell you what... I got a message to deliver that’s got my blood runnin’ a little too hot. Could use a dash of somethin’ else to... cool the engine, you know? A little excitement that ain’t about fire or lead.” He let the implication hang, his gaze intense, searching, begging for a sign. All bravado, a performance for himself as much as for {{obj}}, a last frantic dance before he walked into the lion’s den with a lion’s head in a sack.

“Tch.”