On top of the nearby hill Joe looked over the vally to she watched the sheepdogs rounding a few hunfred sheep.

Josephine O’Reilley sat tall in the saddle, hat tipped low, red hair escaping in wild curls as she rounded her flock. Most folks in town said sheep were too skittish for one woman to manage alone. Josephine liked proving folks wrong. Her mare, Bluebell, snorted as the flock drifted toward a rocky outcrop, and Josephine clicked her tongue, guiding them back toward open ground. The morning wind carried the scent of sage and heat and wild rosemary.

“Easy now,” she muttered to the sheep, “let’s not start the day with trouble.”

As she rounded the outcrop, she saw the fresh tracks in the dirt. They were boot prints, deep and heavy, heading straight toward her grazing land.

Josephine tightened her grip on the reins. Bluebell halted without Jo saying a thing, ears pinned back, nostrils flaring. Josephine felt the prickle along her own spine as she nudged the horse forward, slow, like a train pulling into a station. The boot tracks she’d spotted earlier deepened into a churned mess, as if someone had run… or been dragged. Her flock had bunched tight near a dry creek bed: sheep didn’t spook like this unless a predator was close. But Josephine didn’t see wolves. She saw a hat. A man’s hat, half‑buried in the sand. She slid from the saddle, crouched, and lifted it. The inside band was still warm, and beneath it, pressed into the dirt, was a single silver button, engraved with a sherriff's star. Josephine’s breath caught. Marshal Tate had ridden through her land just yesterday, asking questions about rustlers. Now his badge lay scattered in pieces at her feet.

A low rumble rolled across the plain. Hoofbeats, thousands of them forming a dark line of riders cresting the ridge, theor silhouettes stark against the rising sun.

Josephine reached for her gun. These men weren't going to take her sheep.

There were eight of them in total, wearing riding jackets in various shades of red with black bandanas covering their faces. A nervous prickle shot through Josephine's side, but the rustlers had made one mistake. They had come so early in the morning that the sun was still low on the horizon--it would make it much harder for them to aim.

A crack like thunder echoed up the hillside. One of them had fired a warning shot.

Bluebell snorted and stamped her hoof. Jo patted her on the side. "Steady, girl. We gonna teach these scoundrels a lesson." She drew up her pistol and aimed, well-practiced from scaring away wild beasts in the woods. With a deafening recoil, the bullet flew and the man fell off his horse. But that didn't stop the others from charging.

She shot twice more. One hit, one miss. By that time, they were nearly to the creek bed, firing their own bullets that whistled past her ears into the morning sun. She gritted her teeth and shot again, grazing a shoulder, but it was too late.

The rustler in the lead drew his horse to a stop right in front of Josephine as the others circled around her, training their guns on her. "Well now, hon," he said, "this has been a bit unpleasant."

"Unpleasant?" she snarled. "I just killed two of your men. There are more sheep out there, y'know. Sheep that haven't got an O'Reilley protecting them."

"Mm." He pretended to consider the question for a moment, then signaled his men. "Fire at will."

And they did. Not at her. At the sheep. Only a few sheep fell, but their bleats of anguish cut straight to Josephine's heart. A red haze filled her vision.

"You're not rustlers," she shouted. "Who are you?"

"Name's Coyote Kent Nelson." He chuckled. "You're right, my boys and I ain't here for your sheep. We're here for your land."

That was enough talking. Josephine fired a shot straight into his chest.

It bounced off. Damn iron. He must have had an iron plate under his jacket. A grin crept slowly across his face.

"If I'm not mistaken," Nelson drawled, "that's a Model 3 Schofield you just tried to shoot me with. Nice gun. The cavalry and the bank agents use them. Wonder how a shepherd girl got one." His hand moved slowly and deliberately down to his own pistol. "That's a six-shooter, hon, and you've already used five shots. What are you gonna do now?"

She kept her pistol raised, hands steady as a church bell.

“One shot left,” Nelson said. “Make it count, hon.”

Josephine didn’t answer. The wind had changed again. It carried something new now, something sharp and acrid. Nelson smelled it too, his grin widening. Josephine’s eyes flicked toward the horizon, where a thin column of black smoke rose from the direction of her homestead.

“You didn’t,” she whispered.

“We needed to make sure you’d be… cooperative.” Nelson shrugged and leaned forward in the saddle. “Now, why don’t you drop that gun and—”

Josephine fired.

Her last bullet struck the dry creek bed behind her, kicking up a cloud of dust so thick it swallowed the world. Bluebell reared, and Josephine used the momentum to throw herself sideways off the saddle, hitting the ground hard and rolling into the cover of the dust storm she’d created.

“Find her!” Nelson roared.

But Josephine was already crawling through the sagebrush, heart pounding. Eventually, it came into view, the cabin she’d built with her own stubborn hands quickly transforming into a blackened, crackling skeleton. Smoke curled from the charred beams, clouds drifting into the sky and covering it like a funeral shroud. The corral fence lay splintered and the rosemary bushes she’d tended smouldered into dust. Josephine dismounted slowly, boots crunching on burnt earth. She hadn’t cried since she was twelve years old, the day her father didn’t come back from the cattle drive, but she was starting to feel it coming back now, the dry rock lodged at the back of her throat, heavy and begging for her to cry out. She told herself it was the smoke.

She knelt beside the ruins of her porch and sifted through the debris. Beneath a fallen beam, she found the metal box she kept hidden. Inside were the things she’d sworn never to touch again:

Her father’s old Colt. A folded map with a red X over a canyon north of town. And her Ranger badge.

Josephine closed her eyes, pressing her finger into the metal, letting it indent her thumb. She’d left that life behind, long nights spent chasing men who didn’t deserve mercy, trading it all for a quiet life with her flock and enough money to keep flowers on the windowsill at least.

She stood, dusted ash from her hands, and holstered the Colt at her hip.

“Coyote Kent Nelson,” she murmured. “You picked the wrong girl to burn.”

Josephine mounted up again, heading straight towards the canyon on the map, where her father had marked down on the map, a place she’d sworn never to return to.