Chapter 25

• The air was thick with unspoken truths as the men gathered around a scarred wooden table, its surface bearing the history of many hard-won days in the unforgiving West. No one doubted what they had seen_ a man had unmistakably taken water, his desperate act laid bare before their eyes. In the heavy silence that followed, Sandy sat, his face as pale as bleached bone, eyes fixed downward as if to hide his shame. Yet even in that raw, unrefined moment, the vestiges of gentlemanly honor_ those stubborn sparks of refined breeding-could not be entirely extinguished amid the brutal wilderness of their world.
• It was Victoria who broke the tension, her voice light yet edged with the wisdom of experience. She offered an old, familiar joke_ a relic of humor that never failed to lift spirits. For an instant, laughter spilled around the table, a rare elixir that stirred color back into Sandy’s pallid features. And then, as if struck by some unseen current, the conversation erupted in a torrent of rapid-fire questions and confessions, each man eager to unravel the mystery that had gripped them.
• “How did you do it?” demanded Riggs, his tone a mix of incredulity and hard-edged curiosity. “I was ready for a showdown_ a danced of guns and grit.”