Page 76 of Born to be Wilder

Was it my Buckshot character? Buck was a protector. Buck’s people were her people, and when those shots had cracked out, Buck had simply done what Buck did.

Or was it the ghost of a girl in a field hospital when she was barely twenty? The one with the ingrained, bone-deep instinct of a woman who had learned ten thousand miles from home that when the shooting started, you got your people down. You got your body between them and whatever was coming. You did not stop to ask questions.

It was still in there. After all this time. Apparently just waiting.

I blinked, the ringing in my ears fading.

Toby planted his hands on his hips, his glare boring through me like he had a laser beam strapped to his head.

I forced a loud, boisterous laugh that sounded hollow.

“Character work!” I yelled back at Toby, dusting off my chaps with aggressive force. “Buckshot doesn’t duck, kid! I told you! She’s a protector. She sees a threat to the ladies of the town, and she becomes a human shield. It’s called method acting. Look it up!”

“You don’t have a character.” Toby pinched his nose. “There is no Buck.”

I held up both hands. “But hear me out. Because I think what just happened was actually genius, and I want you to consider it seriously before you say anything.” I pulled both Colts, voice rising so everyone could hear. “Okay. So. Picture this. Visions, people.” I spread my hands wide, a Colt in each of them. “I launch myself on this here townswoman.” I gestured down at Alice, who still sat in the dirt at my feet “I draw my guns, I look up, and I yell”—I pointed both revolvers down the street at Jackson Harlow and hollered at the top of my lungs—“‘Die, you lily-livered, mangy, dog-breathed son of a⁠—’”

“Marge,” Alice said from the dirt.

“And then BANG! I shoot Colt! Major plot twist! The townswoman did it! The audience will never see it coming! They’re all waiting for Jackson to make the kill shot, but the whole time it’s been me! It’s a whole thing! I’m the twist! Buckshot… the down-on-her-luck bounty hunter who slipped in to save the day. You’re gonna win every award!” I slipped my guns back into the holsters. “You’re welcome.”

Complete silence.

Jackson Harlow, forty feet away, watching me with an expression I couldn’t quite read and both thumbs hooked in his belt. Colt Stirling, now standing beside him, just shook his head.

Toby stared at me.

Then at the Colts.

Then at Alice sitting in the dirt beneath them.

Then back at me.

“Scream,” he said.

I blinked. “Sorry?”

“That is your part.” His voice had gone very quiet and even in a way that sounded calm but felt the exact opposite of it. “That is your only part. You scream. You duck. That is the entirety of your contribution to this scene. Scream. Duck.” He pointed to Alice. “Help her up. Get back on the boardwalk. And if anything—anything—other than screaming and ducking happens on the next take, all four of you are finished. Do you understand me?”

I tipped my Stetson at him. “Understood.”

He turned and walked away, whispering things under his breath I figured I was better off not hearing.

I reached down for Alice.

She took my hand and I pulled her to her feet, and for a moment we were just standing there in the dirt street, close enough that I could see the dust on her cheek and that her brooch had come half unpinned from the collision with the ground.

Those green eyes stared at me. The ones so full of life—so full of fight. And I didn’t know how or where or why it started, but I felt it then. That strange sensation in my throat. An unwanted, uninvited tightness.

“You okay?” I asked. “I’m sorry. I hope I didn’t hurt you.”

She looked at me, and suddenly, the irritation in her gaze softened, as if she saw something behind my eyes. Like somehow, she understood why I’d done what I’d done. Maybe better than I did.

“Thank you,” she said. Low. Just the two of us.

I looked away first.

“Buck’s protective,” I muttered. “It’s just who she is.”