There should be bikes here. All lined up.
Should be brothers with cuts, and grins, and the promise of whiskey.
Badlands owes me that much.
Where thefuckis everyone?
As if on cue, as if this whole fucking thing is a movie, as if I was cast in the leading role of a story no one bothered to write an ending for—the wind shifts, and suddenly, in the distance, appears a white Ford F-350. Dust blowin’ up behind it, catching sunlight in ways that make it look like somethin’ holy.
I squint my eyes, take a drag on the smoke, and watch as it screams into the parking lot like judgment day arriving early.
One day early.
The Ashby Ranch logo gleams on the door panel—a stylized "A" with barbed wire wrapped around it. In some places, money whispers. In Eastern Montana, money announces itself with chrome trim and custom wheels.
Cash Ashby skids the truck to a stop twenty feet away. The engine idles like it’s alive. Baring its teeth, waitin’ to bite. He kills it with a press of a button and the silence that follows feels deliberate, like a statement.
When the driver's door swings open, his boots hit gravel with a crunch that carries weight. And it’s not just a sound—it’s a fuckin’ proclamation. The kind that comes with land deeds, water rights, and bank accounts that never run dry.
Cash steps out, all six-four of him the product of pure Montana breeding just like the cattle he runs. His Stetson catches the morning June sun, brim pulled low, but not so low I can't see his eyes sizing me up.
What’s ol’ Legion been up to, that look says.How much has he changed.How far can I push him.
"Well goddamn, Kane. Three years looks good on you." His mouth lifts up at one corner—that half-smile that's gottenhim out of bar fights and into bedroom windows across three counties. "Prison food must be better than they say."
My face plays it cool. Not because itcan’tsmile, it just kinda forgot how.
"Caaaaaash." I drag the word out slow, lettin’ my drawl thicken. "Thought the welcoming committee would have patches, not polo shirts."
Cash leans against his truck door, crossing one ostrich-leather boot over the other. Casual as a shiv between the ribs.
"So how was it really?" he asks, like he cares. "Life inside treating Legion Kane to all the amenities?"
I give him what he wants to hear. What men like Cash always want—stories that make them feel better about never having to find out for themselves.
"Oh, you know. Won the prison talent show. Twice." I pull from the cigarette, let smoke curl between us. "Food was five-star. Especially Tuesdays. Taco Tuesday in Whitefall is something spiritual. Made friends with the warden. Good man. Collects model trains and photographs of other people's wives." I flick ash toward the ground. "Got my GED. Then a PhD in theoretical physics. Wrote my thesis on the space-time implications of watching paint dry on cinder block."
Cash's eyes narrow just enough to tell me he doesn’t find me funny.
Which is fair. I’m not sure a single person on this planet finds me funny.
"So what about you, Cash?" I shift the weight of my envelope, watching his eyes track the movement. "Still breakin’ hearts? Or have you fucked your way through all the local fancy bitches and moved on to the rural trash?”
“Like your—” But he doesn’t finish. He catches himself in a way that doesn’t quite add up.
“Like mywhat?” I ask, eyes narrowing. “Were you gonna say mymother?” Who died nine years back? Nah. That’s not what he was gonna say.
But before I can ask questions about his remark, he tilts his chin toward the passenger side of the truck and jangles his keys between fingers weathered from reins and rope, calloused in ways money can't prevent. "Need a ride?"
The question hangs between us, simple on the surface.
But nothing's simple with an Ashby.
I take stock of my options. Released one day early. Governments fuck up plenty, but not about release days.
No club here to welcome me back with a patch I earned with my silence.
Cash shows up.
