The horse was dead two miles before Bitter Creek, but it walked on anyway out of sheer habit, its head hanging between its knees and its breath whistling through cracked lips.
Thomas Thorne did not dismount until the animal's front legs simply folded under it like wet cardboard. He stepped clear as it went down, catching his saddlebags and carbine before they struck the alkali dust. He did not curse. He unbuckled the cinches, pulled the bridle from the twitching ears, and turned the animal's face toward the evening breeze so it would not die looking at the salt flats.
Then he started walking west toward the settlement.
Bitter Creek was three saloons, a blacksmith's forge that had not seen coal in six months, and sixteen adobe shacks melting back into the mud from which they were made.
A sign nailed to the hitching post outside the Last Chance Saloon read: NO WEAPONS BEYOND THIS POST BY ORDER OF MARSHAL HAWKINS.
Thorne did not unbuckle his gun belt. He stepped onto the boardwalk, his spurs clinking like iron coins, and pushed open the scarred batwing doors.