A final shot resounded through the hills. Blood thudding in his brain and soaking through his shirt where he'd been hit, Cap stumbled through the winter bare wood on Thacker Mountain. The wolf teeth of terror and grief tore into his heart. 

Jim Vance had been a second father to him and now had sacrificed himself so Cap could escape. He shouldn't have left him to make his final stand alone against the likes of Bad Frank. Running like a scared rabbit with no more bullets and only a hunting knife in his boot, he was good as dead. The last thing he wanted was to be found shot down dead with a bullet hole through his back, the sign of a coward.

Despite the white hot adrenaline igniting his veins, one question screamed out in his mind. How had they found them? Only four people had known of their whereabouts; pap, Jim, himself and...

Cap groaned as he came to a halt. He gripped the lean trunk of a silver birch and banished the thought from his head. Johnse was no Judas, he would never have breathed a word that might harm him. They were brothers. Blood.

Gritting back the pain, Cap pushed on towards the creek. He had evaded Bad Frank's bounty hunters. They were running downhill while he had gone east. The last McCoy son living, Jim, had taken aim and nearly struck Cap in the heart. If it had been Cap at the trigger, he wouldn't have missed. Jim McCoy had always been a better farmer than hunter.

The tumbling, tea brown creek water cut around the mountain and swept through jagged rocks. A stone edge caught Cap in the ankle, leaving a streak of blood on the dry rock. The hounds chasing after him would certainly smell it, if they made it this far. The searing pain in his shoulder nearly doubled him over as he emerged onto the other bank. He tripped on a root and fell onto the wet sand, red dripping onto the gray dirt. A cloud of grouse were disturbed from their hiding place in the undergrowth and took to the sky in a fury of feathers. A lone figure emerged from the rusty foliage, his rifle at the ready and aiming where he'd missed.

"Jim McCoy," Cap croaked with a bitter smile. "You gonna fire than gun or what? All your God fearin' sermons getting in the way of vengeance?"

Jim shifted on his boots and dug the butt of the gun into his shoulder. His wide blue eyes were alight with something Cap had never seen in the mild spirited man. He recalled Jim's younger brother bleeding out beside a burning cabin. A young girl, eyes pale and wide as they stared into nothing, shot dead while shepherding her little siblings. His mother struck in the skull. Cap couldn't blame Jim for the wrath burning in his eyes.

"Go on." Cap spread his arms and closed his eyes. "You've got yer shot."

A moment of quiet passed with only the rustle of squirrels and cascade of water behind him. The voices of the other bounty hunters had faded into the distance. It was down to Jim and Cap.

"Stand up." Jim's voice was deadly still.

Cap opened his eyes and obeyed, grimacing from a shot of pain racing through his chest. Jim's glare was unearthly in it's intensity. Cap almost had to look away.

"You taking me prisoner?" Cap asked tentatively, almost preferring the prospect of being killed out there than rotting in a Kentucky prison cell.

"I have a proposition for you, Hatfield."

Cap cocked his head to the side, one good arm raised over his head in surrender. "What is that?"

"I hear you've taken Miss Robertson as a bride."

"You mean Mrs. Hatfield," Cap couldn't help jabbing. He gave a grim smile as Jim lifted the gun once more. "I asked her to marry me and she said yes."

"Why?"

"To keep her safe, to do for her what you couldn't," Cap spat out. "What of it? It's not another reason to kill me. You have plenty enough of those. She became my wife of her own free will."

A pang of guilt stung him as he realized she would now be a widow after barely two months of marriage. Perhaps it was for the best. This life would never be good enough for her.

"You let her go, Hatfield. And I'll let you go."

Cap blinked back at him, shocked at how Jim had read his thoughts. "What-"

"You heard me," Jim snarled, his aim still steady on Cap's heart. "Give her an annulment. Otherwise I can't guarantee her safety."

Cap stiffened and took a step forward. "You can't or you won't?"

"Frank Phillips' men have had their leashes loosened after you attacked my family on New Years. If we find your folk, none will be given mercy, no more than you gave my sister and mother."

The image of their mountain retreat burning to the ground and the bodies of his sisters, mother and wife laid out on the cold ground struck his brain. Cap took another step forward, fear and rage coursing in his body. 

"You would shoot her yourself?"

"No! But I cannot promise that someone else won't, no matter what I try to tell them. These men are out for blood now," Jim protested, stabbing Cap in the chest with the barrel of the gun. The shouts of the bounty hunters were echoing closer now. Jim wet his lips, his breath coming quick. "Let her go if you truly care for her."

"And what will you do? Take her for your own?"

Jim scoffed. "That's where you and I have always differed. I always knew she was too good for the likes of me, but you never saw it. Instead you dragged her through the mud. Do right by her this once and let her return north, run away from all of this."

Cap shook his head, his eyes cutting skyward as blood dripped down his chest. Though it hurt him terribly to admit it, he couldn't help see the truth in McCoy's words. The letter from her old beau promising her a good life came to mind. This was no life for Cordelia Robertson.

"Very well." Cap took a step back, lifting his head.

Jim let his weapon droop as the bounty hunters' steps drew closer. "I'm holding you to it, Hatfield. Don't let what happened to my sister happen to the woman we both love. If it does, I will flay you alive."

Cap limped away into the wood. He glanced over his shoulder to see Jim standing in the clearing where he'd left him, his stature crumpling and face cradled in his hands. Cap realized with a grimace that Jim McCoy must love Cordelia something terrible to let one of the men who killed his own kin walk free.