There are times in everyone's life when something constructive is born out of adversity... when things seem so bad that you've got to grab your fate by the shoulders and shake it. ~Author Unknown

Five Years Later

Jack felt a bead of sweat running down his tense back. Rolling over the muscles and scars before soaking into the waistband of his thick cotton pants. He blew out a breath watching as it formed a cloud in the cold air as it left his mouth.

He looked down at the five hostages shivering as they laid on their stomachs on the cold frozen ground. The six other gang members including his pa and brother were busy going through all the trunks and bags in the stage coach and the driver and shotgun man were lying dead on the ground in pools of their own dark blood.

"Are you going to kill us?" a small voice asked from the ground and Jack's eyes went to a young girl in a bright pink dress. Her lips were purple with cold and her teeth were chattering. Jack felt a sense of déjà vu as he looked down at her dark innocent eyes. He pushed the feeling away and shrugged.

"Not if you do what you're told." he lied. He knew these people were more than likely going to die either way. The girl let out a choked sob and laid her face back on her hands as her mother scooted closer to her and tried to comfort her.

"No touching each other." Jack scolded. "Stay still and don't move." he added, cocking his gun to increase the threat.

"Having trouble over there son?" John asked, poking his head around the trunk he was currently looking through. Jack shook his head.

"I've got it under control." he replied as he uncocked his gun and looked down at the hostages on the ground. John nodded and went back to the trunk.

Jack saw the young girl whispering to her mother and her mother shaking her head furiously.

'Don't do it.' he thought desperately. 'Do not try to run.' He let out a growl when the girl leapt to her feet just as he had feared she would and in doing so signed her own death certificate. Jack holstered his gun and said nothing, hoping the girl would make it into the forest before anyone noticed her but her own mother gave her away.

"Katie, no!" she screamed as she too jumped up. Gunshots rang out and bullets filled the air and Jack watched as Katie's pink dress became red and she fell to the ground. Jack ran to her ignoring the gun shots sounding behind him as the other hostages met the fates he had known they would.

He stopped and stared down at the girl lying on the frozen dirt. Her eyes were open wide with fear but the light had gone out of them as they stared off into nothing. She looked young, no more than thirteen and she looked so innocent. Jack didn't notice the cold wind as it blew hard and whipped his long black duster coat around his legs, his mind was a state away and nearly six years in the past as he saw a young girl with dark hair and a pink dress looking scared to death as she tried to make her way through a crowded train station in Helena.

"Jack!" John yelled, jerking him from his memories. Jack looked up at the devil he called pa.

"What?" he asked through the nausea that was swimming around in his gut.

"Is there a reason you let that girl run?" John demanded. Jack looked over at the other hostages but they were all lying in growing pools of blood as the other gang members loaded their newfound treasures into their saddlebags.

"I won't shoot an innocent girl." Jack replied, his voice cold and void of any emotion. John shook his head and spit in the dirt.

"Five long years boy! Five long years I've been waiting on you to grab hold of your potential and run with it and five long years you've been disappointing me. When will you show me some kind of proof that you really are my son?"

"When will you stop shooting me every damn time I try to leave?" Jack replied, adjusting the black stetson hat on his head. John shook his head and grinned.

"Are you still upset over that? A few bullets in a man never hurt nobody. It just makes ya a little tougher is all."

"Once you're in little brother, you don't get out." Brian added. "At least not while your still breathing anyway."

"That would have been a nifty piece of information to have five years ago." Jack said and he looked back down at the girl on the ground. His pa was still talking but he had stopped listening. He thought about the life he used to have. The life he had thrown away because he had wanted the adventure of being an outlaw. He hadn't realized that torture, murder and rape were included in the job description and once he had realized those facts it had been too late to get away. Jack had tried… The scars covering his body were proof of his many attempts and the punishments he had received.

"You want to know the part I find funniest?" John asked and Jack looked up at him. "You really had people that cared about you, son. Good people. And you walked away from all that to be your own man and make your own way. Now you refuse to embrace the life that you yourself chose." John chuckled and walked over to his horse but Jack remained unmoving and staring at the empty space where his pa had just been standing.

He was right. Jack had chosen this life.

"Boss, this one's still alive!" Becket called with excitement and Jack turned his attention to the short, fat man who had rolled Katie's mother over. The woman was moaning and bleeding freely from her stomach. She was dying fast but Jack knew it wasn't fast enough. Becket was standing over her rubbing his hands together and licking his lips with excitement as he stared down at her. Jack knew that as long as a woman still had a pulse of any kind Becket saw her as fair game and Jack could tell by the bulge in the front of his pants that Becket was interested in Katie's mother.

John chuckled from atop his horse and waved his hand.

"Just make it fast and catch up to us once you're done." he said. "Come on, Jack, it's time to go." Jack nodded even though he really hadn't heard the words. He saw his pa and the men riding away and still he could not pull his eyes away from girl at his feet. He heard Becket grunting and looked up to see the dirt covered man undoing his pants and leering down at the dying woman on the ground.

Jack was at a crossroads. He could not keep living this way. He could not remain a prisoner to people like this. He could not be an accomplice to the murders and rapes of any more innocent people. If he pulled his gun right now and stopped Becket from taking his pleasure from this woman he knew he would die. But all he could think of was something a very wise man from his past had once told him.

'A man should always do what he knows is right even if he dies for it because in the end we are not judged for what we thought about doing but for what we did.'

Jack pulled his gun, the pearl handles and the cold steel reflected in the afternoon sunlight. The gun blast echoed through the snow covered pine trees and Becket's head snapped back as the bullet passed through it and the man collapsed dead on the ground.

Jack waited for the next gun blast and he didn't have to wait long. He felt the fiery pain as bullet after bullet ripped through him. He fell to his back on the ground and stared up at the blue, cloudless sky.

"Why did you make me do that, you stupid boy?" his pa's voice came from above him and Jack moved his eyes to the right and saw him standing there shaking his head angrily. "I had such hopes for you. You are such a disappointment." Jack tried to speak but he choked on his blood and coughed. He felt warm droplets of blood fly from his mouth and splatter across his face.

"Goodbye, son." John said and then he turned and jumped back on his horse. "Let's ride out men." Jack heard the sounds of their horses hooves riding away and he breathed a sigh of relief. This time he was really getting out. He was free at last. He just wished he hadn't had to die to earn it. He heard a moan from beside him and turned his head to see Katie's mother looking over at him. She was trying to speak but could not.

The pain in his body was nearly overwhelming and so he tried to ignore it and focus on the light in the dying woman's green eyes. He watched as little by little it faded away. Once the light was gone and the eyes became empty and lifeless as they stared at him, he looked back up at the sky.

"I'm sorry." he whispered though he knew his apology would go unheard by those he spoke it for. Only the birds and the dead people lying around him heard his words. He was starting to shake and it was getting harder and harder to focus on breathing. He thought back to the dark haired angel he had left behind five years ago and let images of her smiling face fill his mind before closing his eyes.

888

Hawke looked around the crowded restaurant with the fancy lace curtains and satin table clothes and the tiny little cloth napkin that looked snow white up against his dirty buckskin pants and wondered for the thousandth time just what in the hell he was doing here.

"Thank you for meeting me here, sir. I know that Helena is a good distance for your family to travel but I really wanted to show Allie around the city." Hawke looked over at the man across from him and nodded. The man was nice enough he supposed. Gavin Michaels was twenty-two and the son of a wealthy banker here in Helena. He had met Allie when he had come to Great Valley almost two years ago to look into starting a bank there.

Hawke saw Gavin shift nervously in his seat and he realized he hadn't yet responded to Gavin's statement.

"No problem." Hawke replied. He looked around the crowded restaurant and cleared his throat several times while rolling his shoulders and trying to ease the tension he was feeling. He hated crowds. He hated cities. As a matter of fact he hated most people and yet here he was in the most crowded city in Montana, in a restaurant with everyone wearing fancy suits and satiny dresses while he sat in his buckskin clothes with his knives and long hair and tried to ignore the whispers and haughty glances being thrown in his direction.

"Right, well, as you know Allie and I have spent some time together. The distance keeps us from seeing each other often but we have been writing back and forth regularly. I know that you and your family have to catch the stage back to Great Valley soon but I invited you to lunch because I have something really important I wanted to ask you."

Hawke nearly stood up and bolted from the restaurant. He didn't want to be doing this… He knew what Gavin was ready to ask and Hawke wasn't at all sure that he was going to tell the man yes. He looked over at him and saw that his pale face was a little more pale than normal. His green eyes were full of nervousness and he was tapping his long thin fingers on the table top. Gavin ran his hand nervously over his long nose and sharp cheekbones and blew out a long shaky breath.

"What do you want to ask me?" Hawke asked, hoping that his own uneasiness wasn't showing in his voice. Gavin nervously adjusted the napkin on his lap as he looked down at his untouched steak and then looked back up at Hawke.

There was no denying that Hawke was just about the scariest man he had ever seen.

"I want to ask Allie to marry me but I want to get your blessing first." Gavin said as he tugged at the collar of his fancy black suit. Hawke closed his eyes and let out a long tired breath. Allie was nineteen now. Beautiful and plenty old enough to be married. She seemed to like Gavin well enough even though the two of them hadn't been around each other much because he lived in Helena.

Hawke didn't think the two of them made a good couple. Gavin was a city man who wore suits and talked proper. He didn't own a gun and never rode a horse. Allie was full of attitude and spunk, she could shoot and ride just as good as Hawke and she talked a lot like a cowboy, cuss words and all. But then again people would say that Hawke and Lily made an odd couple with her open and friendly nature and his… Well his unfriendliness. Hawke nodded.

"You can ask her." he said hoping that the conversation would be over now so he could get the heck out of this stuffy building. Gavin looked shocked.

"Thank you, sir! Thank you so much." Hawke nodded and stood up.

"You cannot take her away from Great Valley." he said matter of factly. Gavin nodded enthusiastically as he too stood up. He shook Hawke's hand firmly.

"Of course not. We'll be settling down in Great Valley. The bank will be opening there soon and I am going to run it."

"If she says yes." Hawke reminded him.

"Of course. If she says yes. Well I guess I will be going with you to the stage office then so I can ask Allie to be my wife." Hawke nodded and fought to hide his irritation. He couldn't explain why he did not like Gavin. There was nothing wrong with the man himself and Hawke did not want to think on it too hard because he knew the answer he would come up with. Gavin was a good man and he would make sure Allie was taken care of but the truth remained that Gavin was not Jack.