Kate Logan was eight years old when she saw her father kill a man. It was self defense, the sheriff agreed. Some ranting, raving asshole comes stumbling up to the ranch with a pistol in his hand... well, what would anyone expect to happen? Her father, despite his gray hair, had drawn his gun in a blink and put three rounds into the stranger's chest before little Kate, standing there with a doll, had any clue what was happening. It ended in the space between heartbeats. She remembered seeing the body hit the ground, she remembered hearing her mother scream for what seemed like forever, and she certainly remembered seeing the way the man's blood mingled with the dust before her mother grabbed her and pulled her inside.

But mostly, she remembered the face of her father as he shot the man. It was the face she made when her mother forced her to wash up after dinner or to stay inside mending clothes instead of going out to play: a mixture of frustration and boredom. In many ways, seeing him kill with that expression was more terrifying than any combination of wrath or twisted amusement. Afterwards, she'd planned to talk to him, thinking he must be upset. She'd tiptoed down the hall with a letter to him, but he'd been sitting there laughing his ass off at the kitchen table with a glass of whiskey, while her mother yelled at him. Kate just went back to her room. The next morning, her father had gone. She didn't see him again for years.

Seven years, to be precise- which Kate's mother had always taught her to be. Seven years of watching her mother run the ranch by herself, giving orders to the workers and doing anything else that needed to be done, particularly anything involving Kate's education. There weren't too many books on the ranch, but Helen Logan would find a new one every time she went into town on business. Kate read, wrote, rode, laughed, and essentially retreated back to the bubble that had been broken the day her father had killed an intruder. Her mother gave her everything, but Kate couldn't help but think of her father at times, wondering what he was doing- or if he was even alive. 

Dan Logan was a strange man, and it wasn't until she was 15 that Kate knew the whole story- or at least as much of the story as she'd ever know. That was the day her mother died. She'd just... died. Fell over and was gone, right in the middle of listening to Kate read a book out loud. There's not many more terrible things in the world than a crying fifteen year old girl begging the body of her mother to wake up. Those are the days that leave scars. One of the ranch hands had run for a doctor, but it wasn't any use. They buried her on a Wednesday, which Kate hated. Helen Logan had never liked Wednesdays. But life wasn't fair- not when a 39 year old woman, a woman who was more beautiful, smart, and funny than anyone else Kate had ever met, can just fall over and die on a kitchen floor in the middle of listening to her 15 year old daughter muddle through Shakespeare.

Dan Logan showed up on Friday of that week.

He had thin, pursed lips under a thinner mustache, and his eyes tilted up in a way that made him look alternately sad and pious, even though Kate suspected he wasn't much of a churchgoer. He was an older man.  Sunblasted, wrinkled skin and grey hair down to his shoulders made him look more like her grandfather should than her father, in her opinion. But she also knew he was decades older than her mother. She sent the ranch hands away, even the ones who seemed nervous and protested, before sitting down in a chair across from her father. He had a glass of whiskey in front of him and she had a glass of water, but neither of them touched their drinks much. He sat in a chair that used to be his, seven years before, and looked at the young woman who used to be his little daughter. His voice wheezed a little, like a powerful train that was building up steam.

"Well, I'm just going to come out and say it. I'm sorry your mother's dead. I loved that woman. And you look just like her."

Kate offered a small smile through a single tear that she brushed away, although she knew it wasn't true. She shared the blonde hair and blue eyes of her mother, but whereas her mother was beautiful and graceful, Kate was mostly elbows and knees and he seemed to recognize that she knew this. He glanced down into his whiskey glass, gathering his thoughts before spilling them out in a mess. 

"Where the hell do ... okay. Well, I'll start out by saying my name's not Dan Logan. It's Dan Bogan. I don't expect you to know the name, but if you mention it to anyone there's going to be a few people lookin' for me- people that I don't want to find me, and you shouldn't either if you don't want trouble. I've not lived a good life, for the most part. I've done things that were wrong, but I just didn't care much, to be honest.  I've robbed men, and I've killed men too. I spent the first thirty years of my life raising hell, up until I was sitting in a jail cell waiting to hang. But I got busted out. I'd love to tell ya that I had a conversion moment there and changed my life... but I basically went down to Argentina and kept robbing and killing. Came back here to the States after a decade or so, figuring the heat from the law had died down, and that's when I met your mother. Decided I'd try to settle down. Why not take my money, marry the prettiest young thing in town, and raise a family. Well, you know how that turned out."

He looked up at the ceiling.

"Your mother was a good woman. I expect she's taught you all sorts of things. She always was a reader, and I expect if you're half as smart as she was then you're smarter than most of those college boys strutting around town in their fancy suits. I'm guessing she taught you how to be strong, since she ran this place without a hitch while I was gone. And maybe them ranch hands like Charlie or Paul taught you something about horses. Well, I probably can't teach you much about anything, other than what I do. I'm good at shooting and robbing. I'm going to teach you how to use a gun before I go. Won't take no for an answer. You're still my daughter, and in a few years you'll be the only trace of me left on earth other than a hole in the ground. I don't have much time left. After I know you can protect yourself, I'll go or stay- whatever you choose."

Kate looked for the first time at the revolver holstered in his belt. Her gaze lingered there for a few moments before she nodded quietly to her father. After all, a world where her mother could die so young and her father could live to be so old was a world that you needed protection in- or from. 

There are a few moments in life that you recognize as important transitions. Sometimes we only realize years later that we actually made a choice and we're surprised when we look back and see the fork in the road. But other times we stand looking at those paths that split in the woods in front of us: they force us to choose, conscious of the weight behind our decision.

She chose the gun that day, years ago. Not to mention the whiskey.

As Kate rested her palm on the handle of her father's gun- her gun, snug in the holster dangling at her side, she couldn't help but feel like today was another one of those transitional days ahead. Maybe that's why she'd spent all morning thinking about her parents. How would they feel, looking at their daughter as she stood inside a city for the first time, looking up at a building so tall that she almost stumbled backwards into the street as she tried to see the top?

Or maybe she just wanted to imagine what they'd feel, since her father had been dead for months and her mother for years. 

Would they recognize her? The young girl had grown into a striking woman. Her body had filled out, and she'd added wiry muscle to her natural beauty- which she supposed was a fair combination of her two parents. Her hair, which had dropped far below her shoulders on that day she'd sat in the parlor talking to her father, was now cropped short behind her neck. Her clothes, a mix of leather and denim, had picked up the dust of a dozen states since she'd left Texas- but they'd rarely been in the shadow of a city. But this is where the money was. Detroit. This is where her talents would be needed. If she was going to make her fortune, it'd have to happen here.

Giving the tall building one last look, she made her way down the sidewalk.