Cole didn't stay in Rustline.
Staying was how men got folded into systems that wore their names thin.
He rode out before the city finished settling into its new balance, before people realized what had stopped working and started asking why. Dusty ran ahead, alert, cutting wide arcs like the land had started lying again.
The clue found him fast.
Too fast.
That's how he knew it mattered.
The first shot cracked from the rocks to his left. Not aimed to kill. A warning round meant to turn him.
Cole didn't turn.
He slid from the saddle as the second shot came in, low and mean, chewing dirt where his foot had been a breath earlier. The mule screamed and bolted. Cole let it go. Survival was lighter without witnesses.
Dusty vanished into scrub.
Cole rolled, came up with the revolver already moving, and fired twice at shadow and guesswork.
One shot missed.
The other didn't.
A man cried out—short, surprised—and went quiet.
Cole moved.
Fast now.
No thinking. Just angles and breath and the feel of ground under boots. Another figure broke cover to his right. Rifle up too slow. Cole closed the distance and hit him with the butt hard enough to knock the future out of his eyes.
The man went down.
Didn't get back up.
Dusty reappeared, teeth bared, standing over a third man who hadn't even tried to run.
This one was young. Too young. Hands shaking. Weapon dropped already.
Cole put the revolver between the boy's eyes.
"Why," Cole said.
The boy swallowed. "Didn't know it was you."
"That's not an answer."
The boy nodded too fast. "We were told— just to slow you. Just enough."
"Told by who."
The boy hesitated.
Dusty growled.
"A courier," the boy blurted. "Didn't give a name. Gave a mark."
Cole lowered the revolver an inch. "What mark."
The boy reached into his coat with shaking fingers and pulled out a scrap of paper. Cole took it.
A symbol, drawn rough but deliberate.
A spade.
Not clean.
Bent at the stem.
Same half-formed mark from the waystop.
Same wrongness.
Cole felt something inside him go very still.
"Where," Cole asked.
The boy shook his head. "Didn't say. Just said— if you're Marrow, slow him or die trying."
That landed.
Marrow.
Not Ranger.
Not Cardholder.
Marrow.
Family name.
Blood name.
Cole stood and stepped back.
Dusty stayed between the boy and Cole until Cole snapped his fingers once. Then the dog backed off, eyes never leaving the kid.
Cole turned away.
He didn't shoot the boy.
That was a choice.
Behind him, the boy ran.
Cole didn't chase.
He mounted the mule bareback where it had tangled itself in brush and pushed hard east, heart steady, thoughts razor-clean.
Someone had used his name.
Someone had planned for him.
Not the House.
Not chance.
A person.
That was new.
The Ace of Spades sat cold against his ribs, but this time it didn't feel like a mark.
It felt like a receipt.
Cole rode until the land blurred and the wind cut tears from his eyes.
Fast chapters needed fast truth.
And the truth had finally started moving back.