The barred door slammed shut on the tiny jail cell, where the three rowdy outlaws from the saloon now found themselves behind.

Brand glared at the trio who tried to shoot up his town as he locked the cell, before wandering over to his desk, his boots hitting the floorboards of his office. Bilk came swaggering up to the cell, leaning on the bars as he smiled smugly at the outlaws “So, shootin’ up the town saloon didn’t turn out to be such a good idea after all, huh Gee, what’re the odds!”

The three locked-up outlaws could do nothing but scowl at the deputy’s mocking.

“Let’s hope they didn’t shoot your favourite whiskey, eh, Brand?” Bilk waited for the old sheriff to reply…only to receive nothing but silence. “Brand?”

Bilk looked back to see Brand sitting at his desk, a forlorn look on his rugged, wrinkled face as he stared at the open air.

“Brand?” Bilk called to the old lawman once more, hoping to get his attention.

“Huh?” Brand snapped out of his stupor, seeing his deputy looking at him with concern. “Oh! Um, sorry, Bilk. You were sayin’ somethin’?”

“You feeling all right, Brand? You’re lookin’ a lil’ out of it.” Bilk turned away from the outlaws behind bars, making his way over to the sheriff’s desk.

“I’m fine…” Brand replied, a little more grumpily than he meant to.

“Brand, we’ve been working together for five years,” Bilk stated all of a sudden.

“So?” Brand quirked an eyebrow.

“So, I know when you say you’re ‘fine’, you’re usually feelin’ sore about something.” The deputy claimed as he made his way over to the sheriff’s desk. “So, what’s up?”

“It’s nothin’…” Brand turned away from his deputy stubbornly, not wanting to talk about what was on his mind.

“Maybe he’s stewing’ over how he ain’t as quick on the draw as he used to be!” Pot-Belly bellowed out, sticking his head out of the bars as much as he could to goad the old lawman.

“Yeah, maybe his old age is startin’ to catch up to him!” Gap-Tooth chimed in with a jab of his own, earning a chuckle from the rest of is pals in the cell.

“You lowlives better pipe down, if you know what’s good for you!” Bilk shot back at the three, when Brand stood up from his chair and started heading for the door. “B-Brand?”

“I gotta send a telegram to Marshal Bryce to come pick these fellas up,” Brand slipped his coat on before opening the doorway out of the office. “Watch over those three, would’ve Bilk?”

“Brand, wait-!” The deputy reached out to try and stop the lawman from leaving, but Brand was already out the door. The old sheriff shut the door behind him as he left, leaving the deputy and the outlaws behind…

~

Brand walked along the path of wooden planks on the side of Virgil City’s main street, heading towards the post office on the other side of town. Along the way, folks who were going about their day, as if a gunfight hadn’t happened only a few moments ago, passed by the lawman and greeted him with a kind smile and a friendly wave.

“Howdy, sheriff.”

Afternoon there, Sheriff.”

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“Hey, Brand! Good to see ya!”

The sheriff gave them all a kind nod, staying on course toward his destination. As he did, he passed by the local blacksmith, where Bob Bevel hammered away at a lump of red-hot iron, holding it in place on a worn anvil in the forge built next to his shack.

His beard of greying black hair took up the majority of his face, apart from the thinning black locks atop his head. His rotund belly was draped with a thick leather apron, protecting him from the sparks that flew from his work each time he struck with his hammer. The sleeves of his soot-stained shirt were rolled up to his shoulders, revealing a pair of muscular arms, chiselled from a lifetime of metalwork.

“Sheriff!” The boisterous blacksmith called out, dropping his tools at the sight of the lawman. “Hey, Brand, hold there a minute!”

Brand grimaced to himself, f not exactly in the mood for dealing with others at the moment. But, he was never one to turn a friend away. “Hello there, Bob!”

Bob took Brand’s hand in both of his gloved mitts, shaking it vigorously with a beaming smile. “Fine work you did dealin’ with those outlaws shootin’ up Topper’s this morning!”

“Kind of you to say, Bob. But, Bilk was the one who did most of the work.” Brand confessed, able to pull his hand out of the blacksmith’s iron grip.

“Ah, hog-spit!” The blacksmith waved off. "That boy only showed up at the last second! I know you could’a handled those troublemakers by yourself just fine. I jus’ wish I could’a given them galoots what for myself!”

Brand could’t stop his stash from turning upwards from the smile that appeared on his face at the blackish’s attitude. “Knowin’ you, Bob, they would’a given up long before me and Bilk got there.”

The lawman and blacksmith shared a laugh between the two of them.

“GAAH!”

The sudden cry from the other side of the shack, along with the clatter of falling tools caught the two old-timers’ attention.

Becky?!” Bob ran out of the forge, Brand following from behind. They both rounded the house to find a small workspace under a roughly built roof, supported by the side of the house and two wooden beams.

She wore a white button shirt with the sleeves rolled up and a dirty beige skirt, with her chestnut brown hair tied into a ponytail. The girl also wore the same kind of apron and gloves as Bob, though not as worn and stained as the old blacksmith’s.

But what stuck out about the girl most of all was the strange pair of goggles she had on. A pair of brass tubes were fixed to a strip of leather and sat atop her head with a strap holding it in place.

“Becky!” Bob called out to his daughter in distress.

“Dang-blast it…!” Becky Bevel groaned as she nursed her aching finger. She then noticed Brand and Bob standing there, her pain suddenly subsiding for the moment. “Oh! Hey there, Pa! Hello, Mr Brand!”

“Becky.” Brand greeted the girl with a tip of his hat, glad to see the girl was all right.

Bob rushed over and gently took the girl’s small hand in his massive mitts. “Are you okay? Did you hurt yourself?”

“Just missed and hit my finger, is all.” Becky winced while her father slipped the girl’s glove off, wanting to take a look at whatever injury his daughter may have done to herself.

Seeing nothing serious, the large man let out a relieved breath. “Mercy, girl. You gotta stop scaring’ me like that…”

“I’m fine, Pa.” The blacksmith’s daughter chuckled at her father’s panicking before she too sparked into a panic herself. “Oh, shoot! The mould!” Becky ran back to what she was working on, a red-hot slab of metal sitting on an anvil. Taking up a pair of tongs, she grabbed the salt and inspected it closely.

She then placed the salt back on the anvil, taking up her hammer and giving a few knocks before deciding that was enough. Brand and Bob watched her make her way to a waiting barrel of water. She plunged the mould into the barrel, steam erupting from the heat coming off the hot metal. A moment later, she took it back out, giving it another look over before a satisfied smile graced her lips. “Perfect!”

“What’s that you’re working’ on, Becky?” Brand inquired curiously.

Becky turned to the sheriff with a giddy smile, holding up her finished piece. “It’s a mirror lens that I made out of nickels and dimes! Which I smelted down and shaped to fit perfectly!”

The old lawman quirked his brow. “Fit into what?”

A giddy giggle escaped the young girl’s lips. She headed over to a standing form, taking hold of the white cloth she had draped over it. “For this!” She pulled away the cloth with a good yank, revealing a strange tube-like device standing on a trio of wooden legs. “My optical telescope!”

Brand looked the contraption over with utter fascination. The scope was made from three brass tubes ranging in size, from the smallest to the largest. The scope was held in the grip of a horseshoe, modified to hold the device in place on an altered wagon wheel axle, standing on three wooden legs from an abandoned table.

The old sheriff rubbed his chin, impressed by the creation before turning to the blacksmith’s daughter once more, confusion written across his face. “Opti…what?”

“Optical!” Becky corrected joyously. “It’s the kind that astronomers use to study the stars!” The smile on the girl’s face faltered a little as she looked to the ground. “At least, it’s supposed to be…”

A large hand placed itself on Becky’s shoulder, causing her to look up at the smiling face of her father.

“I’ll bet your spyglass works just as well as any of theirs do, Darlin’. Better even!” Bob encouraged, beaming with pride at his daughter’s creation. “My lil’ inventor…”

The smile reappeared on Becky’s face, before she wrapped her arms around her father. Bob was taken by surprise for the moment, but smiled warmly as he returned the hug.

Brand had a smile of his own for the smithing father and daughter. However, a pang in his heart made itself known, as the thoughts he was trying to push away earlier came back with a vengeance.

“I’ll just leave you two be…” The old lawman went along his way, leaving Bob and Becky behind, the two confused at the sheriff’s sudden departure.

The blacksmith looked back at his little girl’s creation when something about it struck him confused. “Wait…is that the horseshoe I was missin’ for Mrs Baksin’ mule?”

Becky’s smile dropped, a pit opening in her stomach. “Ummm…”