"You killed my pa!"

"How was I t'know he was yer pa?"

Denali looked at the sinewy ranch hand . She remembered him. Wayne Fordham. She'd seen him working at the Bar-W last summer. Shirt off, sweat dripping... No, she shook if off, reminding herself to focus on the Colt's front sight. She had him dead-to-rights.

Something stopped her, kept pulling her away from cold blue steel to the warm blue of his eyes.

"Yer lyin!"

He stated softly, "No, Miss Guthrie, I'm not. It weren't my fault. He thought I was stealin'. But I was only after my horse. It was all that corrupt sheriff; He done stole it from me, for some crime he said I done which I ain't done. He sold it to yer pa."

Denali cocked the big .44. "Yer lyin', you cur!"

"I ain't. He thought I was drawin' but I was just going fer my wallet. I wasn't 'bout to fight no sheriff, so I figured just rebuy my horse, unfair as it is. He winged me, right here." He pointed to a tear in his jacket, dark material made darker with blood. "I didn't know yer pa. I... I just returned fire. I'm so sorry."

She couldn't allow this. She must avenger her father. She reset, Wayne nothing but an out-of-focus blur.

She squeezed the heavy trigger of her dead father's weapon.

A flash. Too big to have come from the gun. Her eyes shut tight against the brightness.

She opened them; One blurry figure now two.

Wayne was still standing, unharmed.

Next to him, a man wearing some kind of armor, like a knight in one of the books pa read to her as a child. Accept it wasn't shiny but multicolored, bright reds and blues and whites.

"Hello, Denali. I realize this is a bit of a shock, but I don't have time to explain. I've been sent back to prevent you from killing Wayne here."

"Sent... back? Back from where?"

"Well, this'll surely be the toughest thing for you to grasp. I'm from the future. The year 2022, to be exact." The stranger looked at the two bewildered faces, longing to tell them more, but checking his Chronometron, opted for, "I have to take you back with me. Both of you."

"Listen mister, I appreciate what you done for me, but--"

The stranger raised some kind of contraption, aimed it at Wayne, and he was suddenly gone.

"What'd you do?" Denali said, now pointing the heavy gun toward the stranger.

"Listen, time is of the essence here. We need you, too."

"Need me to what?" she emphasized with a hammer-cock.

"Save the world."

The stranger took two steps toward her. She held the gun as steady as she could.

"You stop right there, mister!"

"Denali, you can't hurt me with that silly thing." He tossed something toward her, landing it in the dirt in front of her feet.

She looked down. It was the crumpled bullet she'd fired at Wayne.