For a short time Tracy contemplated braving the dark tunnel. The railroad ran straight into a solid granite mountain. At some point an excavation had taken place, drilling a tunnel so the train could pass through, unhindered. The pathway, that until this point ran alongside the tracks, veered off, traversing up and over the range.

Time waited for no man, and Tracy was no exception.

The window of time allotted to catch Roy dwindled, sifting away like hourglass sand.

A whole uneventful day came and went since he departed Wapasha, Jangmi and their troupe of kiddos. Well, not entirely uneventful. Yesterday morning, a yeller Cape cobra roused Tracy with much hootin-n-hollerin. Latched onto his smartarm though, cracking its fangs. Poor fool. Tracy's metal fingers had constricted around it until the thrashing stopped. Chasm just stood there, nickering at Tracy, as if he thought the whole ordeal rather amusing.

As punishment, Tracy rode Chasm hard the rest of the day, following the elevated railway. Crisscrossed beams composed a compact trestle bridge that held the railway high above the sea of sand dunes. Tracy would have ridden under the trestle, seeking shade and a straight path, but the beams were framed too close to allow that, forcing him and the steeder to sail the sands, cresting and bottoming the grain waves like a storm-tossed life raft.

And now they came to a fork in the path.

Save precious time braving the tunnel, but risk their lives? Or waste time hiking over the safer mountain trail?

"What do you think, Chasm? Could we make it?"

But he had no idea how long the tunnel stretched, how deep it delved underneath the alp. Say he even made it most of the way through. Who was to say that a bullet train would not zip through at any point after he was in the thick of it? Thousands of pounds of force colliding head on with him and his horse. They'd be a splat of muscle and metal. He shuddered.

Tracy shook his head. "Naw. That'd be foolish. Come on boy. Let's hike around." Chasm agreed.

The trail snaked back and forth, winding uphill, growing steeper the higher they climbed. The air grew cooler, but not by much. Sparse succulents clung to the sides of sheer rock walls. Chasm climbed higher and higher. Only once did he lose his footing, slipping on a patch of loose gravel. Tracy kept a firm grip on the reins, and held his breath, but after the steeder regained his footing, Tracy dismounted and led the horse. "Whew. That was a near miss, boy."

But for that one slip up, Chasm's durorubber all-terrain horseshoes proved to be invaluable.

Then they crested the peak of the pass, moving between a cleft guarded by two silent sentinels, pillars of rounded rock, weathered by time and wind. A fierce frigid gust rushed through the pass, but Tracy remembered his episode at the canyon's edge and secured his Stetson with a shiver.

Tracy paused a moment to savor the view.

A pink haze permeated the overcast sky, dulling the sharp edges of the landscape, so that mountains and rough pillars of raw stone appeared on the horizon as if stepping out of a boundless desert sauna. Gorgeous marbled rock swirled under his boots, dark maroons, deep obsidian, bright scarlets, creamy ivory, and thick crimsons, all whirling down the naked mountain like a flowing stream frozen in slab, locked in time. The marble flowed over bedrock crags, buttes, and wind-worn yardangs.

His boots stayed, rooted in place, but his vision soared over the raw landscape. Another gust, gentler this time, pushed up against Tracy. He perched atop the planet like a red-tailed hawk, ready to soar.

The view stole Tracy's breath.

"Beautifully bleak."

A notification pinged on his smartarm.

Bonding level increased 63% .

"You can't fool me, Chasm. I knew you were a romantic too. Still, I'd have rather shared this moment with Hina. You'll do though."

Chasm snorted.

Smoke arose from a fixed point near the bottom of the alp, blackening the sky like a billowing bruise.

"Wonder what that is?"

That side of the mountain eased down, a much gentler slope. Tracy mounted Chasm and the two moved downhill, two specks trekking across the exposed foundations of Mars.

The rock road leveled out. They trotted through an eroded forest of top-heavy mushroom rock pedestals, which cast shadows of bulging heads atop thin necks.

The smoke grew thick on the horizon. Soon Tracy caught the familiar stench of slagged metal. He spurred Chasm into a canter, following a large scrape that gouged the ground. A downed hovercraft groveled at the end of the fresh trench.

The sunken speeder coughed up clouds of dark smog, polluting the air. A wounded man inside coughed up blood. Tracy rushed to his side. His eyes were closed, crusted shut, but his pale lips hung open. His chest still moved up and down, but at a slow cadence.

Red life liquid coating the inside of the speeder painted a vague picture of what sort of trouble befell the man. He didn't have long. If only Tracy knew what happened. He scanned the horizon. The stone forest of pillars thinned, coming to an end, giving way to fields of rye. Farmland.

"Must be near an outpost on the way to New Oklahoma," Tracy told Chasm.

The man stirred, hearing Tracy for the first time. He blinked, squinting, the sun far too bright.

"You're alive friend. But barely. I need to get you somewhere fast. Where's the nearest place we can get you help?"

If the man heard Tracy, he ignored the lawman. His heavy breathing sounded like labor. Tracy neared the man to speak closer in case the man didn't hear the first time.

With a death grip the man's hand snapped to Tracy's duster, tugging them face to face.

Scraggly beard hair pointed in every direction, tickling Tracy's cheek. Iron and tang odors of blood and salt-scented sweat lingered. "Cowboys got her," the man whispered. "Filthy cattle rustlers." He wasted dying words to curse those who'd put him in this predicament.

"Who is she? Who'd they take?"

Tracy noticed the man's other hand clutched a weathered pink bandanna. Tracy hesitated, then grabbed it, searching for any hint at who the man spoke of. Other than a whiff of lavender and initials sown into the bandanna, he got nothing.

"Stole our cattle. We followed 'em. Shot me. Took my lil' girl. She ain't never known a man."

From the look in the man's eye and the gravity in his voice, Tracy knew what he meant.

"They'll fix her ignorance," he rasped. "They'll fix her good."

Labored breathing stopped the man from elaborating.

Tracy couldn't spot another soul as far as he could see. But sure enough, a herd's worth of cattle tracks indented the dirt.

The man choked, trying to get more words out.

He whispered something. Tracy had to put his ear on the dying man's chapped lips to hear it. "Save her."

The cattleman stilled, reduced as his soul left.

Tracy squinted to keep his eyes dry, then turned his attention to the ground.

The cattle tracks veered off, leading away from the road to New Oklahoma, into the rye fields and beyond.

Tracy poised at the crossroads, crushing the bandanna in his hand.

Chasm stood at his side, faithful to gallop whichever direction Tracy steered him.

Roy might have all the time in the world, but Tracy didn't. This was his fourth day on Mars. He had a two-n-a-half week window to nab the fugitive and start heading back to Earth or he'd be stuck on Mars for two years. Less now. This red orb circumnavigated the sun at a different speed than his home planet, putting him in a bind.

But this man's dying wish was for Tracy to save his daughter.

Images from years past filled his mind. Images of storming a human trafficker's hideout. The eyes of the girls and boys he rescued looked deader than the traffickers he gunned down. Their young, hollow eyes haunted him still. He shivered, chills prickling his skin.

"Roy ain't going nowhere," he reminded himself.

Wild men stole this young woman's cattle, shot her pa dead, and would have their way with her.

But they hadn't bet on crossing paths with the fiercest marshal to ever set boot on Mars.

Judge and Jury grew restless at his sides like two famished Rottweilers, eager to spring out of their holsters. Tracy examined the cylinders, making sure the .357 gauss bullets stared back at him, one round stuffed in each chamber. Satisfied, he put them back. He mashed the button, morphing Chasm into a hovercycle. Donning his goggles, Tracy twisted the throttle.

Chasm roared to life and sped off after the cattle rustlers in a cloud of dust and smoke.