The Wider Reckoning

You turn your mare south, away from Coffin Creek, and ride hard for the telegraph station at Fort Mercy. The decision burns like a brand, but the math is plain: one camp against a territory.

By lamplight you draft the warnings, by dawn you ride the settlements, splitting serum into careful doses, training homesteaders to recognize the signs. The company's lies unravel under federal eyes. Quarantine lines hold.

Word comes weeks later — Coffin Creek is a graveyard. But the territory breathes. You saved the many by failing the few, and that arithmetic will ride with you the rest of your days.