Prologue:
The Announcement
Of all the things Vin Tanner never expected to be after Ely Joe's treachery had caused a price to be put on his head, being engaged was the unlikeliest.
Even when he fled with Charlotte Richmond, with dreams of going to Brazil to live a new life, he never considered it. After all, the act of leaving with Charlotte seemed so final, the details such as courtship, engagement, and even a wedding seemed trivial after the fact. All Vin cared about during those days of madness, was simply being with Charlotte. He never thought beyond going to Brazil where they would share each other's lives for the rest of their days.
Vin supposed after spending so much time with the Indians, where the ritual of claiming someone for your own was nowhere as rigid, he had forgotten things were different in Christian society. Only after the business with Nicholas Serfontein where his relationship with Alexandra Styles was placed under scrutiny, did he realised he had done her a disservice. After all, it was clear to the entire town of Four Corners, they were courting from the night he turned up to the dance with Alex at his arm.
Even before that, Vin and Alex had been seen riding off together on Peso, her arms wrapped around his waist as they disappeared together for hours alone. And considering the night of the dance was also the night Vin had taken Alex's virginity, he supposed he should have at least made some formal declaration regarding what existed between them.
Certainly, such a declaration had quelled the wagging tongues of innuendo when Chris Larabee and Mary Travis had done the same. For years before the gunslinger and the newswoman had announced their intent to marry, the town had simmered with accusation regarding the nature of their relationship. Vin was surprised to see how their effective the announcement to marry, made discreetly in the Notice Section of the Clarion News, silenced all speculators.
Of course, in the case of Vin and Alex, there were complications.
The announcement in the Clarion News only referred to the engagement of Doctor Alexandra Styles, without naming her fiancé. After all, Vin still had a price on his head and it would take only one bounty hunter see his name next to hers in any announcement to realise the way to claim the $500 reward was to come after Alex. Nevertheless, the announcement was good enough for the townspeople of Four Corners and Vin was satisfied Alex's reputation remain intact.
Still, the fallout from the Klan's presence in Four Corners left behind an indelible impression on Alex. Having been the main target of the Klan's hatred, Alex was kidnapped by Francis Lamont and subjected to abuses that left visible bruises on the doctor's skin for weeks, despite her dusky colouring. While it gained her sympathy, it also revealed indirectly, the shame of those who'd allowed the Klan's vile rhetoric to infect their view of their neighbours. Privately, Vin was forced to sneak into her house beneath anyone's notice to comfort her while she slumbered.
During her ordeal with Lamont, Alex had been forced to take refuge within an old well and inadvertently became trapped there. Vin had recalled Alex telling him of her fears regarding small, dark spaces and had Alex's father, William Styles been alive, he would have told the tracker of a fall into an abandoned meerkat warren when she was four. The burrow had been no more than six feet deep but it was tight and cramped, leaving Alex with a lifetime phobia whose cause she no longer remembered.
It took weeks for her to be able to sleep without waking up shaking and after a night at Nettie Well's, Vin and Alex had the long awaited discussion about their relationship they'd avoided until that point. In becoming engaged, Vin found himself one step closer to respectability, although the price on his head still lingered, waiting like the Sword of Damocles to fall. As one who had never truly been happy or contented until he looked across the street and met the ice cool gaze of a black garbed gunslinger, Vin feared nothing this good could last.
Eventually, something bad was going to invade his happiness. He just didn't know what.
Except it was not Vin Tanner who would be bringing forth the calamity, it would be Alex. Across the sea, the wheels of revenge had been set in motion logn before the news of their engagement had reached them. If anything, it served to add fuel to an already vengeful fire. Even if Vin's name was absent from the engagement notice, the presence of Alex's name was enough.
The family had known where their favourite son had fallen and why he travelled across the world to America. While they indulged his foolishness, largely because as the eldest son of their family, he had the right to do as he pleased, allowing him to die because of it was another matter. When the cause of the death was over a half-caste exile from London society, the sting of his loss was unacceptable.
Especially when they knew he travelled to the Americas for a woman who had given the same hand he wanted in marriage to someone else. By the time the announcement was made, the plans for vengeance were already afoot and only serve to stoked the fires of rage of those prepared to deliver it.