Yellowstone: Wind in the Smoke

"If you want our cattle, come and get them!" shouted Lee, still mounted on his horse, lagging behind as the rest of the group retreated with the recovered cattle.

But then, a shot from a high-caliber rifle shattered the silence.

Bang!

The bullet narrowly missed Lee, and when he noticed the figure not far from his position, it had already collapsed to the ground from the impact.

"What the hell?" Lee was overwhelmed. He quickly dismounted and walked over to the man from the reservation who had been shot.

"Brother, are you okay?" Kayce approached from a distance, riding his horse.

At that moment, Lee had no idea who had fired the shot and immediately assumed it was Kayce. But when he saw the body on the ground, he asked, "What happened?"

"Someone shot…"

At the same time, a convoy of off-road vehicles approached, and a voice they both recognized startled them:

"Lee, you're quite careless."

"Dante, what the hell are you doing here?" Lee stared incredulously at his brother, who was holding a sniper rifle and was followed by several armed men who quickly established a security perimeter.

"Watching your back." Dante walked slowly toward the man struggling to breathe, pulled a pistol from his vest, and said in an unnervingly calm tone, "Life is the way it is because we've chosen it to be this way. Even when we have no enemies, we always look for someone to unleash our uncontrollable emotions on."

"You won't escape the weight…" Robert coughed up blood as he struggled to speak.

"No, no, no. You're neither the first nor the last man I'll kill," Dante pointed his weapon and murmured, "Nobody messes with my family."

"Dante, no!"

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The sound of three gunshots echoed through the dark night. Dante, who had pulled the trigger, glanced briefly at his brother Kayce, who had tried to stop him.

"At the end of the day, you can't abandon family, little brother. Now that I've killed your wife's brother, you'll need to think very carefully about what you want to say," Dante said without a hint of regret.

This made Kayce realize that this wasn't the first—or even the second—time Dante had killed someone.

Lee approached, looked at Kayce for a few moments, and then said, "We should leave. Three Duttons at the scene of a murder would be disastrous for the family."

"I'll handle this. After all, we can't leave a body riddled with bullets lying around and expect the news not to spread." Dante pulled out a satellite phone and made a call.

Within five minutes, a helicopter landed nearby, and several men arrived at the scene.

"It's always a pleasure cleaning up the mess," an older man said, glancing at the corpse and then at Dante's hand. He smiled faintly and asked, "Are these the murder weapons?"

"Yes. Make it look like he was killed by hungry wolves. With him unconscious from a blow to the head, it's clear he could have been attacked by wild animals," Dante said, handing his weapons to the man.

Both brothers watched their younger brother solve a problem they never expected to share with him.

"Did you fire your weapons?" the older man asked Dante's brothers.

"Yes, but not at anyone."

"That's good. We'll recover the casings from your guns, so you can leave now."

Dante watched as a man nicknamed "Crocodile" handed gold coins to the cleaner and then walked toward the vehicles.

"Leave your horses with our men; they'll take them home."

"Yeah, whatever you say." Kayce didn't want to question his brother, not in this place and under these circumstances.

Lee, however, with a serious look, asked, "Dante, who are these people?"

"Cleaners. Considering we're in a poor location to hide a body that everyone will be looking for soon, I called these men to manipulate the scene," Dante replied as he walked toward the vehicles, waiting for them to get in.

"How do you know them?"

Dante looked at Lee and replied seriously, "They're workers like anyone else. They earn their living cleaning the streets of this country. Drop that angry look, brother—you almost died today."

"Are you sure about that?" Kayce wasn't convinced that killing his wife's brother had been the right thing to do, even though he knew perfectly well that the man would have shot his brother.

"He was aiming at Lee. Do we really need to debate whether or not a man was about to shoot another? I know a killer's look, and that idiot Robert wanted to kill our brother."

"Well, it doesn't matter. This stays between us."

"What will we tell Dad?"

Lee glanced at Kayce and said, "He doesn't need to know about this."

"But he'll ask questions. He's not a fool."

"Then tell him the truth—I killed an idiot to protect my brother's life." Dante saw no reason to hide something like this. He knew perfectly well their father would understand.

"Who knows how many have died at John's hands, or the Duttons' in general?"

"Yeah, he'll understand." Lee fell silent after those words.

Kayce said nothing for a while either.

But after a few minutes, Lee said, "I heard you brought a horse home. We should spend more time together as a family, Kayce."

"Yeah, I'm planning to now that I'll be living closer to the ranch." Kayce would soon move to his own ranch, where he'd start working.

The Dutton brothers—the older ones at least—had their own stories and resentments. Each had experienced their mother's death differently.

Dante, on the other hand, was the odd one. He felt no emotional attachment to their mother and lived solely with the desire to see his family united. Maybe that conviction turned him into a sort of protective brother, someone who felt the need to handle everything behind the scenes.

He had always protected his brothers without them realizing it.

It was a nature he had never hidden.

"We're here, boss."

Dante stepped out of the vehicle, looked at his brothers, and said, "I'm taking a shower. You two can talk if you want."