Chapter Two Three Seconds in Hope

" Crowe stepped down from the office porch. "If you are willing to sit down and discuss this, Titan can offer compensation. Five hundred dollars and a ticket to California." Five hundred dollars. In Hope Town, five hundred dollars could buy half a street's respect. It could also buy many men's bones. Jack watched him. "My father was worth five hundred?" Crowe spread his hands. "Dead men have no price. Living men do." In that moment, Jack understood why his father had died. It was not because Crowe was cruel. It was because, in Crowe's eyes, the Walker family had never been people. They had been an obstacle on a map. Jack holstered the Colt. "Tell Titan I'm taking back what is mine." Crowe's smile thinned.