The cowboy stopped in the middle of the street.<\/p>\n
His hands rested at his sides.<\/p>\n
The young woman remained on her knees behind him, too frightened to move.<\/p>\n
The outlaws looked at one another.<\/p>\n
Then the leader smirked.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou put your gun away?\u201d<\/p>\n
The cowboy nodded once.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don’t need it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The outlaw laughed and stepped closer.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen you’re a fool.\u201d<\/p>\n
Before he could take another step\u2014<\/p>\n
the sound of boots echoed behind the cowboy.<\/p>\n
One.<\/p>\n
Then another.<\/p>\n
The sheriff walked into the street.<\/p>\n
Two ranchers followed.<\/p>\n
Then the blacksmith.<\/p>\n
One by one, the townspeople stepped out from the boardwalks.<\/p>\n
The outlaws slowly turned.<\/p>\n
The empty street was no longer empty.<\/p>\n
The cowboy looked at the gang.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor years\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou thought this town was afraid of you.\u201d<\/p>\n
He glanced over his shoulder at the people standing behind him.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou were wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n
The young woman slowly rose to her feet.<\/p>\n
Tears filled her eyes.<\/p>\n
The outlaw leader tightened his jaw.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis isn’t over.\u201d<\/p>\n
The cowboy met his stare without blinking.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is today.\u201d<\/p>\n
For a long moment\u2014<\/p>\n
no one moved.<\/p>\n
Then the gang leader backed away.<\/p>\n
His men followed.<\/p>\n
As their horses disappeared into the desert\u2014<\/p>\n
the town finally breathed again.<\/p>\n
Because the cowboy hadn’t won with a bullet.<\/p>\n
He had reminded everyone that courage is strongest…<\/p>\n
when it gives others the strength to stand beside you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The cowboy stopped in the middle of the street. His hands rested at his sides. The young woman remained on her knees behind him, too frightened to move. The outlaws looked at one another. Then the leader smirked. \u201cYou put your gun away?\u201d The cowboy nodded once. \u201cI don’t need it.\u201d The outlaw laughed and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":8764,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8763"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8763\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/storytimes.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}