Ben had been raising Mike to take over his legacy without ever giving a second thought to the fact that Mike might not want to. Mike had known that the day would come when he would have to choose between his loyalty for Ben and his yearning for a different kind of life. But that day came before Mike was able to tell Ben his decision.
There was dissention in the outlaw gang of Ben Curry's. A man by the name of Kerb Perrin had thought he would be the man to take over for Ben, but when he found out that Ben was favoring Mike, he couldn't handle it. Kerb Perrin decided that he would kill Ben Curry, and Mike Bastian too if he had to, in order to take over the reigns of the gang. Yet Kerb Perrin and his followers underestimated the skills of Mike Bastian, and also the toughness and thoughtfulness of old Ben Curry.
Ben Curry had but one weakness, and he kept this a secret for as long as he could. But a secret can only last so long, and eventually people found out, people including Kerb Perrin. Ben's secret was that he had a real family, a wife and two daughters that he visited every once in a while by the way of a secret trail that crossed through the Grand Canyon. His family had no idea that he was an outlaw and purposefully so because Ben knew that they could be in danger if anyone found out. Kerb Perrin upon learning of Ben's secret decided to take a few men and steal the cattle that Ben kept at his families ranch and to also take Ben's wife and two daughters, thinking that this would give them leverage against Ben Curry. Mike Bastian learned of this plan and beat Kerb and his followers to the ranch and outdrew Kerb during a gunfight and killed him. After tracking one of the other men who had escaped with one of Ben's daughters (Julianne), Mike killed him also. .
After learning of Kerb Perrin's death, two other men tried their luck at taking over the gang. Two men, one who goes by the name of Monson and the other Clatt decided to rob a bank in a small town in Colorado, a bank that Ben had also been planning to rob.
