The heavyset miner stood within arm’s reach of Cole Mercer and made the mistake of believing silence meant hesitation.
“I said I was buying her.”
Cole slowly turned his head.
Nothing about him changed. His right hand stayed loose beside his thigh. His shoulders did not tense. The revolver at his hip remained untouched.
But the miner’s grin disappeared.
Cole had spent enough winters alone in the mountains to understand that most dangerous creatures announced themselves before they attacked. Wolves lowered their heads. Rattlesnakes warned with their tails. Men were worse because they often used laughter.
Cole did not laugh.
“She isn’t for sale anymore,” he said.
The miner’s eyes dropped toward the money Jeb Robinson had already swept from the bar.
“Then maybe you sell her to me.”
“No.”
“I’ll give you thirty.”
Cole stared at him.
“Walk away.”
Someone near the card tables chuckled nervously.
That was enough to remind the miner he had an audience.
Pride returned to his face.
“You think that fur coat makes you king of the mountains?”
“No.”
Cole’s voice remained calm.
“I think you have about five seconds to decide whether you want to keep your teeth.”
The room became completely silent.
The miner studied Cole’s scar, his hands, the revolver, and finally the eyes.
Then he stepped backward.
“Wasn’t worth twenty anyway.”
Cole watched him retreat toward his table.
Only then did he turn toward the woman.
She had not moved.
She stood beside the bar with her bruised cheek facing the room, one hand gripping her opposite wrist where Jeb’s fingers had left angry red marks.
Cole suddenly became aware of the absurdity of what he had done.
He had come to Oakhaven for flour, salt, coffee, lamp oil, and ammunition.
Instead, he had apparently purchased a human being.
Every instinct in him told him to leave before the situation became even more complicated.
He picked up his hat from the counter.
“You can go.”
The woman looked at him.
It was the first time she had really looked at him.
Her eyes were gray-green, lighter than he had expected, and far older than the rest of her face.
Cole guessed she was somewhere around twenty-five.
Maybe younger.
Hard living made age difficult to measure.
She swallowed.
“Go where?”
The question caught him unprepared.
“Anywhere you want.”
She stared.
Cole nodded toward the back door through which Jeb had disappeared.
“He doesn’t own you.”
Her fingers tightened around her wrist.
“You paid him.”
“I paid him to stop touching you.”
“That isn’t how contracts work.”
“I don’t care how contracts work.”
For the first time, a faint flicker of confusion crossed her face.
The bartender leaned forward.
“Mountain man, Robinson probably does have papers. Denver’s full of labor brokers. Some legal, some not.”
Cole looked at him.
“Does anyone here intend to stop her if she walks out?”
Nobody answered.
Cole returned his attention to the woman.
“There. Problem solved.”
He turned.
He made it three steps.
“Sir?”
Cole stopped.
He hated the word already.
He looked over his shoulder.
She was still beside the bar.
“What?”
Her lips parted, closed, then opened again.
“If I belong to you now…”
“You don’t.”
“…could you please not sell me tonight?”
Cole felt something cold move through his chest.
The woman spoke quickly, as though expecting anger.
“I can work. I cook. I mend. I can clean fish and dress small game. I know a little about livestock. I don’t eat much. If you’re taking me somewhere else, I only ask—”
“You’re not listening.”
Her voice stopped.
Cole walked back toward her.
He kept enough distance that she would not feel cornered.
“Nobody belongs to me.”
Her expression remained blank.
“You understand?”
No answer.
“You’re free.”
Something almost painful moved behind her eyes.
Then she asked the question that Cole Mercer would remember for the rest of his life.
“Do free people get somewhere safe to sleep?”
The saloon vanished around him.
For one impossible second Cole was sixteen again, standing outside a cabin burning beneath a Montana winter sky.
His mother shouting.
His younger sister crying.
His father lying motionless in the snow.
And Cole himself learning how quickly the word home could become something that existed only in memory.
He looked away.
“Usually,” he said.
The woman nodded as though he had confirmed something she had suspected.
“Then I don’t think I’ve ever been free.”
Cole’s jaw tightened.
The bartender suddenly found great interest in polishing a glass.
Even some of the miners lowered their eyes.
Cole wanted to leave.
He wanted the mountains.
He wanted snow and pine trees and the clean honesty of hunger, cold, and work.
People were complicated.
Mountains were not.
Yet he heard himself ask, “What’s your name?”
“Anna.”
“Anna what?”
“Anna Reed.”
“Where’s your family?”
A shadow crossed her face.
“Gone.”
“That mean dead?”
“My mother is.”
“Father?”
“I don’t know.”
Cole waited.
Anna offered nothing more.
“All right.”
He exhaled through his nose.
“My cabin is two days north if the river isn’t too high. There’s a loft. Door locks from inside.”
Anna stared at him.
“You’re taking me there?”
“Until you decide where else you’re going.”
“What do I owe you?”
“Nothing.”
Suspicion entered her expression.
Cole recognized it.
She trusted cruelty because cruelty was familiar. Kindness frightened her because kindness usually concealed a price.
“I don’t understand,” she whispered.
“Neither do I.”
That nearly made her smile.
Nearly.
Cole pulled several coins from his pocket and placed them on the bar.
“Room upstairs?”
The bartender nodded.
“Two available.”
Cole pointed toward Anna.
“She gets one.”
Anna stiffened.
“You aren’t staying?”
“I’ll sleep in the stable.”
“You paid for a room.”
“For you.”
She looked around the saloon.
Every eye that met hers quickly moved elsewhere.
“I don’t want to stay here alone.”
Cole studied her.
Rain hammered the roof.
Thunder rolled above Oakhaven.
He understood.
“There a chair in the room?”
The bartender nodded.
“Then I’ll sit outside the door.”
Anna’s eyes filled.
She immediately lowered her face.
Cole pretended not to notice.
He collected his supplies from the mercantile before closing and carried them to the stable. When he returned, Anna had eaten stew provided by the bartender’s wife and washed some of the mud from her face.
The bruise looked worse clean.
Cole said nothing about it.
Upstairs, Anna entered the room and inspected the window, mattress, wardrobe, and lock as though she expected someone to be hiding inside.
Cole remained in the hallway.
Finally she stood behind the partially opened door.
“You really mean to sit there all night?”
“That was the arrangement.”
“You’re strange.”
“I’ve been called worse.”
She closed the door.
A moment later the lock clicked.
Cole lowered himself into the chair.
For a long time there was silence.
Then Anna’s voice came through the wood.
“Mr. Mercer?”
“Cole.”
“Cole?”
“Yes?”
“Why did you do it?”
He considered lying.
Because Jeb irritated me.
Because the miner irritated me.
Because twenty dollars meant less than watching another person be treated like livestock.
Instead, he said, “My sister’s name was Ruth.”
Silence followed.
“She died?”
“Yes.”
“How old?”
“Seventeen.”
Anna waited.
Cole almost regretted answering.
Then she said softly, “I’m sorry.”
“So am I.”
Rain continued beating against the roof.
Sometime after midnight Cole heard the bed creak.
Then Anna cried.
Not loudly.
That made it worse.
She cried like someone who had learned noise brought punishment.
Cole sat in the dark hallway staring toward the stairs while memories he had buried for twenty years began climbing out of the earth.
By dawn the storm had passed.
Oakhaven looked washed but not clean.
Cole loaded his mule and saddled the buckskin gelding he called Jasper.
Anna emerged wearing the same faded dress, now mostly dry.
She carried no bag.
Cole looked behind her.
“That everything?”
“Yes.”
“Nothing else?”
“No.”
He had owned more at thirteen.
He handed her a wool coat purchased from the mercantile that morning.
Anna looked at it.
“I can’t pay you.”
“Wasn’t expecting you to.”
“I don’t want charity.”
“Good. I don’t give charity.”
“What is it, then?”
“You’ll freeze without it, and frozen people slow down travel.”
She knew he was lying.
But the lie allowed her to accept the coat.
“Thank you.”
They had nearly reached the north edge of town when someone called after them.
“Mercer!”
Cole turned.
Jeb Robinson stood beneath the awning of the saloon.
Two men were beside him.
One was the heavyset miner.
The other wore a narrow black coat and carried a shotgun.
Jeb held a folded paper.
“You forgot something.”
Anna went pale.
Jeb smiled.
“Her contract.”
Cole dismounted.
Jeb raised the paper.
“Signed legal and proper in Denver. Four years of service remaining.”
Anna whispered, “Cole…”
He glanced at her.
She looked terrified.
Jeb continued.
“You paid twenty dollars last night because I was drunk and desperate. But this morning I remembered something.”
He tapped the paper.
“She’s worth considerably more.”
Cole’s voice became quiet.
“How much?”
“Two hundred.”
Anna recoiled as though struck.
Cole stared at Jeb.
Then he smiled.
It was the first time Anna had seen him do it.
There was nothing pleasant about it.
“You already sold her.”
“Then call it a correction in price.”
“What if I don’t?”
The man with the shotgun lowered the barrel slightly.
Jeb shrugged.
“Then the sheriff gets involved.”
Cole looked toward the small building bearing the word SHERIFF across its front.
A curtain moved.
Someone was watching.
Not helping.
Of course.
Cole had lived near enough to civilization to know how justice worked when money was involved.
He turned to Anna.
“Did you sign that contract?”
Her lips trembled.
“Yes.”
“Willingly?”
She looked at Jeb.
Then at the ground.
“No.”
Cole’s eyes hardened.
“How?”
“My mother was sick. We owed money for medicine and rent. A man in Denver said I could work off the debt. When I tried to leave after Mama died, they said the contract had been sold.”
Jeb laughed.
“Sad story doesn’t change ink.”
Cole stepped toward him.
The shotgun came up.
Anna grabbed Cole’s sleeve.
“No.”
He stopped.
Not because of the shotgun.
Because her hand was shaking.
Jeb smiled wider.
“Two hundred dollars, Mercer.”
Cole could have paid it.
His winter pelts had brought nearly three hundred.
But if he paid, Jeb would learn something dangerous.
That selling frightened women worked.
“No.”
Jeb’s smile faded.
“No?”
Cole mounted Jasper.
“I already paid your price.”
“You ride out and I’ll bring the law after you.”
Cole looked at the paper.
“Then bring it.”
He reached down toward Anna.
“Come on.”
She hesitated.
“You don’t know what they’ll do.”
“I’ve got a fair idea.”
“They might arrest you.”
“They have to catch me first.”
For the first time, something alive appeared in Anna Reed’s eyes.
Not happiness.
Not yet.
But possibility.
She placed her hand in his.
Cole pulled her onto Jasper behind him.
As they rode north out of Oakhaven, Jeb’s voice followed.
“This isn’t finished, Mercer!”
Cole did not look back.
Neither did Anna.
Not until the town disappeared.
Then she whispered, “Why aren’t you afraid?”
Cole watched the mountains rising beneath the morning sky.
“I am.”
Anna tightened her grip around the back of his coat.
“You don’t look afraid.”
“Looking afraid and being afraid are two different things.”
They rode in silence.
Several miles later Anna asked, “What happens now?”
Cole considered the question.
“First?”
“Yes.”
“We get breakfast.”
Anna gave a startled laugh.
It was small and rusty, like something that had not been used for years.
But it was a laugh.
Cole felt something inside him shift.
He had gone into Oakhaven wanting flour, salt, and silence.
Now he rode toward the mountains with a frightened woman behind him, a fraudulent contract chasing them, and three dangerous men who would almost certainly follow.
His peaceful winter had ended before it began.
Strangely, for the first time in years, Cole Mercer did not mind.