Annabeth woke before sunrise with her heart racing.
For several seconds she did not know where she was.
A gray ceiling stretched above her.
A quilt covered her body.
The scent of cedar smoke lingered in the room.
Then memory returned.
The auction.
Three silver dollars.
Elias Mercer.
The child’s shoes.
She sat upright.
The wooden bar remained across the front door.
Nothing had moved.
Then she heard boots above her.
Annabeth froze.
Elias descended the ladder slowly.
He saw her awake and stopped.
“Morning.”
Annabeth pulled the quilt higher.
He nodded toward the door.
“You can leave the bar up until I go outside.”
She stared.
“You’re asking permission to walk through your own door?”
“It’s your room while you’re here.”
He waited.
After a moment Annabeth stood, lifted the bar, and stepped aside.
Elias opened the door.
Cold morning air entered.
He walked out.
That was all.
Annabeth stared after him.
She did not understand what kind of man behaved this way.
The men she knew announced ownership of everything.
House.
Horse.
Food.
Wife.
Children.
Even silence belonged to them.
By the time Elias returned with wood, Annabeth had dressed properly and washed her face.
He set logs near the stove.
“There’s coffee.”
“I don’t drink coffee.”
“Tea?”
She blinked.
“You have tea?”
“Lily liked it.”
The name softened his voice.
Annabeth looked away.
“I’ll take tea.”
Breakfast was awkward.
Elias cooked eggs badly.
One yolk broke.
The biscuits were hard enough to qualify as weapons.
Annabeth bit one and nearly laughed.
She stopped herself.
Elias noticed.
“They’re terrible.”
She looked at him.
“They’re not terrible.”
“They could break a window.”
A sound escaped her.
Small.
Half laugh.
Half cough.
Elias looked surprised.
So did Annabeth.
She had forgotten she could laugh.
After breakfast she offered to wash dishes.
“You don’t owe me work,” Elias said.
“I didn’t say I owed you.”
He nodded.
“All right.”
She washed them anyway.
Over the next several days, Annabeth learned the boundaries of Elias’s life.
He owned forty acres, though only part was fenced.
He kept two horses, three milk cows, six chickens, and a stubborn mule called Abraham.
He repaired saddles and wagon harnesses for neighboring ranches when farm work slowed.
He read every evening.
Badly.
Not because he lacked intelligence, but because school had ended for him at age ten.
He had a Bible, two newspapers months out of date, and a book of poems he claimed belonged to Lily.
Annabeth suspected he liked it too.
He slept in the loft every night.
She locked the door.
Every morning he waited until she removed the bar.
He never asked whether she planned to leave.
That frightened her.
It meant the choice remained hers.
On the fourth day, Annabeth stood beside the well washing clothes when Elias returned from town.
He carried a small parcel.
“For you.”
She immediately stepped backward.
“What is it?”
“Open it.”
“I didn’t ask for anything.”
“No.”
“That means I owe you.”
His brow furrowed.
“No, it means your boots were bleeding your feet.”
Annabeth stared at the package.
Elias set it on the porch.
Then walked away.
She waited until he entered the barn before touching it.
Inside was a new pair of brown leather boots.
Not fancy.
Strong.
Soft at the ankle.
Her size.
Annabeth sat on the porch step.
A note was tucked inside.
Three words in Elias’s uneven handwriting:
No payment required.
Her vision blurred.
She hated that he kept doing this.
Kindness was opening places inside her she had worked very hard to close.
That evening she wore the boots to supper.
Elias glanced under the table.
“Fit?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Nothing else.
Afterward, Annabeth asked, “What do you expect from me?”
Elias looked up from repairing a harness.
“I told you.”
“No. You told me I don’t belong to you.”
“That remains true.”
“Then what do you want?”
He set down the leather strap.
“For you to decide what happens next.”
Annabeth’s frustration broke.
“People don’t spend their last three dollars for nothing.”
“I didn’t spend it for nothing.”
“Then what did you buy?”
“Time.”
She went still.
“For what?”
“For you to get away from that barn before somebody worse paid three dollars.”
“That still doesn’t explain what you want.”
Elias leaned back.
“Annabeth, if you leave tomorrow, I’ll take you to Red Hollow.”
“And then?”
“If you want work, Mrs. Bellamy at the boardinghouse needs kitchen help.”
“You arranged that?”
“I asked.”
“When?”
“Yesterday.”
Her throat tightened.
“If you want to stay here a while, you can. If you want to go east, I’ll help you reach the stage line once I get paid for the Henderson saddles.”
She stared at him.
“Why?”
Elias sighed.
“Because somebody should have done the same for Lily.”
Annabeth’s anger disappeared as quickly as it came.
Later that night she stood near the fireplace.
She lifted one of the little shoes.
It was lighter than she expected.
A child had once run in it.
Laughed in it.
Perhaps kicked stones along the road.
“Blue was her favorite color.”
Annabeth turned.
Elias stood halfway down the ladder.
She quickly set the shoe back.
“I’m sorry.”
“You didn’t hurt anything.”
He came closer.
“The ribbon?”
Annabeth asked.
“Lily tied it there herself.”
“She must have been sweet.”
“She was loud.”
Annabeth smiled faintly.
“Loud?”
“Never stopped talking.”
He sat near the cold fireplace.
“Knew every neighbor’s business. Once told Reverend Cole his sermon was too long.”
Annabeth laughed.
This time without stopping it.
Elias smiled.
It changed his whole face.
Then Annabeth noticed something.
A photograph rested on the mantel behind him.
She had overlooked it.
A little girl with light hair stood beside Elias.
He was younger.
Clean-shaven.
Smiling broadly.
Beside them stood a woman.
His wife.
Annabeth touched the frame.
“She was beautiful.”
“Sarah.”
“What was she like?”
“Patient.”
He glanced at Annabeth.
“She needed to be.”
They both smiled.
Then a hard pounding sounded at the door.
Annabeth dropped the photograph.
The glass cracked.
Panic surged through her body.
Elias was standing before she could move.
“Stay behind me.”
He opened the door halfway.
A man stood on the porch.
Short.
Heavy.
Red beard.
Deputy’s badge pinned crookedly to his vest.
“Mercer.”
“Hale.”
The deputy looked past him.
His eyes found Annabeth.
“Well, there she is.”
Annabeth went cold.
Elias blocked the doorway.
“What do you want?”
“Got a complaint from town.”
“About?”
“Stolen property.”
Annabeth stopped breathing.
The deputy smiled.
“Auctioneer says the sale wasn’t properly completed.”
Elias’s voice sharpened.
“I paid.”
“You did.”
“But?”
“Apparently another party offered ten dollars afterward.”
“You can’t offer after a sale.”
Deputy Hale shrugged.
“I’m not the auctioneer.”
“You’re not much of a deputy either.”
Hale’s smile vanished.
“Careful.”
Annabeth’s palms began sweating.
The deputy pulled a folded paper from his pocket.
“This says the girl needs to return until the ownership dispute is settled.”
Elias did not touch the document.
“She isn’t property.”
“The paper says otherwise.”
“Then the paper is wrong.”
Hale looked toward Annabeth.
“You hear that, girl? Your cowboy wants trouble.”
Annabeth’s breath shortened.
Something about the deputy’s voice carried a familiarity she hated.
Not the sound.
The confidence.
The certainty that no one would challenge him.
Elias stepped outside and pulled the door behind him.
Annabeth could still hear.
“You take one step toward her,” Elias said, “and you better bring more than paper.”
Hale laughed.
“Threatening an officer?”
“Giving directions.”
“You think you can protect her forever?”
“No.”
There was a pause.
“But I can protect her today.”
Hale left eventually.
Annabeth remained frozen.
When Elias came inside, she asked, “Who offered ten dollars?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re lying.”
He rubbed his jaw.
“I have a suspicion.”
“Who?”
Elias hesitated.
“Amos Redd.”
The name struck her like a fist.
Annabeth turned away.
Elias saw it.
“You know him.”
“No.”
“That was twice.”
“What?”
“Twice you’ve reacted to his name.”
She crossed her arms.
“I said I don’t know him.”
Elias studied her.
Then nodded.
“All right.”
She expected him to press.
He didn’t.
That night Annabeth could not sleep.
Memories crawled through darkness.
A house in Missouri.
Her mother coughing in bed.
Her stepfather, Vernon Clay, drinking at the kitchen table.
Then Amos.
Not Amos Redd.
Mr. Redd, Vernon had called him.
A traveler.
A businessman.
A man who smiled while appraising girls the way ranchers appraised horses.
Annabeth had been seventeen.
Her mother was already dead.
Vernon owed money.
Annabeth remembered Amos touching a strand of her hair.
“Pretty enough when cleaned.”
She had slapped his hand.
Vernon beat her afterward.
Two years later, when debts grew too large, Vernon sent Annabeth west with a marriage broker.
She had believed she was going to marry a widowed farmer.
Instead, the broker had disappeared with her papers.
The women were taken from town to town.
Some were claimed.
Some were sold.
Some vanished.
And always somewhere in the background was a man whose name was spoken quietly.
Redd.
Annabeth sat upright.
She could no longer breathe inside the cabin.
She opened the door and walked outside.
Elias was sitting on the porch.
She stopped.
“I thought you were asleep.”
“Couldn’t.”
She moved to the far end.
For several minutes neither spoke.
Then Annabeth whispered, “I know Amos Redd.”
Elias became completely still.
“He came to my stepfather’s house two years ago.”
Elias did not interrupt.
“He wanted to buy me.”
The word tasted foul.
“My stepfather said no at first.”
“Why?”
“Because he thought he could get more later.”
Elias’s jaw tightened.
Annabeth looked at the darkness.
“My mother had been dead six months. Vernon owed everybody.”
“Vernon?”
“My stepfather.”
She wrapped her arms around herself.
“Eventually he sent me with a marriage agent. Said I was going to Nebraska.”
“You weren’t.”
“No.”
She told him about the wagon.
The locked room behind a boardinghouse.
The women listed in ledgers.
The barn.
Everything except the worst parts.
Elias never asked for those.
When she finished, he said, “Amos knows you can identify him.”
“I don’t know if I could.”
“You remember his face?”
“Yes.”
“Then you can.”
Annabeth looked at him.
“He’s coming for me.”
Elias’s expression hardened.
“Yes.”
Fear rose.
“You should send me away.”
“No.”
“You said I can leave.”
“You can.”
“Then take me to town.”
“Tomorrow, if that’s what you want.”
She stared at him.
“You’re not going to argue?”
“I don’t own you.”
Those words again.
They no longer sounded strange.
They sounded like a rope thrown to someone drowning.
Annabeth looked toward the dark road.
“If I go to town, Amos can find me.”
“Yes.”
“If I stay, he finds me here.”
“Probably.”
“Then there’s no safe place.”
Elias turned toward her.
“There can be.”
“Where?”
“Anywhere he’s afraid to come.”
“And where is that?”
Elias’s eyes hardened.
“Behind enough people willing to say no.”
Annabeth laughed bitterly.
“I’ve never met enough people.”
“You’ve met one.”
She looked at him.
He continued.
“Tomorrow we find more.”