Finch swept the silver into his palm with a quick, practiced motion. "Sold," he snapped, as if afraid Thomas might change his mind. "To Thomas Hail. Take the rope."
Thomas stepped up onto the bottom plank of the platform. He reached into his belt, pulled out a double-bladed pocket knife, and opened the large blade with his thumb.
The crowd stirred. "Hey now, Thomas!" Miller yelled. "Don't go turning her loose right here! She'll run for the hills or stick a knife in your throat!"
Thomas ignored him. He reached out, caught the rough yellow hemp between his fingers, and drew the steel across it. The rope parted with a dry snip.
The girl did not move immediately. She stood with her wrists still pressed together, as though the rope were still there, her eyes fixed on her freed hands. Slowly, the blood began to flow back into her fingers, turning them from grey-white to a deep, dark red.
She lifted her head and looked at Thomas. Her gaze was direct, stripped of all posture, sharp as glass.
"You paid," she said. Her English was clipped, hard, the vowels short and careful, as if she had learned them by listening to soldiers across a campfire.
"I did," Thomas said, folding his knife and putting it back in his pocket.
"Then I belong to you."
Thomas’s jaw tightened. The gray eyes beneath his hat brim grew hard as stone. "No."
Her brow furrowed slightly, a line appearing between her dark eyebrows. "That is the law of the white man. You give silver, you take the horse. You take the woman."
"That’s not why I paid," Thomas said.
"Then why?"
Thomas turned his head slightly, glancing over his shoulder at Finch, who was counting the coins again, and at Miller and the others who were watching like hawks from the shade.
"To get you off that platform," Thomas said. He turned back to his horse. "Come on if you're coming. If you're going somewhere else, go now."
Her name was Ayana.
He did not learn it until they were three miles west of town, far past the last irrigated ditch where the salt-cedars grew thick and tangled. The heat had begun to soften into the pale, lavender haze of late afternoon, the shadows of the organ-pipe cacti stretching long and blue across the red earth.
When they had left the square, Thomas had gathered the bay's reins and held them out to her. He had pointed to the stirrup. "Get up," he had said. "It's six miles. You're bleeding."
Ayana had looked at the saddle, then at Thomas’s leather boots, dusty and cracked at the seams. She had stepped back half a pace, her arms folded across her chest, covering the bloodstain on her dress.
"You ride," she had said, her voice flat. "I walk."
Thomas had stared at her for a moment, understanding the subtle arithmetic of her pride. If she rode his horse while he walked, she was a burden he was carrying, a helpless thing he had salvaged. If she rode while he rode, she was his property, traveling behind her master. But if they walked, they were simply two people moving across the desert under the same sky.
"Suit yourself," Thomas had said.
He slipped his arm through the reins and began to walk. She walked three paces behind him, her small, bare feet moving almost silently over the gravel, her breathing steady and deep.
By the time they reached the dry bed of Rio Seco, four miles out, the silence between them had grown heavy, but it was not hostile. It was the silence of two animals that had recognized each other was not carrying a weapon.
"Ayana," she said suddenly.
Thomas stopped, turning his head over his shoulder. The bay snorted, flicking its ears against the flies.
"What's that?" Thomas asked.
"My name," she said, her eyes fixed on the horizon where the San Mateo Mountains were turning the color of bruised plums. "Ayana. It means... flower." She looked down at her bloody dress, a faint, bitter twitch at the corner of her mouth. "Not a good name for today."
"Thomas," he said simply. "Thomas Hail."
She repeated it under her breath, testing the sound. "Tho-mas."
They resumed walking. The sun dipped behind the western ridge, leaving a band of orange light that seemed to burn along the razor-sharp crests of the rock.
It was almost dark when they reached the homestead. The cabin was a small, square building constructed of hand-hewn ponderosa logs, plastered with river mud, and roofed with sod. Beside it stood a small, leaning barn made of cedar posts and a pole pen where four young steers stood watching them with large, glassy eyes.
Thomas led the horse to the pen, unbridled him, and tossed a armful of wild hay into the rack. He walked to the cabin door, swung it open, and lit a tallow candle that sat on a timber bracket near the frame. The yellow light flickered, illuminating a small stone fireplace, a rough pine table with one chair, a shelf holding three tin tin plates and two iron pots, and a narrow rope bed in the corner covered with a gray wool blanket.
He stepped back outside and pointed toward the bed. "You can sleep inside," he said. "There's a latch on the door. It drops from the inside. Nobody can get in."
Ayana stood at the bottom of the two wooden steps that led to the small porch. She looked into the dark interior of the cabin, at the small candle flame, and then at Thomas. She smelled of juniper smoke, dry earth, and old blood.
"Single room," she said.
"I’ll sleep in the barn," Thomas said. "There's fresh straw in the corner."
She did not answer immediately. She walked past him, her head turned away, and stepped up onto the porch. But instead of going inside, she sat down on the edge of the rough-hewn planks, her legs pulled up against her chest, her back against the corner post.
"I sleep outside," she said.
Thomas frowned. "Night gets cold up here in the hills. The wind comes down off the peak."
"I sleep outside," she repeated, her voice leaving no room for argument.
Thomas looked at her for a long second, then nodded. He went into the cabin, pulled the heavy gray wool blanket off the rope bed, came back out, and laid it gently on the porch floor beside her. He did not touch her. He did not get closer than two feet.
"Water bucket is around back by the well," he said. "There's salt pork and bread on the table if you're hungry."
He turned and walked toward the barn, his boots echoing in the quiet yard. As he reached the door, he looked back. She had not touched the blanket, nor had she moved toward the food. She sat motionless against the post, a dark silhouette against the vast, star-littered sky, watching him with those black, unblinking eyes.
The first few weeks were a lesson in the art of living with a shadow.
Thomas made no attempt to direct her. He got up before dawn, as he had always done, kindled the fire in the small hearth, cooked his cornmeal mush and salt pork, and ate it at the pine table. He left the cabin door wide open. He left his rifle—a heavy .45-70 Springfield—hanging on two wooden pegs above the fireplace, fully loaded. He left his horse saddled by the rail when he went to fix the south fence.