The first thing Catherine Fletcher noticed about Redemption Creek was the silence.

Not the ordinary silence of a small frontier town in the middle of a hot afternoon. This was different.

It was the kind of silence that came when people had been talking about someone long before that person arrived.

Catherine felt it before she saw the town.

Her mare, Juniper, slowed as the dusty road descended toward a cluster of wooden buildings gathered around a single main street. Behind them rose low hills covered with scrub, cedar, and sun-bleached grass. A church steeple leaned slightly toward the west. Smoke drifted from a blacksmith's chimney. A faded sign swung above a saloon.

REDEMPTION CREEK.

Catherine adjusted the brim of her hat.

She had ridden forty miles alone.

Forty miles of rough country.

Forty miles with a rifle strapped beside her saddle, a revolver beneath her coat, and a mule carrying the hides she had spent three weeks preparing.

She had expected trouble.

What she had not expected was curiosity.

Men outside the saloon stopped drinking.

A pair of ranch hands leaned forward in their chairs.

A boy carrying a bucket nearly walked into a fence because he was staring at her.

Catherine ignored them all.

She had learned long ago that the fastest way to invite foolishness was to acknowledge it.

She guided Juniper toward the mercantile at the center of town.

The mule followed reluctantly.

When Catherine dismounted, she stretched her stiff fingers before walking inside.

The store smelled of coffee, leather, gun oil, and dry wood.

Behind the counter stood a broad-shouldered man with silver beginning to appear in his beard.

He looked up.

His name was Samuel Bell.

Catherine did not know that yet.

She simply placed a burlap bundle on his counter.

"Do you buy hides?"

The man studied her.

"Sometimes."

"These are good."

"So I hope."

Catherine untied the bundle.

The first pelt appeared.

Then another.

Then another.

Samuel's expression changed.

He had spent twenty-seven years buying and selling hides.

He knew good work.

He knew careless work.

And he knew exceptional work.

These belonged to the third category.

"Where did you get these?"

"North."

"That's a direction, not an answer."

"It's the answer you're getting."

The corner of Samuel's mouth lifted.

"Fair enough."

He examined the pelts carefully.

"You do this yourself?"

"Yes."

"All of them?"

"Every one."

He looked at her again.

She was younger than he had expected.

Not young.

Perhaps thirty-two.

Her face was weathered by sun and wind, but there was something controlled about her expression. She did not look like someone trying to prove herself.

That was unusual.

Most people who came into Redemption Creek alone wanted the town to know they were brave.

Catherine behaved as if she had nothing to prove.

Samuel weighed the hides.

"I can give you a fair price."

"I don't want fair."

His eyebrows rose.

"I want the best price you can honestly give me."

That made him laugh.

"Eight dollars."

"Nine."

"Eight-fifty."

"Eight seventy-five."

"Done."

She extended her hand.

Samuel shook it.

"Samuel Bell."

"Catherine Fletcher."

Something flickered across his face.

He knew the name.

Everyone who traded north of Redemption Creek knew the name.