The morning Black Mesa decided to sell Tala, the sun had not yet cleared the eastern ridge.

Heat had already begun gathering between the buildings.

It pressed against the adobe walls and settled over the narrow streets, turning the dust beneath people's boots into a pale, choking haze.

Tala stood beneath the wooden awning of the old trading post with her wrists tied behind her back.

The rope was rough.

Every movement tightened it.

She had stopped trying to loosen it hours ago.

There was no point.

The men who had brought her into Black Mesa had made certain that every knot was pulled until it hurt.

A soldier stood behind her.

Another waited near the wagon.

Neither spoke.

They did not need to.

The town had already begun to understand why she was there.

People came out of shops.

Men stopped repairing saddles.

Women appeared in doorways.

Children were pulled closer by their mothers, although several of the children still tried to stare.

Tala kept her eyes forward.

She refused to give them the satisfaction of seeing fear.

She had been afraid before.

She had been afraid in the canyon when soldiers first arrived.

She had been afraid when the smoke rose behind her family's camp.

She had been afraid when she discovered that everyone around her had disappeared.

But fear had become familiar.

What frightened her now was something different.

It was the way people looked at her.

As if she were no longer a person.

As if she were something waiting to be measured.

Something waiting to be priced.

The auction platform stood in the center of town.

It had originally been built for cattle.

That morning, the boards had been scrubbed clean.

A large ledger rested on a table beside the platform.

The man standing behind it was named Elias Hutchins.

Tala had heard his name before.

Everyone had.

He handled livestock sales, property disputes, debts, and anything else that could be reduced to ink and money.

He was a heavy man with a red face and a silver watch chain hanging across his vest.

He smiled often.

But there was nothing warm in his smile.

He climbed onto the platform and cleared his throat.

“Ladies and gentlemen.”

The crowd quieted.

Tala looked at him.

Hutchins glanced at the soldiers.

Then he looked at her.

“We have an unusual item available this morning.”

Item.

The word reached her before anything else.

She felt something cold settle inside her chest.

Hutchins continued.

“A captured Apache woman.”

Someone laughed.

Someone else whispered.

Tala stared at the horizon.

She imagined herself somewhere else.

A mountain.

A river.

Her mother's hands.

Her mother's voice.

Tala.

That was her name.

Not the name written on the military document.

Not the name Hutchins would use.

Tala.

Her mother had told her that a person's name carried the voices of everyone who had loved them before.

It was something no soldier could take.

At least, that was what Tala had believed.