THE WRAITH OF RED HOLLOW

 The Man Nobody Remembered

His boots had been repaired so many times there was more wire than leather around the soles.

His coat had once been black. Sun and distance had worn it to the color of old smoke. A canteen hung almost empty against his hip, and there was no revolver beneath his coat, no cartridge belt, nothing to suggest that the stranger drifting into Red Hollow had ever been dangerous.

That was how Ethan Blackwood preferred it.

Nobody noticed harmless men.

Nobody remembered poor ones.

And for five years, Ethan had built his life around the hope that the world had finally forgotten him.

He entered Red Hollow just after noon, when the sun stood directly overhead and turned every roof and window into a sheet of white fire.

The town was smaller than he remembered.

Or perhaps memory had made it larger.

There was a general store with a warped wooden porch, a blacksmith shop at the far end of Main Street, a church whose bell tower leaned slightly to the east, and a saloon whose swinging doors were permanently stained by dust and whiskey.

Ethan crossed the street without looking toward it.

The batwing doors breathed whiskey smell into the heat, and somewhere inside, a piano was losing an argument with three drunk cowboys.

Once, rooms like that had gone silent when Ethan entered.

Once, men had whispered a different name.

The Wraith.

He kept walking.

Then he heard children singing.

It came faintly through the wind, so clean and improbable against the hard sounds of Red Hollow that Ethan stopped before he realized he had.

A schoolhouse leaned at the edge of town.

Inside, fifteen children were finishing a song Ethan did not recognize.

At the front of the room was a young woman in a faded blue dress.

She was perhaps twenty-two.

Dark hair had been pinned behind her head, though several strands had escaped and clung to her cheek in the heat.

She wrote a single word across the board.

COURAGE.

Ethan watched through the window.

The woman turned.

Their eyes met.

For one strange second, Ethan felt as if she could see through the coat, the broken boots, the tired face, and the years of deliberate invisibility.

She walked toward the door.

"Can I help you?"

Ethan removed his hat.

"No, ma'am."

"You're standing on school property."

He looked down.

"I didn't realize."

She smiled.

"Most men don't."

Ethan almost smiled back.

"What is your name?"

He hesitated.

"Ethan."

"Ethan what?"

"Blackwood."

Her expression changed.

Only slightly.

But he noticed.

"Blackwood?"

"Yes."

She studied him.

"I've heard that name."

Ethan's heart tightened.

"Many people have."

She opened the door.

"I'm Abigail Reed."

He nodded.

"Pleasure."

"You aren't from here."

"No."

"Where are you going?"

Ethan looked toward the northern road.

"Nowhere in particular."

Abigail smiled.

"Then you might be exactly where you're supposed to be."

He looked at her.

She turned back toward the children.

"Class is over."

The children ran outside.

One little boy stopped beside Ethan.

He stared at his boots.

"Are you a cowboy?"

Ethan shook his head.

"No."

The boy frowned.

"You look like one."

"I've been called worse."

The boy laughed and ran away.

Abigail watched him go.

"You need work?"

Ethan looked at her.

"Why?"

"The schoolhouse roof leaks."

"I don't repair roofs."

"Can you?"

"Yes."

"Then perhaps you do."

Ethan almost refused.

He had spent five years moving whenever people began asking questions.

But there was something about the woman's voice.

Something steady.

"How much?"

Abigail shook her head.

"We don't have much."

"Then I'll work for food."