“Apache woman. Strong, healthy, understands horses, cooking, and fieldwork. Doesn’t speak much English, but she’ll learn.”
The woman jerked her arm away.
Pike slapped her.
Daniel took one step forward before he realized he had moved.
“Keep still,” Pike hissed.
The woman did not cry.
She simply looked at him with a hatred so steady that even the trader seemed uncomfortable.
Blackwood chuckled.
“That one has spirit.”
“Then perhaps you’d like to tame it,” Pike replied.
A few men laughed.
Daniel looked around the crowd.
Nobody intervened.
Nobody protested.
The woman stood alone beneath the morning sun, surrounded by people who discussed her as though she were a mule or a sack of grain.
Daniel thought of Rebecca.
He remembered how she had once found a wounded coyote caught in a trap near their property. The animal had snarled and bitten at the air when she approached.
Daniel had told her to leave it.
Rebecca had answered, “Pain makes frightened creatures dangerous. It doesn’t make them deserving of cruelty.”
Together they had freed the animal.
Daniel had never forgotten those words.
Pike raised his hand.
“Opening offer! Forty dollars!”
“Forty-five,” someone shouted.
“Fifty.”
Blackwood lifted two fingers.
“Seventy.”
The crowd murmured.
Pike smiled.
“Seventy dollars from Mr. Blackwood! Do I hear eighty?”
Daniel looked at the leather pouch hanging from his belt.
One hundred and eighty dollars.
Seed wheat.
A plow blade.
Winter supplies.
Everything he needed to keep his farm alive.
He looked back at the woman.
Blackwood was studying her with the satisfied expression of a man selecting an animal for his stable.
“Eighty,” Daniel said.
His voice was quiet.
Pike did not hear him.
Daniel stepped forward.
“I said eighty dollars.”
The crowd turned.
Blackwood stared.
“Whitmore?”
Daniel ignored him.
Pike leaned over the platform.
“Eighty dollars from the farmer! Do I hear ninety?”
“One hundred,” Blackwood said immediately.
Daniel swallowed.
“One hundred and ten.”
Blackwood laughed.
“You’re buying yourself a servant now, Whitmore?”
“No.”
“Then what exactly are you buying?”
Daniel looked directly at the woman.
“Her freedom.”
A strange silence spread through the crowd.
Blackwood’s smile disappeared.
“One hundred and thirty,” he said.
Daniel felt his pulse hammering.
He had never gambled in his life.
He had never risked everything on a single decision.
But he knew that if he walked away now, he would remember this woman’s face every time he looked into a mirror.
“One hundred and fifty.”
Blackwood’s jaw tightened.
“One hundred and sixty.”
Daniel opened the leather pouch.
He counted the bills with trembling fingers.
Then he lifted his head.
“One hundred and eighty dollars.”
The crowd erupted.
Someone whistled.
Someone else called him a fool.
Blackwood stepped closer.
“You’re making a mistake.”
Daniel met his eyes.
“Then it’s mine to make.”
The rancher stared at him for several long seconds.
Finally, he stepped back.
Pike hesitated, then struck the platform with his cane.
“Sold!”
The word rang across the square.
Daniel felt no triumph.
Only relief.
He climbed the platform and handed Pike the money.
“Untie her,” he said.
Pike frowned.
“She might run.”
“Then she’ll run.”
“You’re responsible for her.”
“No,” Daniel answered. “She’s responsible for herself.”
He took the knife from his belt.
The guards moved forward, but Daniel ignored them.
He knelt beside the woman and carefully cut the ropes around her wrists.
Red marks circled her skin.
She pulled away immediately.
Daniel stepped back and raised both hands.
“You’re not going to be hurt by me.”
She watched him without speaking.
He knew she might not understand every word.
So he pointed toward the open street.
“Free.”
The woman looked from him to the crowd.
Then back again.
Her expression did not soften.
Daniel did not expect it to.
He climbed down from the platform.
“My wagon is over there,” he said. “There’s water and food. You can come if you want.”
He began walking.
Behind him, the crowd whispered.
Blackwood watched with narrowed eyes.
Daniel reached his wagon and placed the empty leather pouch beneath the seat.
He had no wheat.
No plow blade.
No winter supplies.
He had just spent everything he owned.
For a moment, fear rose in his chest.
Then he heard footsteps.
The woman stood several feet behind him.
Her eyes moved between Daniel and the wagon.
He offered her the canteen.
She hesitated.
Then she took it.
She drank slowly, never taking her eyes off him.
Daniel climbed onto the wagon seat.
He did not reach for her.
He simply waited.
After a long moment, she climbed into the back.
As they left Mercy Crossing, Daniel heard Blackwood’s voice behind them.
“You’ll regret this, Whitmore!”
Daniel did not turn around.
The road stretched eastward into the desert.
