Virgil’s smile collapsed. Silas turned away before he could beg.
Outside, the night was sharp with cold rain. The wagon waited under a dim lantern, two sturdy horses shifting, steam rising from their nostrils. Nell climbed in first, pulling her sisters close. Silas took the reins, and without another word, he drove them away from the saloon’s yellow light into the dark that smelled like pine and possibility.
Only when the town’s noise faded did Nell realize her hands had stopped shaking. And only then did she start to shake again, because fear doesn’t vanish. It just changes clothes.
The journey to Black Mesa took three days. Three days of wind that cut through seams, of silence that pressed on their eardrums, of the wagon’s wooden bones creaking under the weight of their uncertainty. Silas stopped once in a trading post and returned with wool blankets, buffalo robes, dried beef, apples, and a canteen of water. He tossed them into the wagon without ceremony.
Beatrice whispered, teeth chattering, “He’s fattening us up.”
June shot her a look. “Like a wolf does before it eats.”
Nell watched Silas’s broad back, the way his shoulders stayed rigid even when the road bucked. “Men who want to hurt you stare,” Nell murmured. “They look at you like you’re theirs. He hasn’t looked at us once.”
“That could mean he wants workers,” June muttered, resentment trying to hide her relief. “Hands to break his land until we drop.”
Nell swallowed, thinking of the brothel man’s smile. “Better than that,” she said grimly.
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