Reed had once been hired as a guide for a territorial detachment, a “search party” that claimed it needed directions through a canyon.
He’d realized too late what their search really meant. A village. A dawn raid. No questions. Just cleansing disguised as security.
Reed had turned his horse sideways in the narrow pass and refused to lead them further. He’d taken a rifle butt to the mouth for it.
Somehow, the story had traveled. Somehow, it had reached women who needed a man known for saying no at the wrong time.
Reed exhaled slowly. “Where did you get it?” he asked.
Nalin looked toward the sleeping women, then back. “From a man who died,” she said. “A man they left in the snow to teach us silence.”
Reed felt the cabin shrink around them. The fire popped softly. Outside, the wind scraped the roof like a fingernail.
He stood and added wood to the stove, buying time to think. He was old, alone, and not eager to die over someone else’s war.
But he looked at the women again—five widows, injuries hidden under shawls, pride stitched into their posture—and he remembered what it felt like to be abandoned.
Reed moved to the table and poured coffee, black and bitter. He set a cup near Nalin without asking if she wanted it.
Nalin wrapped her hands around it and sighed, the sound barely audible. “We did not come to curse you,” she said. “We came because we were out of choices.”
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