Benita watched him, wary. “Every year,” Caleb said, “Evelyn hosts a fight purse on her father’s plantation. Boxing. Wrestling. Any man brave enough to step in that ring. Winner takes ten thousand dollars.”
Benita let out a single, bitter breath. “Men fight for fun. I fight for living.”
“I know,” Caleb said, and the softness in his tone startled even him. Then his eyes sharpened again. “But ten thousand… that’s enough to pay my debt. Enough to keep my land. Enough to make sure nobody ever locks my gate behind me again.”
Benita’s stare didn’t blink. “And you… fight?”
Caleb’s shoulders sagged. “I’m old. I’m stiff. I’ve got hands built for plows, not fists. I wouldn’t last ten seconds against those men. But when I saw you on that platform… I saw how you stood. How you carried yourself. Like you’d been fighting your whole life, even when nobody called it that.”
Benita’s jaw tightened. “They call it stubborn. They call it wild.”
“They call it what scares them,” Caleb said. “I call it… power.”
The barn fell quiet except for the thin squeal of the lantern and the distant, muted sounds of the quarters settling into night.
Caleb continued, careful now, like a man stepping across ice. “I want to train you. In secret. For that tournament.”
Benita’s eyes narrowed. “You want me to fight for your farm.”
“I want us both to live,” Caleb corrected. “If you win, I’ll split the purse with you. Half. Five thousand dollars. Enough to buy your freedom papers and still have money to start over somewhere far from here.”
Benita’s laugh was short and sharp. “Freedom papers don’t stop a rope. They don’t stop a man with a gun.”
Caleb’s face tightened because she wasn’t wrong.
“No,” he admitted. “But they’re something. And you deserve… something.”
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