Outside, the station loomed behind them like a ghost of another life. Boone helped her into the wagon. The older boy, Emmett, surprised her by offering his hand with careful gentleness. As they rolled out of Dry Creek, the locals’ whispers followed like dust, but Bellar kept her gaze on the road ahead, because for the first time in a long time, there was a road ahead.
The prairie north of town stretched wide and stubborn. The sky changed color like a mood, blue to gold to bruised purple as the hours passed. Boone drove without much talk, as if words were tools he saved for when they were needed. Bellar watched his shoulders move with the rhythm of work and wondered what it would be like to live with a man who didn’t decorate the truth.
When the boys dozed, heads leaning against each other, Boone finally glanced sideways. “You still breathing over there?” he asked.
“I think so,” Bellar replied.
“You did good back there.”
“I didn’t faint,” she said, dry. “If that’s what you mean.”
Boone chuckled, and the sound warmed the wagon more than the thin sun. The silence that followed wasn’t heavy. It was open space, waiting.
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