Chapter 2 - Seven Dollars
Silas did not fire.
Not because he wasn't prepared to.
Because the door was still closed.
His finger remained outside the trigger guard as the handle moved slowly downward.
Once.
Then upward.
Someone outside tested it again.
Locked.
Clem's voice came through the wood.
“Boon.”
Silas said nothing.
“Open the door.”
“No.”
Eda stood behind him.
The other six women had ignored his instruction to hide.
Silas noticed.
He did not waste time arguing.
Clem knocked.
Three slow blows.
“Those girls belong to me.”
Eda's eyes hardened.
Silas answered, “Auctioneer disagreed.”
“You think seven dollars changes what was arranged?”
Silas glanced toward Eda.
Arranged.
That word mattered.
“What arrangement?” Silas asked.
Silence.
Then Clem laughed.
“Open the door and I'll explain.”
“You can explain from there.”
Another silence.
Clem's voice dropped.
“You don't know them.”
“No.”
“You don't know what they've done.”
“No.”
“You don't know what kind of trouble followed them here.”
Silas looked at Eda again.
She seemed frightened.
But not guilty.
There was a difference.
“I know they're inside,” Silas said. “You're outside. Seems like a good arrangement.”
Clem struck the door.
Joelle jumped.
Silas didn't.
“You think you're funny?”
“No.”
“Then hear me carefully. Send them out before sunrise.”
“Or?”
Clem's boots shifted.
“Or you'll wish you had.”
Silas moved closer to the door.
“Get off my property.”
For several seconds, nothing happened.
Then footsteps retreated.
Silas remained motionless.
He waited until the sound disappeared completely.
Only then did he lower the rifle.
Ruth whispered, “He's gone.”
Silas looked through the window.
“No.”
“What?”
“He wants us to think he's gone.”
He extinguished the porch lantern.
Darkness swallowed the yard.
Twenty minutes later, a horse moved somewhere beyond the cottonwoods.
Then finally faded into the distance.
Silas turned.
Seven women were staring at him.
Eda spoke first.
“You should send us away.”
“No.”
“You heard him.”
“I did.”
“He'll come back.”
“Probably.”
“You don't understand Clem Hutchkins.”
Silas set the rifle against the wall.
“Then explain him.”
Eda's mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
The others exchanged looks.
Silas saw it.
There was a secret among them.
A serious one.
He didn't push.
Instead he took his coat.
“Where are you going?” Mabel asked.
“Barn.”
“After that?”
Silas looked toward the door.
“He won't return tonight.”
“How do you know?”
“Men like Clem want you afraid before they hurt you.”
Eda studied him.
“You've known men like him?”
Silas paused.
“Enough.”
He went outside.
Nobody slept properly.
Before dawn, Eda woke to the smell of coffee.
She entered the kitchen and found Silas sitting at the table.
His rifle lay nearby.
He had apparently slept very little.
“You stayed here.”
“Yes.”
“You said barn.”
“Changed my mind.”
“Because of Clem?”
“Yes.”
Eda sat opposite him.
Silas poured coffee into a second cup.
She didn't drink it.
“Why did he say there was an arrangement?” he asked.
Eda stared at the steam.
“You said there was no catch.”
“There isn't.”
“Questions can be a catch.”
“Then don't answer.”
That surprised her.
Silas drank.
Eda finally wrapped both hands around the cup.
“We came from Missouri.”
Silas waited.
“At least most of us.”
Another pause.
“We were promised jobs.”
Silas's expression changed.
“What kind?”
“Hotel work. Housekeeping. Kitchens. Laundry.”
“Who promised?”
“A man named Warren Pike.”
Silas knew the name.
His eyes narrowed.
Eda noticed.
“You know him.”
“Freight broker.”
“That's what he called himself.”
Silas leaned back.
“What happened?”
Eda swallowed.
“We signed papers.”
“What papers?”
“We thought employment contracts.”
“And?”
“They took our money for transportation. Then said we owed more.”
Silas understood before she finished.
“Debt.”
Eda nodded.
“Food. Rooms. Train fare. Wagon fare. Everything became debt.”
“How much?”
“It changed every day.”
Silas cursed quietly.
Eda continued.
“Then they started separating women.”
“Who?”
“Pike's men.”
“Where?”
“I don't know.”
Her voice cracked.
“Girls disappeared at stops. We were told they'd found work.”
Silas said nothing.
“But Ruth saw one dragged into a wagon.”
Silas's jaw tightened.
“We tried to escape two weeks ago. They caught us.”
“All seven?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn't you tell the sheriff yesterday?”
Eda laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
“Because Pike told us the sheriff was paid.”
“Amos Bell?”
“He didn't give a name.”
Silas stared toward the window.
That complicated things.
He had known Amos twenty years.
But friendship was not proof of innocence.
“What happened after you were caught?”
“They brought us here.”
“For Clem?”
Eda nodded.
“We heard his name.”
“Why seven?”
“I don't know.”
Silas stood.
Eda stiffened.
He noticed immediately.
“Coffee.”
He reached for the pot instead of approaching her.
Her shoulders relaxed.
Silas hated that he had to think about every movement.
Hated even more that someone had taught her to fear ordinary gestures.
“There's something else,” he said.
Eda looked away.
He had guessed correctly.
“You don't have to tell me.”
“Then why mention it?”
“Because Clem came here personally. Five dollars wasn't a real bid. He thought nobody would challenge him.”
Eda knew that.
“So?”
“So whatever arrangement existed, he expected certainty.”
Silas looked directly at her.
“Then I offered seven dollars, and he didn't offer eight.”
Eda froze.
She had wondered the same thing.
“Why?” she whispered.
“That's what bothers me.”
Silas walked toward the window.
“If he truly believed the auction transferred ownership, he'd outbid me.”
“Maybe the sheriff stopped him.”
“Amos didn't say anything.”
“Clem was afraid?”
“Clem isn't afraid of Amos.”
“Then why?”
Silas stared across the snow.
“Because maybe the auction wasn't supposed to matter.”
Eda felt cold despite the stove.
“What does that mean?”
“It means maybe Clem expected to get you afterward regardless of who won.”
A floorboard creaked.
Ruth stood in the doorway.
She had heard everything.
Then came a knock.
All three froze.
Silas reached for the rifle.
“Silas Boon!”
A familiar voice.
Sheriff Bell.
Silas opened the door only halfway.
Amos stood outside with snow on his shoulders.
“You alone?”
“No.”
“I need to speak with you.”
“Speak.”
Amos glanced past him.
“This isn't something for the porch.”
Silas hesitated, then admitted him.
The seven women gathered in the kitchen.
Amos removed his hat.
His expression changed when he saw their fear.
“Ladies.”
Nobody answered.
He looked at Silas.
“Clem came to my office this morning.”
“I'm shocked.”
“He filed a complaint.”
“For what?”
“Property theft.”
Silas laughed.
Amos didn't.
“He has paperwork.”
Eda stood.
“We're not property.”
Amos looked ashamed.
“I know.”
“Then arrest him.”
“It's not that simple.”
Silas stepped forward.
“It better become simple quickly.”
Amos lowered his voice.
“The documents claim these women owe contracted labor.”
“Fraudulent contracts,” Eda said.
“Can you prove that?”
Her face fell.
Amos continued.
“I'm not here to take you back.”
Eda studied him.
“Then why are you here?”
The sheriff reached into his coat.
Every woman tensed.
He removed a folded paper.
“I found this pushed under my office door before dawn.”
Silas took it.
There were seven names written on the page.
Eda.
Ruth.
Mabel.
Lena.
Susanna.
Pearl.
Joelle.
Beside each name was an amount.
Silas read the numbers.
Then looked at Amos.
“What are these?”
“I don't know.”
Eda stepped closer.
Her eyes stopped at the bottom of the page.
There was one additional line.
DELIVERY: HUTCHKINS PROPERTY.
Below that:
SEVEN RECEIVED. PAYMENT AFTER TRANSFER.
Ruth covered her mouth.
Silas's expression hardened.
“This wasn't an auction.”
Amos nodded slowly.
“No.”
Eda whispered, “It was delivery.”
The sheriff looked toward the window.
“And somebody in town wanted me to know.”
A sudden crack exploded outside.
The kitchen window shattered.
Everyone dropped.
Silas dragged the table onto its side as glass scattered across the floor.
A bullet buried itself in the opposite wall.
Joelle screamed.
Silas crawled toward the broken window.
Through blowing snow, a rider disappeared among the cottonwoods.
Amos drew his revolver.
Eda stared at the bullet hole.
The anonymous paper lay on the floor.
Silas picked it up.
A second message had been written faintly on the reverse side.
He had not noticed it before.
Now he held it toward the light.
Four words.
THE SEVEN KNOW TOO MUCH.
Silas looked at Eda.
And for the first time, he realized Clem might not want the women merely because someone had promised them to him.
He might want them because one of them had seen something worth killing for.
May you like
And Eda knew exactly what it was.
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