Chapter 2 - A Stranger Beneath Her Roof
By the fifth morning, Elias could walk across Naira's yard without the rifle following him.
That was progress.
Not much.
But progress.
Samson's leg remained swollen, giving Elias another legitimate reason not to ride. He spent the morning checking the animal, then found Naira attempting to lift a warped shutter back onto its hinges.
“Let me.”
“I can do it.”
“I didn't say you couldn't.”
She looked at him sharply.
Elias held up both hands.
“I'm taller.”
That argument was difficult to defeat.
Naira stepped aside.
They worked without speaking.
Elias had learned that silence around Naira wasn't emptiness. It was language.
A tightening jaw meant stop.
A raised eyebrow meant she didn't believe him.
A slight tilt of her head meant continue.
A nearly invisible upward movement at the corner of her mouth meant he had amused her and she resented him for it.
He liked learning those things.
That worried him.
At midday, Naira disappeared behind the cabin.
Elias found her twenty minutes later kneeling among desert plants.
She was cutting stems carefully and placing them into a cloth bag.
“What are those?”
“Medicine.”
“For what?”
“Depends.”
“That's reassuring.”
She glanced up.
“You ask many questions.”
“I've been told.”
“By women?”
“Mostly commanding officers.”
Again, that almost-smile.
Then Naira held up a small plant.
“Yerba mansa.”
Elias crouched at a respectful distance.
“You sell it?”
“Some.”
“In Silver Creek?”
“When I need flour, coffee, lamp oil.”
“You don't like town.”
“No.”
“Town doesn't like you?”
Her knife stopped.
Elias regretted the question immediately.
Naira resumed cutting.
“Town likes what I can cure.”
The sentence told him enough.
That afternoon, a wagon appeared.
Elias reached instinctively toward a weapon he no longer carried.
Naira saw the movement.
An elderly rancher climbed down.
His name was Walter Briggs.
His granddaughter had a fever.
Naira listened, packed several herbs, and explained how to prepare them.
Briggs noticed Elias.
“Who's he?”
“A traveler.”
Briggs studied him.
“You staying?”
Elias answered, “Horse is hurt.”
The old rancher nodded slowly.
Then he looked at Naira.
“Crawford's been asking whether you've been into town.”
Naira's face changed.
“Why?”
“Didn't say.”
“Crawford never asks without wanting something.”
Briggs climbed onto the wagon.
Before leaving, he turned toward Elias.
“You served?”
Elias's shoulders stiffened.
“What makes you ask?”
“Boots.”
Elias looked down.
“Long time ago.”
Briggs nodded.
“Some things don't stay long ago.”
Then he drove away.
That evening Naira was quieter.
“Who is Crawford?” Elias asked.
“Trading-post owner.”
“You trust him?”
“No.”
“Does anybody?”
“People with money.”
“That wasn't what I asked.”
“It is the same answer in Silver Creek.”
After supper, Elias repaired a chair.
Naira sat near the window.
The dying sunlight illuminated the cracked knife.
Elias looked at it again.
This time Naira noticed.
“My husband's.”
Elias's hand stopped.
“He was a scout?”
Naira slowly turned.
“How did you know?”
Elias pointed toward the knife.
“Army issue modifications. Scouts sometimes changed the grips.”
Her expression hardened.
“You knew scouts?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Several territories.”
Naira rose.
“What units?”
Elias felt something cold move through him.
“I don't remember every one.”
“You remember more than you're saying.”
“Naira—”
“You've been here five days.”
She stepped toward the wall.
“My husband disappeared five years ago.”
Elias stared at the knife.
“Where?”
“Red Mesa.”
His stomach dropped.
Naira saw it.
“What?”
Elias didn't answer.
“Elias.”
He stood slowly.
“Who was your husband?”
Her eyes never left his.
“Tomas.”
Elias swallowed.
“Tomas what?”
“Tomas Nantan.”
The cabin suddenly felt very small.
Elias knew the name.
Not well.
Not enough to claim friendship.
But he had heard it.
During an operation nobody in his former command had wanted discussed afterward.
Naira saw recognition.
“You know that name.”
“No.”
It came too quickly.
Her expression changed.
“You're lying.”
“Naira—”
She reached for the rifle.
Elias didn't move.
“You know his name.”
“I've heard it.”
“Where?”
He couldn't answer.
Because the memory was returning.
Red Mesa.
A scout accused of leading troops into an ambush.
An officer shouting.
A gunshot after midnight.
Then orders.
No questions.
No report.
Elias had been twenty miles away when it happened.
But afterward, he had helped escort three men who knew more than they admitted.
One had carried a bloodstained cavalry coat.
Another had said a sentence Elias had spent years trying to forget.
No widow needs to know what soldiers do to solve soldiers' problems.
Naira raised the rifle.
“Tell me.”
Elias stared into her eyes.
May you like
And for the first time since arriving, he realized the desert hadn't brought him to a random cabin.
It had brought him directly to the widow of a man whose death might have been covered up by Elias's own unit.
