Chapter 8 - The Night Beneath the Cottonwoods
Asa extinguished the fire.
He pulled Sahale behind a fallen tree.
The riders approached.
Three men.
They were not Greyhawk’s people.
They were Bell’s.
The failed land claim had cost someone money.
Now intimidation had become violence.
Asa whispered, “Stay here.”
Sahale grabbed his sleeve.
“No.”
He looked at her.
“We do this together.”
The riders searched the campsite.
Sahale noticed Willow trembling nearby.
An idea came.
She quietly loosened the mare.
Willow bolted through the brush.
Two riders followed the sound, believing Asa and Sahale were escaping.
The third remained.
Asa confronted him.
No heroic gunfight followed.
No unnecessary bloodshed.
The man realized he was alone and fled.
By dawn, Asa and Sahale reached a nearby stage station and reported the attack.
Bell was arrested days later.
The danger finally began to recede.
But Sahale had not forgotten the unfinished sentence.
That evening she cornered Asa beside the barn.
“You had something to ask.”
Asa suddenly became very interested in a saddle.
“What?”
“Under the cottonwoods.”
“There were gunshots.”
“Before the gunshots.”
“Oh.”
Sahale folded her arms.
Asa looked at her.
Then he walked toward the workshop.
When he returned, he held the little wooden stool he had made during her first days at the ranch.
“What are you doing?”
“Trying to remember when this place stopped feeling empty.”
Sahale’s expression softened.
Asa touched the worn edge.
“I think it was when you asked if I made this for you.”
She swallowed.
Asa set it down.
Then he took her hand.
“I don’t want you because Greyhawk gave you away.”
Her eye filled.
“I don’t want you because I’m lonely.”
He paused.
“I want you because when you leave a room, I wait for you to come back.”
Sahale’s breath caught.
“I want your arguments. Your terrible opinions about my cooking. Your saddle tools everywhere.”
“My tools are organized.”
“They are invading the house.”
She laughed through tears.
Asa smiled.
“Marry me.”
Sahale looked at him for a long time.
Then she asked the question that mattered.
“Will I still belong to myself?”
“Always.”
“Then yes.”
But their engagement carried a problem.
Sahale had no intention of accepting Asa’s last name merely because tradition expected it.
May you like
If she became Sahale Rich, it would be because she chose the name.
And before she could make that choice, she needed to settle something with the father who had once treated her as though she deserved no name at all.
