The cuffs were old, the locks sticky with rust.

When the first one opened, the girl drew in a breath through her teeth.

The second cuff fell free.

Iron struck wood with a heavy clank.

No one applauded.

No one spoke.

Cain stood and offered his hand.

The girl stared at it.

Her fingers twitched, but she did not take it right away.

He understood that hesitation.

A hand offered in public could be a kindness.

It could also be a claim.

“I’m not buying you,” Cain said quietly.

Her eyes flicked to his.

“Then what are you doing?” she whispered.

“Getting you off this porch.”

Something in her face changed.

Not trust.

Not yet.

But the smallest crack opened in the wall she had built around herself.

She put her hand in his.

The crowd parted as they descended.

People leaned away from her.

A woman gathered her skirts.

One old man crossed himself without looking up.

The girl heard it all and kept her chin lifted by force.

Judge Pritchard’s voice followed them.

“You’ll wish you’d chosen different, Mercer.

That girl’s mouth can hang a man.”

Cain looked back once.

“Maybe that’s what scares you.”

The judge’s smile held, but his eyes did not.

At the hitching rail, Cain lifted the girl onto his mare.

She was lighter than she should have been.

He saw her flinch when his hands touched her waist and moved quickly, gently, giving her no reason to think he enjoyed her weakness.

“Mercer,” a voice called.

Sheriff Doran stepped from the shade of the mercantile awning.

His badge caught the sun.

His face was broad, red, and smooth except for the lines bracketing his mouth.

Cain kept one hand on the reins.

“Sheriff.”

Doran’s gaze moved over the girl with open disgust.

“You sure you know what you’re taking home?”

“Enough.”

“No,” Doran said.

“You don’t.”

He came closer, boots slow on the packed dirt.

The men nearby shifted to give him room.

The girl stiffened in the saddle.

Doran noticed.

He smiled.

“Tell him, Eliza,” he said.

“Tell him what you saw.

Tell him why the judge gave you chains instead of a grave.”

Cain heard the name and filed it away.

Eliza.

She looked straight ahead, jaw locked.

“Nothing to say now?” Doran asked.

“You had plenty to say when we dragged you from the washhouse.”

Cain stepped between the sheriff and the mare.

“We’re leaving.”

Doran’s hand dropped to his belt.

Not fast.

Just enough for every man watching to see the warning.

“You want to play savior,” he said, “that’s your affair.

But don’t bring her back crying when she poisons your life.

Girl like that doesn’t suffer alone.

She makes sure everyone burns with her.”

Eliza’s fingers tightened on the saddle horn until the knuckles whitened.

Cain swung up behind her.

“Move,” he said to the sheriff.

Doran held the road for one long breath.

Then he stepped aside.

Cain turned the mare south.

The town watched them go as if they were already dead.

For a quarter mile, neither spoke.

The courthouse shrank behind them.

The houses thinned.

The smell of baking dust and horse sweat replaced the smell of people packed too close together.

Eliza sat rigid in front of him, keeping as much distance between their bodies as the saddle allowed.

At last she said, “You shouldn’t have done that.”

Cain kept his eyes on the road.

“Probably.”

“I’m not being grateful.”

“Didn’t ask you to be.”

“They’ll come.”

“I know.”

That made her turn slightly.

“Then why did you choose me?”

Cain thought of Samuel’s last letter, the careful script folded in his vest pocket, the line that had haunted him most: If I don’t come home, look for the girl who is not allowed to speak.

He did not tell Eliza that yet.

“Because everyone wanted me not to,” he said.

Her laugh was short and bitter.

“That is a foolish way to live.”

“Kept me breathing so far.”

The road narrowed between two low ridges.

Mesquite crowded the edges.

Cottonwoods marked a creek bed ahead.

Cain saw movement in the brush before the horse did.

A man stepped into the road.

He was large, wrapped in a long duster despite the heat, his hat pulled low.

Two more riders appeared behind them, closing the distance to town.

Eliza went still.

“Don’t run yet,” Cain murmured.

The man ahead smiled.

“Cain Mercer.

You’re a harder man to catch than your brother was.”

Eliza sucked in a breath.

Cain felt his own heartbeat change, slow and heavy.

“You knew Samuel?”