On the raised platform at the edge of Redwood Crossing’s dusty main street, Clara Bennett stood so still she might’ve been carved from the same sun-bleached timber beneath her boots. Only the tremor in her fingers betrayed her. Her little brother, Eli, clung to her skirt with both hands, as if the fabric were the last thing tethering him to life.
Below them, men shouted numbers like they were calling cattle.
“Twenty!”
“Thirty!”
“Forty-five!”
Their eyes moved over her with the casual arithmetic of hunger: what her hands could do, what her back could carry, what her silence could be worth. Clara didn’t look down. She fixed her gaze on the false-front buildings across the street, their paint peeling like scabs under the ruthless July heat. The general store. The saloon. The sheriff’s office with its narrow shaded porch. A woman sweeping dust that would return by noon. A sorrel horse tied to a post, switching its tail against flies as if this were just another ordinary day.
It wasn’t.
Three weeks ago, Clara had been a person.
