The prairie didn’t just blow at sundown. It argued with the earth, the kind of wind that shoved dust into your teeth and memories into your throat.
A wagon creaked across a sea of dry grass somewhere west of the Platte River, the sky bruised purple with late light. Inside, a young woman sat so still she looked carved from grief. A coarse rope looped her wrists, not tight enough to cut, but tight enough to humiliate. A tattered shawl hid half her face, though it couldn’t hide the shape of her shoulders, rounded inward like someone trying to disappear into herself.
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