New York had been a nightmare of smoke, noise, and the suffocating pressure of men who thought a woman without a family was public property. But this—she looked out at the horizon. There was no end to it. The land rolled away in every direction, brown and gray and gold, broken only by the skeletal shapes of scrub oak and the distant mocking blue of the mountains. It looked empty.
It looked like a place where a person could scream and scream, and the sound would simply evaporate, unheard. She had traded the danger of too many people for the danger of none at all. Eli secured the trunk and gestured to the seat. She climbed up, wincing as the heat of the seat burned through her skirts. He climbed up beside her, the bench dipping under his weight.
They did not touch, but she could smell him. Leather, horse sweat, tobacco, and the dry scent of sage. "We have business in town first," Eli said, gathering the reins. "The license and supplies. " She nodded, staring straight ahead. "I understand. " The drive into the town of Bitter Creek took an hour.
It was a collection of false-fronted buildings huddled together as if for protection against the wind, a church with peeling white steeple stood at one end, a saloon with bat-wing doors at the other, and a mercantile in between as they rode down the main street. Maggie felt the eyes. It was a sensation she knew well from the city, the feeling of being assessed. But here in the quiet, it was more potent. Men stopped their conversations on the boardwalks to stare.
It was not a welcoming gaze. It was a mixture of curiosity and a hungry, predatory appraisal. A woman sweeping the porch of the boarding house paused, leaning on her broom. She whispered something to the woman beside her, and they both looked at Maggie's travel-stained dress and the trunk in the back. The words floated on the dry air: "Mail-order bought bride. " Maggie kept her chin high, fixing her eyes on the ears of the horses.
She had promised herself she would not cower. She had survived the fire that took her sister. She had survived the hungry winter that followed. She would survive these whispers. Eli pulled the wagon up in front of the mercantile.
"Stay here," he said, but then he hesitated. "No, come in. You will need boots. Those shoes will not last a day on the ranch. She followed him into the dim, cool interior of the store.
It smelled of coffee beans, calico, and pickle brine. The storekeeper, a balding man with spectacles, looked up and smiled. But the smile faltered when he saw Maggie. "Morning, Eli," the man said, wiping his hands on his apron. "This the lady? " This is Miss Oor, Eli said, his voice flat.
My betrothed. A silence stretched in the room. At the back of the store, a woman in a high-collared dress, the pastor's wife. Maggie guessed by the severity of her bonnet, turned to look. Her gaze ran over Maggie, noting the frayed hem of her sleeve, the weary slump of her shoulders, and the unmistakable stamp of poverty.
The woman sniffed a sharp audible sound and pointedly turned her back, occupying herself with a bolt of gingham. Maggie felt the heat rise in her cheeks. It was the same judgment she had fled. The assumption that because she was poor, because she was alone, because she had come from a place of smoke and sin, she was damaged goods, livestock to be traded. Eli seemed to stiffen.
He placed a hand on the counter, the sound loud in the quiet room. We need boots, Eli said, his voice hard. Size six, I reckon. And 50 lb of flour, coffee, bacon, and sugar. The storekeeper scurried to comply.