Shoot the apple off her head and she's yours, they said. But he felt something when he saw her. The sun had dropped just enough to throw long shadows across the main street of Dry Creek. Dust blew in low swirls, clinging to boots and coats, carried by a wind that never seemed to stop in this part of the territory. The town was no stranger to cruelty, and the people gathered outside the saloon weren't looking for justice, only distraction.
Laughter carried over the sound of wagon wheels and clinking bottles. At the center of it all, a young Apache woman stood with her wrists bound behind her back. Her ankles were roped together, forcing her to balance awkwardly. The rough cord had already cut her skin raw. Her name was Ayoka, though not a single person in the crowd spoke it.
She had been dragged here after being caught near one of the outlying farms. Accused of stealing food, no one had asked why she was starving. No one cared. A man from the general store stepped forward with a smug grin. He held a bright red apple in his hand, polished against his vest, and placed it on the top of her head with exaggerated care as though it were the cleverest joke he had ever told.
Let's see who's got the steadiest hand, he said. The crowd howled. Someone shouted that the winner would have himself a woman free of charge. Another suggested they should skip the game and hang her outright. Their laughter mixed with the clink of whiskey glasses from the porch of the saloon.
Ayoka stood rigid. Her dress torn and stretched slipped low across her chest where the seams had given way. She tried to straighten, tried to cover herself with her bound arms, but the ropes cut too tight. She kept her chin high, but inside her chest hammered. She had seen men kill for less.
She told herself not to cry, not to give them the satisfaction, though her throat burned with fear. That was when Clint Morgan moved from the edge of the crowd. He had been leaning against the post of the livery stable, watching with a tightening jaw, weighing whether to interfere. He had told himself before that it was not his fight, that stepping in would draw trouble he didn't need. He lived alone, kept to himself, and the last thing he wanted was more enemies.
But the longer he watched, the more the weight grew in his chest. He saw the way she trembled just once and still herself. The way the ropes bit into her wrists, it reminded him of other times years back when he had seen prisoners used for sport during the war. He still carried the scar along his jaw from that time. A knife wound he barely survived.
He had told himself he wouldn't watch another person humiliated while he stood by. Clint was 36 now, a drifter who had settled in his solitude on a small patch of land outside town. He had no family left, no wife, only a cabin and a few cattle to his name. The town's folks saw him as quiet, standoffish, maybe even dangerous, though he rarely raised his voice. He carried the look of a man who had seen too much.