Two days later, the supply wagon needed axle grease and flour, forcing Luke to ride into town. The settlement was a collection of clapboard buildings and adobe structures huddled together against the vast emptiness, as if afraid to be alone. The main street was a river of churned dust. Luke tied his horse outside the general store and stepped out of the blinding light into the dim, grain-scented interior. The air was stifling, thick with the smell of tobacco, sweat, and leather.
At the counter, a storekeeper named Henderson was leaning forward, his face flushed. Standing before him was a small Apache woman, wrapped in a faded blanket, holding out a few coins. She looked at the floor, her stillness a sharp contrast to the man's agitation. "I told you," Henderson said, his voice loud enough to turn heads, "I do not trade with your kind. You take that money and you get out.
We do not want you here. " The woman did not move immediately. She pointed a slender brown finger at a sack of cornmeal on the shelf. "No," Henderson snapped. He grabbed a broom from beside the counter and brandished it like a weapon. Go on, get. " Luke stood by the door, his hands curled into fists at his sides.
He knew this woman. She lived in a shantytown on the edge of the settlement, doing wash for the miners. She was harmless. He felt the urge to step forward, to put his money on the counter and buy the meal for her. He felt the ghost of his brother watching him, but he did nothing.
He watched the woman turn, her face impassive, and slip out the door past him. She smelled of woodsmoke and old fear. Luke looked away as she passed, unable to meet her eyes. "Well done, Henderson," a voice boomed from the back of the store. A ranch hand named Jubal was leaning against a stack of crates, a half-empty bottle of whiskey dangling from his hand.
He was a big man, his face mapped with broken veins. You cannot feed the stray dogs. Jubal laughed, wiping his mouth with a dirty sleeve. "You feed one savage and 10 more come crawling out of the hills. We ought to shoot them on sight, like the wolves. " Luke walked to the counter, keeping his eyes on the ledger open in front of Henderson.
"I need a sack of flour and a tin of coffee," he said quietly. Henderson nodded, his righteous anger fading into a merchant's smile. "Good to see you, Carver. You hear the news? " Luke shook his head. "Sergeant Miller says there was an other attack on the southern road.
A freight wagon burned. Driver killed. They say it is the Apache again. It is always the Apache," Jubal shouted. "I heard rumors.
Carver, they say there is a camp up in the Dragoon Mountains. Not warriors, a camp of women, witches, they say. Leftover squaws who managed to run when the army took the men. They say they are stealing cattle to survive. " Luke paid for his goods, the coins clicking on the wood. He felt a cold prickle on the back of his neck.
He had lost three heifers in the last month. Outside, he ran into Sergeant Miller, a man with a hard face and a uniform that had seen too much dust. The sergeant was leaning against a hitching post, rolling a cigarette. "Carver," the sergeant nodded. "Sergeant," Luke replied, securing his supplies to his saddle.
"You heading out again? " "Soon," Miller said. "The colonel is tired of these raids. We are going to sweep the canyons north of the border, clean it out once and for all. If you see anything out on your spread, you ride in and tell us. You used to be the best tracker we had.