Sometimes a man has to do ugly things to keep decent people safe. Wade listened without interrupting. A slow heat began building beneath his ribs. He had heard speeches like that before. Different uniforms, different enemies, same words.
During the war, Wade had watched men convince themselves that women and children became acceptable targets simply because they lived on the wrong side of a line drawn by politicians and generals. He had learned something from those years that Silas apparently never had. Hatred did not belong to an entire people. Cruelty did not live in blood. Those things belonged to individual men and the choices they made.
Silas followed Wade's gaze toward Cella and smiled again. Pretty little flower, isn't she? There was something ugly behind the words. But you know how it is, friend. The prettiest flowers sometimes carry the sharpest thorns.
She killed one of our boys, Jesse Ror. Young fellow. She murdered him just because he looked at her the wrong way. Silas's smile disappeared. She won't escape punishment for that.
She's going to answer for what she did. Wade looked at him. Disgust settled deep in his stomach. He could not prove Silas was lying. Not yet.
But Wade knew the smell of a story built to excuse cruelty. He had heard enough of them around military camps and blood soaked fields to recognize one when it stood on his porch. Truth was a fragile thing when powerful men were allowed to shape it. Wade had learned that too. Give a man authority, enough frightened followers, and enough reason to protect himself, and the truth could be bent until even murder sounded righteous.
Silas turned away from the porch and headed back toward the wagons. He barked an order for the Fort Rusk soldiers to prepare to move. Men tightened saddle straps. Canteens were capped. Horses were pulled away from the trough.
Before climbing aboard, Silas looked back at Wade one final time. The friendliness was gone from his face now. What remained was a warning. "Remember what I told you, friend? That woman's a snake.
Help her, and sooner or later, she'll sink her teeth into you." He paused. You and me, we're on the same side. Men like us ought to look after each other. Wade did not answer.
He only held Silas's stare. Years ago, Wade had learned that silence could carry more weight than a threat shouted across a room. Silence gave a man room to listen, to judge, to separate what was real from whatever story someone wanted him to believe. And sometimes silence told another man exactly what he needed to know. Silas finally turned away.