Saturday in Silver Point usually belonged to commerce.
Wagon wheels rattled across Main Street. Men argued over feed prices outside Harlan’s Mercantile. Women inspected flour sacks, coffee tins, and sewing thread beneath the awnings. Horses stamped against hitching posts while the saloon doors opened and closed with lazy regularity.
Then someone screamed.
“Stop beating him!”
The street seemed to hold its breath.
Penelope Ashford stood at the edge of a rough circle of townspeople with one hand clenched around the strap of her leather satchel.
She had not meant to speak.
Speaking attracted attention.
Attention had never been kind to Penny.
At twenty-five, she had spent years learning how to move through Silver Point without inviting comment. She kept her head down at the bookkeeping office. She ate alone. She rented the smallest room in Mrs. Henderson’s boarding house. She answered questions politely and ended conversations before anyone could turn toward the subject people always found eventually.
Her size.
Three hundred and sixty pounds, according to a butcher’s scale some boys had once tricked her into stepping on during a church picnic.
The number had followed her longer than the boys who laughed when they announced it.
People in Silver Point rarely described Penny as intelligent, though she could reconcile six months of merchant accounts faster than most clerks in town.
They rarely described her as brave.
They rarely noticed that she could carry a flour crate alone or remember an entire column of figures after seeing it once.
She was simply the large bookkeeper’s assistant.
Easy to dismiss.
Easy to joke about.
Easy to overlook.
But the man in the street was harder to overlook.
Nathaniel Cross was enormous.
Even on his knees, hands tied behind him, he looked bigger than the ranch hands surrounding him.
His long dark hair hung across his face. Blood ran from a split near his eyebrow and disappeared into his beard. Torn buckskin clung to shoulders wide enough to make an ordinary doorway look narrow.
Colt Brennan stood over him.
Penny knew Colt by reputation.
Everyone did.
His father owned the largest cattle outfit east of Silver Point. Colt carried the confidence of a man who had rarely heard the word no without someone regretting it afterward.
He drew back one boot.
Penny saw what was coming.
Nathaniel did too.
The kick landed against his ribs.
A low sound escaped him.
Not a scream.
Somehow that made it worse.
Penny moved.
“Stop!”
Heads turned.
Colt looked up slowly.
Penny pushed through the crowd until she reached the center.
Her legs felt weak.
Her heart was hammering.
She wished desperately that someone else would step forward.
Nobody did.
Colt wiped sweat from his forehead.
“Well.”
His gaze traveled over Penny with open contempt.
“Look who found a voice.”
A few men laughed.
Penny felt heat crawl across her face.
She kept walking.
Nathaniel was half-curled on the ground.
One eye was swollen.
The other opened slightly when her shadow crossed him.
Penny looked at Colt.
“You'll kill him.”
Colt shrugged.
“Maybe he should've thought of that before trapping on Brennan land.”
Nathaniel rasped something.
Penny bent closer.
“What?”
His visible eye focused on Colt.
“Wasn't Brennan land.”
Colt kicked dust toward his face.
“Still talking?”
Penny stepped between them.
Colt stared at her.
“Move.”
“No.”
The answer came before she had time to become afraid of it.
Colt smiled.
Not kindly.
“You know who that is?”
“Yes.”
“Do you?”
He pointed toward Nathaniel.
“Nathaniel Cross. Mountain savage. Thief. Nearly killed one of our men last winter.”
Nathaniel shifted.
Colt saw it.
“So you want to defend him?”
Penny looked around at the crowd.
Shopkeepers.
Ranchers.
Mothers.
Children.
People she saw every week.
Nobody met her eyes.
She looked back at Colt.
“I want you to stop beating a bound man.”
That changed the crowd.
Not much.
But enough.
A few people looked uncomfortable.
Colt noticed.
His grin disappeared.
“He owes us.”
“How much?”
Nathaniel turned his head toward Penny.
“Don't.”
Colt laughed.
“Two hundred.”
Penny's hand tightened around her satchel.
She knew exactly how much money she had.
One hundred forty-three dollars.
Her entire savings.
Three years of setting aside coins.
Money for a better room.
Money for a winter coat.
Maybe someday enough to leave Silver Point.
She thought of the little ledger hidden beneath her mattress.
$143.17.
Penny opened her satchel.
Nathaniel watched her.
Colt's eyes narrowed.
She removed the small leather pouch.
“What are you doing?” Nathaniel asked.
His voice was almost gone.
Penny ignored him.
She handed the pouch toward Colt.
“I have one hundred forty-three dollars.”
Colt stared.
“That's not two hundred.”
“I'll sign for the rest.”
The crowd murmured.
Colt weighed the pouch in his palm.
Nathaniel tried to push himself upright.
“Don't.”
Penny looked down.
His eye was clearer now.
Angry.
Not at Colt.
At her.
“Keep your money.”
She crouched.
“You need a doctor.”
“I need you to walk away.”
“No.”
“You don't know me.”
“That doesn't matter.”
“It should.”
Penny looked at the blood drying along his face.
“Not today.”
Colt opened the pouch and counted.
His smile returned.
“Fifty-seven short.”
“I said I'll write a note.”
“You own anything?”
Penny's face burned.
“No.”
“Family with money?”
“No.”
“Then why should I trust your paper?”
She took the notebook from her bag.
“Because I work for Walsh and Denton. Ask Mr. Walsh if I've ever missed a payment.”
Colt looked toward the bookkeeping office.
Then back at Penny.
This had become less entertaining.
He wanted humiliation, not paperwork.
Finally he spat into the dirt.
“Three months.”
Penny nodded.
“Three months.”
“You miss payment, I collect with interest.”
“How much?”
Colt looked irritated by the question.
“Twenty percent.”
“Annual?”
He blinked.
Penny's voice steadied.
“Twenty percent annual or twenty percent over three months?”
Someone laughed.
This time not at Penny.
Colt's jaw tightened.
“Twenty over three months.”
“That is unreasonable.”
“Then leave him.”
Penny looked at Nathaniel.
His breathing was shallow.
She closed her notebook.
“Fine.”
Colt grinned.
“Smart girl.”
“No.”
She looked up.
“I mean I'll sign.”
The grin vanished.
Penny wrote the note herself.
Fifty-seven dollars.
Due in ninety days.
No additional fee except the twenty-percent term Colt demanded.
She copied it twice.
Made him sign one.
Kept the other.
Colt looked almost insulted.
“You think I'm going to cheat you?”
Penny folded the paper.
“I think written terms prevent confusion.”
That produced another small laugh from the crowd.
Colt shoved the money pouch into his coat.
“Your funeral.”
He nodded to his men.
One reached behind Nathaniel and cut the rope from his wrists.
Colt leaned toward Penny.
“He wakes up mean, don't come crying to me.”
Penny met his eyes.
“If I need help, Mr. Brennan, I won't come to you.”
The crowd went quiet.
Colt's face darkened.
Then he laughed.
He turned away.
His men followed.
Within a minute, the spectators began dispersing.
Penny looked around in disbelief.
Violence had gathered them.
Responsibility scattered them.
She knelt beside Nathaniel.
His wrists were raw.
“Can you stand?”
“No.”
The blunt answer surprised her.
“Good.”
He frowned.
Penny clarified.
“At least you're honest.”
He almost smiled.
Almost.
Then pain erased it.
Penny slipped one arm beneath his.
He looked at her.
“You cannot carry me.”
“No.”
She braced herself.
“But I can help.”
Nathaniel was nearly seven feet tall.
He weighed far more than any man Penny had ever supported.
Still, she got him upright.
Barely.
His arm went across her shoulders.
He tried to take most of his own weight.
The effort made his face gray.
“Easy.”
“I'm fine.”
“You look terrible.”