PART 2

The horses moved quickly, raising a cloud of dust that the wind dispersed and reformed. At that distance, their faces were still indistinguishable, but Wila’s body knew it before her eyes did.

She stiffened.

She gripped her bag strap so tightly that her knuckles turned white.

Elias turned to look at her.

—Who are they?

She took a second to answer, as if saying it out loud could make it more real.

—They’re coming for me.

The rancher didn’t ask another question. Not because he didn’t want to know, but because he understood that the danger had to be dealt with first, and then the fear.

“Go into the stable,” he ordered calmly. “Stay behind the back wall and don’t come out until I tell you to.”

—I don’t want to cause you any trouble.

He finally looked her straight in the eye.

—You brought them the moment I opened the door. Now let me do my part.

Wila wanted to argue, but she couldn’t. There was something in Elias McCreay’s voice, something dry and firm, that left no room for panic. She ran to the barn as he walked toward the fence and stood there, alone, his hat firmly on and his hands at his sides.

The riders arrived a few minutes later.

Three men.

Two young men with rifles slung over their shoulders, and in the center, an older man with a graying beard and hard eyes, dressed in the clothes of a merchant or foreman. They weren’t soldiers. Worse. They were men accustomed to obeying only the law that suited them.

The one in the middle stopped in front of the gate.

“We’re looking for an Indian girl,” he said without greeting anyone. “She passed through these roads. Her name is Wila Redbird.”

Elias didn’t move.

—No one who belongs to them has entered here.

The man let out a dry laugh.

—We’re not asking if it belongs to us. We’re saying it must be returned. His people made a deal.

From inside the stable, Wila felt the air close in on her chest.

So that was it.

She knew they would catch her sooner or later, but deep down she had wanted to believe that those two nights, that impossible pause, could protect her a little longer from the world. She had been wrong.

Outside, Elias rested a hand on the fence post.

—Explain yourself.

The man did it with an unsettling calm, like someone reciting a debt. Months earlier, after a bad season, some men from Red Mesa had accepted supplies, weapons, and animals in exchange for a promise: a girl would be given in marriage to the son of a merchant allied with them, an old, widowed, violent man with enough money to buy favors. Wila had fled the night before the agreement.

They weren’t chasing her for love or honor.

They were chasing her because someone had already counted her as currency.

Elias felt something harden inside him.

It wasn’t noisy rage. It was something older. More dangerous.

“So they’re not coming to find a wife,” he said. “They’re coming to collect a debt by using a woman like cattle.”

One of the young men spat on the ground.

—That’s none of your business, rancher.

—They entered my land. Now it truly is.

The silence that followed was heavy. The kind of silence that comes just before something breaks.

The older man narrowed his eyes.

—Be careful who you mess with. That girl has nowhere to go. No family to claim her. No reputation worth anything out here. If you hide her, you’ll make yourself a target for people who could make your life a living hell.

Elias almost smiled, but without humor.

—My life was already quite quiet before I met them. They don’t impress me.

One of the young men made a gesture as if to dismount.

It wasn’t enough.

Elias’s revolver was already in his hand.

He didn’t raise it completely. Nor did he point it at anyone’s chest. He merely displayed it, with that serenity more frightening than a scream, making it clear that he wouldn’t hesitate if it became necessary to use it.

“The first one to cross that fence,” he said, “stays here.”

Inside, Wila stopped breathing.

Not because she thought Elias was faking it. On the contrary. Because she understood that he was serious.

The three men looked at each other. They measured the distance. The ranch. The barn. The still body of that lone man, who didn’t seem to be looking for a fight, but wasn’t going to back down either.

The older man clicked his tongue.

—This doesn’t end here, McCreay.

“Maybe not,” Elias replied. “But they’re leaving without her today.”

The riders took a few more seconds. Then they turned around. Dust rose again beneath their hooves, and slowly they moved away until they became a blur on the plain.

Only when they had completely disappeared did Elias put away the weapon.

Wila left the stable slowly, her eyes shining with suppressed fear.

—You shouldn’t have done that to me.

He took off his hat, ran a hand through his hair, and let out a long breath.

—Maybe not.

—They’re coming back.

-I know.

She took a step towards him.

—Then I have to go. If they find me here again, I’ll bring you a war you don’t deserve.

Elias held her gaze. Behind his usual toughness lay something new, more naked, more inevitable.

—Listen carefully, Wila. When you arrived, I only intended to give you a roof over your head for one night. Then I thought it would be two or three days. But we’re not talking about that anymore.

She looked at him silently.

He continued, slowly, as if every word was a struggle.

“What’s chasing you isn’t just the desert. It’s a world that thinks it can decide who owns your life. And that… I’m not going to allow that on this ranch.”

Wila swallowed hard. For the first time in a long time, she didn’t just feel protected.

She felt seen.

“Why?” she asked, almost in a whisper. “Why would you do that for me?”

Elias took a while to respond.

He looked at the fence. The dust in the distance. The barn. Then he looked back at it.

—Because since you came here, you changed the way this place sounds. Because you reminded me that teaching is also a way of caring. Because when I saw you look at the world with confidence again… I understood that I didn’t want to be just another man who would leave you alone to face the elements.

Wila lowered her gaze, unable to bear so much truth all at once.

The wind barely moved the braid over her shoulder.

“I don’t know what to do now,” he admitted.

Elias took a step towards her.

He hasn’t touched her yet.

—Then don’t leave today.

She looked up.

“Stay,” he said. “But not just for one night. Stay long enough to decide your own path without anyone taking it from you. And if we have to fight for it, we will.”

Wila felt her chest fill with something both painful and sweet. It wasn’t just relief. It wasn’t just gratitude. It was the strange sensation of having finally arrived at a place where her life was neither a burden nor a price to pay.

He extended his hand, open and firm.

Not as an order.

As a choice.

Wila looked at that hand, then at Elias McCreay’s weathered face, then at the horizon where the riders had disappeared.

And he understood that the real crossroads wasn’t out there in The Dustlands.

I was there.

In that courtyard.

Between the fear of continuing to run away and the possibility of staying where someone, for the first time, did not want to possess her, but to see her free.

With tears streaming down her face and her breath trembling in her body, Wila placed her hand in his.

And that time, when the wind ran again between the ranch’s posts, it no longer sounded like a threat.

It sounded like the beginning.