Chapter 1 - Fifty Dollars and a Durham Bull
Hannah Reed clutched her flour-sack bag as her uncle shoved her toward the waiting rancher and snapped, “Go on. He paid for you.”
Jacob Mercer stepped between them and picked up the folded bill of sale.
There was a faded number written across its back.
Jacob's face changed.
This wasn't the first girl Cyrus Reed had sold.
For several seconds, nobody spoke.
The wind battered the walls of Cyrus Reed's cabin while the fire snapped behind them. Hannah stared at the paper in Jacob's hand.
She had heard every word of the bargain.
Fifty dollars.
A Durham bull.
And her.
At eighteen, Hannah had learned that humiliation rarely arrived dramatically. Sometimes it sounded like coins dropping onto a kitchen table.
Cyrus snatched the papers from Jacob.
“What're you staring at?”
Jacob's pale gray eyes remained on the number.
“Nothing.”
His voice was controlled.
Too controlled.
Cyrus folded the document quickly and stuffed it inside his coat.
Hannah noticed.
So did Jacob.
But neither spoke.
Cyrus turned toward her. “Get your things.”
“I already have them.”
His eyes dropped to the flour sack.
“That all?”
Hannah tightened her grip. “It's all that's mine.”
Something flickered across Jacob's face.
Cyrus laughed.
“Nothing's yours anymore.”
Jacob looked at him then.
The room changed.
Jacob Mercer was not loud. He did not have to be. He was taller than Cyrus by several inches, broad from years of ranch work, and there was something about his stillness that made Cyrus's grin fade.
“I paid what you demanded,” Jacob said. “That means our business is finished.”
Cyrus cleared his throat.
“Sure.”
Jacob opened the cabin door.
Snow rushed against his boots.
Hannah walked past her uncle without saying goodbye.
Six years earlier, after her mother died, she had believed Cyrus when he told her she should be grateful he'd taken her in.
Gratitude had become unpaid labor.
Then obedience.
Then fear.
Tonight, apparently, it had become currency.
She climbed onto Jacob's wagon.
He took the driver's seat without touching her.
That surprised her.
Everything she knew about men who bought women told her he would establish ownership immediately.
Instead, he flicked the reins.
The cabin disappeared behind them.
For almost an hour, they traveled without speaking.
Finally Jacob said, “There's a room upstairs.”
Hannah waited.
“Second door left.”
She looked at him.
“It locks.”
“From which side?”
Jacob turned toward her for the first time.
“Yours.”
Hannah said nothing.
He faced the road again.
“The key will be on the dresser.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why give me a lock?”
His jaw moved slightly.
“Because a door isn't much good if the person sleeping behind it can't decide who enters.”
Hannah studied his profile.
“You bought me.”
“Yes.”
“So why pretend otherwise?”
Jacob's hands tightened around the reins.
“I'm not pretending.”
“Then what did you buy?”
He was silent long enough that she thought he would refuse to answer.
Finally he said, “Time.”
She frowned.
“Time for what?”
But Jacob said nothing more.
The Mercer ranch appeared through the snow shortly before midnight.
It was larger than Cyrus's place, though not grand. A two-story timber house stood beside a barn and several corrals. Lantern light glowed through two windows.
The front door opened before the wagon stopped.
A boy of perhaps nine ran onto the porch.
“Pa!”
Jacob climbed down.
“Inside, Samuel.”
“But—”
“Inside.”
Another boy appeared behind him, younger and blond.
Then a little girl, perhaps six, wrapped in a blanket.
All three stared at Hannah.
Jacob helped unload her sack but still did not touch her.
“This is Miss Reed,” he said.
The oldest boy's expression hardened.
“Why's she here?”
“Samuel.”
“Is she replacing Mama?”
The question struck Hannah harder than anything Cyrus had said.
Jacob went motionless.
“No.”
The boy stared at Hannah another second, then turned and disappeared upstairs.
The younger boy followed.
The little girl remained.
She looked at Hannah.
Then at Jacob.
“Is she staying?”
“For now.”
The child nodded as if that answer were sufficient.
“My name's Ruth.”
“Hannah.”
Ruth disappeared upstairs.
Jacob carried Hannah's sack to the foot of the staircase.
“I'll show you your room.”
“I can carry it.”
He handed it over immediately.
That surprised her again.
Upstairs, he stopped beside a narrow bedroom.
There was a bed, washstand, dresser, lamp, and small window.
A brass key lay beside the lamp.
Hannah stared at it.
Jacob remained in the hallway.
He did not cross the threshold.
“My room's downstairs.”
She looked at him sharply.
“Downstairs?”
“Yes.”
“You don't sleep up here?”
“Not anymore.”
A shadow passed through his expression.
His wife's room, Hannah realized.
Or perhaps their room.
He turned away.
“Breakfast is usually six. Don't worry about it tomorrow.”
“I was brought here to work.”
“You were brought here because I made a bargain I haven't decided how to explain.”
That frightened her more than cruelty might have.
“What does that mean?”
Jacob looked toward the stairs.
“It means sleep.”
He walked away.
Hannah locked the door.
Then she pushed the dresser against it.
Only afterward did she sit on the bed.
She removed her mother's Bible.
The leather cover was cracked and smoke-stained. She ran her fingers over it.
“I'm sorry, Mama,” she whispered.
She didn't know what she was apologizing for.
Surviving, perhaps.
Her mother had done plenty of that herself.
Hannah opened the Bible.
Something shifted inside the spine.
She frowned.
She had owned the book for six years and never noticed anything hidden there.
Using her fingernail, she lifted the loose leather.
A folded piece of paper slipped out.
Hannah unfolded it.
The handwriting belonged to her mother.
She recognized it instantly.
Her breath caught.
There were only three lines.
Hannah,
If Cyrus ever tries to sell what belongs to you, go to Thomas Bell in Miles City.
And whatever happens, never let Cyrus learn who your father was.
Hannah read the words twice.
Then a third time.
Her father.
Cyrus had always told her that her father had abandoned her mother before Hannah was born.
A noise sounded outside her room.
A floorboard creaked.
Hannah folded the note quickly.
Another creak.
Someone was standing outside her door.
She reached slowly for the lamp.
Then came a child's whisper.
“Miss Hannah?”
It was Ruth.
Hannah moved the dresser and opened the door.
The little girl stood barefoot in her nightdress.
“What's wrong?”
Ruth held something against her chest.
“My mama told me you'd come.”
Hannah froze.
“What?”
Ruth extended her hand.
A small silver locket rested in her palm.
Hannah stared at it.
Her mother had owned one exactly like it.
“Where did you get that?”
“Mama.”
“When?”
“Before she died.”
Hannah's pulse quickened.
Ruth looked frightened now.
“She said if a girl named Hannah ever came here, I had to give it to her.”
Hannah slowly took the locket.
Her fingers trembled as she opened it.
Inside was a tiny photograph.
Two young women stood beside each other.
One was Jacob's dead wife.
Hannah knew that from the framed photograph downstairs.
The other woman was Hannah's mother.
On the back, in faded ink, someone had written three words.
Mercer Ranch, 1866.
Hannah stared at the date.
That was eighteen years ago.
The year she was born.
Footsteps sounded at the bottom of the stairs.
Jacob appeared.
He saw the open locket.
Every trace of color left his face.
“Hannah,” he said.
She held up the photograph.
“You knew my mother.”
Jacob didn't answer.
“You knew who I was before you walked into Cyrus's cabin.”
Silence.
Hannah's throat tightened.
“That's why you bought me.”
Jacob took one step upward.
“Hannah, there's something you need to understand.”
She backed away.
“What?”
Jacob looked at the photograph.
Then at her.
“Your mother didn't die six years ago.”
Hannah stopped breathing.
A heavy knock suddenly thundered against the front door.
Three blows.
Jacob turned.
Another three came immediately.
Someone outside shouted through the storm.
“Jacob Mercer! Open this door!”
Jacob went rigid.
Hannah recognized the voice.
So did he.
Cyrus had followed them.
But when Jacob reached the bottom of the stairs, another voice came from outside.
A woman's voice.
Weak.
May you like
Desperate.
And it called Hannah by the childhood name only her mother had ever used...
