The prairie didn’t just blow at sundown. It argued with the earth, the kind of wind that shoved dust into your teeth and memories into your throat.
A wagon creaked across a sea of dry grass somewhere west of the Platte River, the sky bruised purple with late light. Inside, a young woman sat so still she looked carved from grief. A coarse rope looped her wrists, not tight enough to cut, but tight enough to humiliate. A tattered shawl hid half her face, though it couldn’t hide the shape of her shoulders, rounded inward like someone trying to disappear into herself.
Her name was Eliza Maren, and she was being delivered like a broken tool.
Behind the wagon, her family followed on horseback and foot, too ashamed to ride close, too desperate to turn around. Her mother kept her eyes on the horizon as if staring hard enough could erase what they’d done. Her father’s jaw worked like he was chewing on words that wouldn’t go down.
