“You won't.”
It was a promise she had no right to make.
She made it anyway.
The auctioneer began lowering the gavel.
“Gone.”
“I’ll take her.”
The voice came from the rear of the crowd.
The gavel stopped less than an inch above the wood.
Nobody moved.
Then people began turning.
The man walking through the crowd did not hurry.
He did not need to.
Townspeople stepped aside before he reached them.
He was huge, well over six feet, broad enough through the shoulders that his wolfskin coat made him seem less like a traveler and more like something the mountains had decided to send down into town.
Dark hair streaked with gray fell near his shoulders.
His beard was thick but trimmed roughly.
A long scar ran from beneath his left ear toward his collar.
A rifle rested across his back.
The weapon was old.
The man was older than the weapon looked and younger than the stories made him sound.
Whispers started immediately.
“Roar.”
“Caleb Roar.”
“What the hell is he doing here?”
A woman near the front pulled her son closer.
One rancher who had laughed at Eleanor stopped smiling entirely.
Caleb reached the platform.
The auctioneer swallowed.
“Mr. Roar.”
Caleb looked at Eleanor.
Not at her body first.
Not with amusement.
Not with pity.
He looked directly into her eyes.
Then he looked at the children.
He counted them silently.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
Six.
Seven.
The auctioneer cleared his throat.
“You understand the widow has seven dependents.”
“All seven.”
“Settlement obligations are attached.”
“How much?”
“The current amount is fifty dollars.”
Caleb reached inside his coat.
Several men subtly shifted.
His hand emerged holding a leather purse.
“Three hundred.”
Silence.
Even the horses tied beyond the general store seemed quieter.
The auctioneer stared.
“Three hundred dollars?”
Caleb tossed the purse onto the block.
“Count it.”
Mrs. Cromwell stepped forward.
“Mr. Roar, the office must confirm your household suitability.”
Caleb looked at her.
Something changed in her expression.
Fear.
Not uncertainty.
Fear.
“You confirmed it when you took my tax payment last month.”
“That is not the same.”
“Then return my money and explain to Territorial Judge Avery why your office advertised family settlement while carrying orphan placement papers before the bidding ended.”
Mrs. Cromwell went pale.
Eleanor noticed.
Caleb had not merely frightened her.
He knew something.
The auctioneer opened the purse.
Gold.
More than enough.
He looked at Mrs. Cromwell.
She said nothing.
The gavel fell.
“Sold.”
Edward flinched.
Sarah covered her mouth.
Eleanor remained motionless.
Three hundred dollars.
She had not felt relief.
Not yet.
All she felt was another kind of fear.
Men did not spend three hundred dollars in a frontier town without expecting something valuable in return.
Caleb walked up the stairs.
From closer, he looked even more dangerous.
His knuckles carried old scars.
One finger had been broken and healed crooked.
The wolfskin coat hid most of his frame, but Eleanor could see the outline of a large hunting knife at his belt.