The cowboy had spent enough years around land agents, cattle buyers, freight offices, and bankers to recognize the sentence.
Rules are rules usually meant one of two things.
Either somebody truly had no authority to change something.
Or somebody wanted the listener to stop asking who had created the rule.
The cowboy reached into his pocket.
Two dollars remained from the cash he had brought to town.
He needed lamp oil.
He needed nails.
He needed another sack of coffee.
The ranch needed everything.
Instead, he placed the two silver dollars on the counter.
The freight agent looked pleased.
The woman looked angry.
Not grateful.
Angry.
The cowboy understood immediately.
He turned toward her before the freight agent could say anything else.
“I’m not paying for you.”
The room quieted slightly.
He pointed toward the debt slip.
“I’m paying that ridiculous thing so he loses the excuse to keep your saddle.”
The woman studied him.
The freight agent chuckled.
“Call it whatever makes you feel noble.”
The cowboy turned back.
“I don’t feel noble.”
He slid the coins closer.
“I feel like I’m wasting two dollars.”
Laughter came from outside.
A man leaning against the porch post called:
“Cheapest bride in Arizona!”
More laughter.
The cowboy’s jaw tightened.
The woman’s eyes went toward the men.
Then back to him.
He expected anger.
Instead, something almost amused appeared in her expression.
The freight agent lifted the coins.
“Debt cleared.”
The cowboy took the handwritten slip.
The agent reached for it.
“What are you doing?”
“Keeping my two-dollar souvenir.”
“That belongs to the office.”
The cowboy folded it.
“Then sue me.”
He placed it in his shirt pocket.
The woman turned toward the door.
The cowboy picked up his fence staples.
That should have been the end of it.
Two dollars wasted.
One stupid argument finished.
He had a ranch to get back to before sunset.
A ranch he might not own much longer.
That thought returned the moment he stepped onto the boardwalk.
The laughter followed.
The same man called:
“Better put a rope on her before she changes her mind!”
The cowboy stopped so abruptly the freight agent nearly walked into him.
He turned toward the men.
“No.”
The laughter thinned.
The cowboy looked at each of them.
“I paid two dollars so nobody here could claim they had a right to hold her.”
He nodded toward the Apache woman.
“That includes me.”
The woman’s expression changed then.
Not dramatically.
Just enough.
The laughter died.