I’m on my own, and I need to keep moving.
Ahead of me, the town is dark. Lanterns extinguished in windows, shops closed for the night—until tomorrow when the market will open again. In the distance, I can hear people on the outer edge of town, settling into their tents and wagons for the night. The glow of campfires and the smell of food being cooked, filling the air.
I could slip through the shadows to the outskirts of town, wait until the market opens at sunrise…
Or…
I peer up at the wooden sign suspended above the doorway ahead of me:BUFFALO SALOON.
Voices thrum and echo out from inside, a loud mixture of music and chatter. Whoever is still awake in Fort Bell has gathered inside the Buffalo Saloon. The only thing still open.
Maybe someone inside will know the Architect. Maybe I’ll get lucky. But there’s also a chance that men with brands burned into their arms will be waiting inside—eyes cold and cruel, talking of cures and saviors and death.
I swallow, steadying myself, when a woman brushes past me, her pale green and white skirts stained with mud from the street. She pauses at the doorway into the saloon. “You coming, young lady?” she asks with a sly, wicked half-wink. “Won’t know what’s insideunless you step through the door.”
My heart clicks and rubs against my ribs. My eyes gleam, mouth tucking itself into a defiant line. “Yes,” I answer, feeling like my mother’s daughter—brave, dauntless. Not the girl who once hid in a valley far away from here. “I’m coming in.”
She lifts her upper lip, revealing several missing teeth, but her eyes are a water-deep blue, and they urge me to follow her inside, through the doorway, into the Buffalo.
The saloon is dark, lit by candles burned down to stubs.
I skim the shadowed features of the men seated at the dozen or so tables, some playing cards, some sloshing back the amber drinks in their hands, and I suspect most of them are either traders here for the market or scavengers. And if any of them bear the starburst brand, I can’t tell in the dim candlelight.
The saloon is filled with those unafraid to stay up well after the sun has set, and I tell myself that I’m one of them.That I belong.But the uneasy patter of my heart in my ears reminds me that I’m definitely not.
In the back corner, a man is seated in a chair, playing a banjo—some slow, wandering song about losing his love in a river and chasing her formiles and miles, with a broken heart.
I half hope the round woman will take me by the hand and pull me through the smoky room to a seat in the corner, where she’ll explain to me the workings of a saloon, and I can ask her if she knows the Architect, but she saunters off to a series of stairs where she kisses a man full on the lips, and he slides his hands around her broad waist.
I’m on my own, and the beating of my heart in my ears only grows louder.
Most of the seats are taken, except for a few open stools at the bar, built in the center of the room. I feel the eyes pass over me, men lowering their cards to watch me with bloodshot eyes, men with stained teeth who I’m certain can sense that I am not accustomed to places like this. I’m easy prey. I try not to look at them directly, sensing it’s best to keep my gaze forward and jaw stiff as I cross the space between the door and the bar.
Mom used to tell me stories about the towns—about taverns and schoolhouses and dentist offices. But to walk through a smoky, candlelit room, with the savage glint of eyes on you, is a different experience entirely.
I reach the bar and slide onto one of the open stools, my heart now stuck in my throat, my jaw aching from clenching it too tightly. But I keep my eyes level, expression unfaltering, as if I frequent places like this in every town I visit. A girl who’s seen her fair share of gritty saloons and gritty faces and unwelcome stares.
“Little young, aren’t ya?” the man behind the bar asks, voice hoarse and layered in years of smoke, coming to stand in front of me. He squares his gaze on me, his skin pockmarked, muddy-brown hair slicked to one side, with a black mustache trimmed just above his upper lip, while both ears are pierced with silver rings. But no silver signet on either hand.
“No,” I reply flatly. Although I have no idea at what age I’m allowed in here—perhaps seventeenistoo young, and the man will swiftly kick me out.
He raises a thin, pale eyebrow—spots of black rimming his eyes,signs of illness—then rests a palm against the top of the bar. “All right then,” he says, chewing over a wad of tobacco. “What do you want?”
I rub my palms together beneath the bar.I have no idea how to answer this.
“We have white liquor and dark. That’s it.” His voice is deep, sensing my hesitation.
I glance down the bar, at the two men nearest me, hands wrapped around glasses filled with an amber-hued alcohol, same as most others in the saloon. The two men watch me from the corners of their eyes. “Dark,” I say.
The barman tugs his mouth down at the corner. “You have coin?”
Crap.I touch my coat and feel the bottle of aspirin still in my pocket. Beneath the edge of the bar, I pull it out and open the lid—keeping it out of sight—then pluck a single pill from inside. I lift my palm, holding the white pill up for the man to see. He leans forward and snatches it from me, turning it in his calloused fingers, before quickly clamping his hand closed—like he, too, doesn’t want anyone else to see.
“Where’d you get this?” he asks, eyelids flattened on me.
“Found it.”
He leans over the counter. He smells like tobacco smoke and something sharp, bitter, like vinegar. “You have any more?”
