Their evenings were spent by the hearth, no longer in strained silence, but in genuine companionship. Nita's English improved rapidly, and she began to teach Elias phrases in Apache. They laughed at their mutual mispronunciations. The desperate, life-saving intimacy of that first freezing night had slowly transformed into a deep, unspoken respect, and perhaps, something more.
Chapter 7: The Hostile Town
Eventually, supplies ran too low to ignore. Elias had to hitch the wagon and make the ten-mile trek into Oakhaven. Against his better judgment, he brought Nita with him. She refused to hide in the cabin like a shameful secret.
The moment their wagon rolled onto the muddy main street, the atmosphere shifted. Conversations stopped. Women pulled their children close, and men spat tobacco juice into the dirt, glaring with undisguised hatred. Inside the general store, the proprietor, a balding man named Higgins, crossed his arms. "I don't serve her kind, Elias. You know that." Elias slammed a gold coin onto the wooden counter. "My money spends the same as anyone else's, Higgins. Load the flour and the salt. Now."
Higgins begrudgingly filled the order, but the tension in the room was suffocating. As they exited the store, a group of drunk ranch hands blocked their path. "Lookee here," a man with a scarred cheek sneered. "Thorne brought his pet into town." Elias didn't hesitate. He stepped forward, his hand hovering over the Colt revolver on his hip. "Move aside, Jenkins." Jenkins laughed, but looking into Elias’s cold, unflinching eyes, he slowly backed away. The message was clear: Elias would kill to protect the woman standing beside him.
The confrontation in town had consequences. A week later, as Elias and Nita were riding back from the southern ridge after repairing a fence line, the crack of a rifle shattered the afternoon quiet.
A bullet whizzed past Elias’s ear, embedding itself in a pine tree. "Get down!" Elias roared, pulling Nita off her horse and diving behind a cluster of boulders. Three men on horseback—Jenkins and his cronies—were firing from the ridge above. They wanted to teach Elias a lesson about breaking frontier hierarchy.