The directions, given in a low murmur by the saloon keeper, were less a map and more a series of omens. Follow the dry arroyo until it forks at the lightning-scarred cottonwood.
Take the left path. When the bluffs turn the color of old blood, you’ll find his claim.
Can’t miss it. The silence is different there.
Beatrice Kincaid thought the man’s warning absurd. Silence was an absence of sound; it could not have a different character.
Yet, as her rented mare plodded through the ankle-deep dust, the air grew heavy and still. The chirr of insects faded.
The wind, which had been her constant, abrasive companion since arriving in Redemption, seemed to hold its breath. The bluffs to her right did indeed glow with a dark, menacing red under the afternoon sun.
She was exhausted, her body a collection of aches from the previous day’s disastrous solo trek. The memory of the rattlesnake’s dry, papery hiss still sent a shiver of ice through her veins.
Pride was a poor poultice for terror, and hers had been shredded, leaving the raw, humbling knowledge of her own profound ignorance. Her books had taught her the taxonomy of the desert, but not its language. For that, she needed a translator, and everyone—from the suspicious sheriff to the grim-faced woman at the general store—had pointed her toward this one man.
They called him Wes Callahan. Or, more often, in whispers laced with a mix of fear and grudging respect, “The Black Fox.”
Finally, she saw it. Tucked against the base of the bluffs was a cabin, less built and more wrestled from the landscape.
It was fashioned from rough-hewn timber and stone, its lines stark and functional against the wild terrain. A lean-to sheltered a muscular buckskin horse that watched her approach with intelligent eyes.
There was no garden of pleasantries, only a patch of stubborn-looking vegetables and herbs fenced off with ocotillo stalks. This was not a home; it was a fortress.
A low growl started from the shadows of the cabin’s porch. A rangy, brindle-colored dog with more than a little wolf in its lineage rose to its feet, the fur on its spine ridged like a saw.
Beatrice pulled her mare to a halt, her heart beginning to thud against her ribs with a heavy, primal rhythm.
The cabin door opened, and the man who emerged made the dog seem welcoming.
He was tall and lean, built of sinew and sun-hardened leather. Dark, shaggy hair fell over a brow creased with permanent suspicion.
His face was all sharp angles and unforgiving planes, his jaw shadowed with a day’s worth of stubble. But it was his eyes that seized her attention.
They were a pale, piercing grey, the color of a winter sky, and they assessed her with an unnerving stillness that stripped away her defenses layer by layer. In his hands, held with a casual familiarity that was more menacing than any outright threat, was a long-barreled shotgun.
He didn’t raise it. He didn’t have to.
Its presence was a full stop at the end of an unspoken sentence.
“You’re lost,” he said. It wasn’t a question.
His voice was a low rasp, like stones grinding together.
Beatrice stiffened, forcing her shoulders back. She had faced down condescending department heads and sneering colleagues at the university.
She would not be intimidated by a… a rustic. “I assure you, I am precisely where I intend to be.
I am looking for a Mr. Wes Callahan.”
The man’s gaze swept over her, taking in her dusty but still-impractical riding skirt, the fine leather of her satchel, the determined, out-of-place set of her jaw. A flicker of something—derision, perhaps—crossed his face.
“You found him. State your business and be on your way.
I’m not buying whatever you’re selling.”
“I am not a peddler,” she said, her tone sharper than she intended. “My name is Beatrice Kincaid.
I am a botanist from Boston. I require a guide into the canyons, and I have been told you are the most knowledgeable.”
The corner of his mouth twitched, a cynical parody of a smile. “A botanist.”
He said the word as if it were a particularly foul type of insect. “Come all the way from Boston to pick flowers.”
“I am not here to ‘pick flowers,’” she retorted, bristling at the simplification. “I am on a scientific expedition to locate and document a specific, undocumented species of the family Liliaceae.
A night-blooming lily with unique properties.”
Callahan leaned one shoulder against the porch post, the shotgun resting in the crook of his arm. The dog, sensing its master’s lack of alarm, sat on its haunches but continued to watch her, its yellow eyes unblinking.
“The desert’s got all kinds of lilies,” he said, his voice flat. “Most of them are best left alone.”
“This one is different. Its alkaloid compounds may have significant medicinal applications. Finding it is… a matter of great importance.”
She thought of her father, his breathing growing shallower each week, the Boston physicians shaking their heads. The thought tightened a knot of desperation in her chest.
She had to make him understand.
“So you can dig it up, press it in a book, and take it back east to show off to your friends.”
His contempt was a physical force, pressing in on her. She felt a flush of anger rise up her neck.
“My work is for the advancement of science and medicine, not for drawing-room amusement. I am prepared to offer substantial payment for your services.
Fifty dollars now, and another fifty upon successful completion of the expedition.”
It was a fortune in this part of the country, more than most men earned in half a year. She expected it to at least garner his interest.
Instead, he simply stared at her, his expression unchanged.
“The canyons don’t care about your money,” he said softly. “They’ll kill a fool for free.”
Her disastrous encounter with the rattlesnake flashed in her mind. “I am not a fool,” she insisted, the words sounding hollow even to her own ears.
“I am a trained scientist. I merely lack familiarity with the specific local geography.”
“You lack more than that,” he countered, his grey eyes pinning her. “I saw your tracks down by the wash yesterday.
Wandering in circles. You’re lucky a snake or a storm didn’t kill you.
Next time, you won’t be.”
He had seen her? The thought was mortifying.
Her private, terrifying failure had been observed by this hostile stranger. Her humiliation curdled into defiance.
“Which is precisely why I am seeking a guide, Mr. Callahan. Your expertise for my… capital.”
She hated reducing her quest to a financial transaction, but it was the only language she thought a man like this might comprehend.
“My answer is no.”
The finality in his tone was like a door slamming shut. There was no room for negotiation.
“But… you haven’t even considered it,” she sputtered, her composure beginning to fray. “One hundred dollars is a significant sum.”
“There’s not enough money in Boston to make me lead a person like you into that country.”
“A person like me?” she demanded, her voice rising. “And what sort of person is that, precisely?”
He pushed himself off the post and took a step forward. The dog rose with him.
“The kind that thinks everything is for sale. The kind that thinks a fancy name for a plant gives you the right to own it.
The kind that sees this land as something to be conquered and cataloged and carried off in a bag. You people come and you take.
You take the gold, you take the grass, you take the water.
Now you want to take the flowers. Go home, Miss Kincaid.
There’s nothing for you here.”
Each word was a carefully aimed dart, and they all found their mark. He saw her not as a scientist, but as a plunderer.
A thief in a petticoat. In his eyes, she was no different from Silas Croft and the other cattle barons bleeding the land dry—an idea she found utterly repellent.
Her societal prejudice, the ingrained belief in the superiority of her educated, civilized world, collided with his deep, immovable mistrust. He was an ignorant, uncivilized man, she told herself.
A brute who couldn’t possibly grasp the importance of her work. Yet his accusations carried a weight that she couldn’t simply dismiss.
“You misjudge me, sir,” she said, her voice trembling slightly with suppressed fury. “My only intention is to study the specimen.
To understand it. Its existence could save lives.”
“Or you could get yourself killed and me along with you,” he shot back. “I’m not interested.
Find some other fool in town to get lost with.”
He turned then, a clear dismissal, and started back toward his cabin.
Panic seized Beatrice. He was her last hope.
The saloon keeper had been clear: If the Fox won’t take you, no one will.
“Wait!” she called out, her voice raw with a desperation that shamed her.
He paused at the door but didn’t turn around.
“Please, Mr. Callahan. This isn’t just for science.
It’s… personal.” The admission cost her dearly, a crack in the scholarly armor she wore so carefully.
For a long moment, he was silent. She watched the rigid line of his back, hoping for some sign of softening, some flicker of empathy.
When he finally spoke, his voice was devoid of any warmth. “Everyone’s reason is personal.
The desert doesn’t care about that either.”
He stepped inside the cabin, and the door closed with a solid, definitive thud, leaving Beatrice alone in the vast, oppressive silence, the shadow of the blood-red bluffs creeping over her. The dog gave one last, low growl before padding after its master.
She was left with nothing but the dust, the heat, and the bitter taste of utter failure.