Chapter Seven – What the Rope Had Been For
The woman bent and picked up one end of the cut rope.
She held it between her fingers.
The cowboy frowned.
“What are you doing?”
“Remembering.”
She turned it over.
A small section near the knot had been marked with dark wax.
A seal.
Almost invisible beneath the dust.
The cowboy leaned closer.
“That belong to them?”
“No.”
Her expression changed.
That was the first moment he saw fear.
Not for herself.
For something else.
“What is it?”
She hesitated.
Then held the rope toward him.
Pressed into the wax was a small symbol.
A crest.
Simple.
European.
The cowboy stopped breathing.
He knew it.
Not from the town.
From home.
Years ago.
From documents he had tried very hard to forget.
The woman saw his reaction.
“You know this mark.”
He said nothing.
Her eyes sharpened.
“You do.”
The riders waited in the background.
The heat seemed to disappear.
Suddenly, the rope was no longer evidence of one local dispute.
It connected this place to something far older.
Something tied to him.
The woman lowered her voice.
“Who are they?”
The cowboy stared at the wax.
His answer came slowly.
“They are not who I thought they were.”
