"DON'T LET HIM SEE HER," HER STEPMOTHER HISSED — HE WAS ALREADY WATCHING

"DON'T LET HIM SEE HER," HER STEPMOTHER HISSED — HE WAS ALREADY WATCHING The heat was a physical thing, a weight that settled in the lungs and pressed the dust of the street into a fine, baked sheet. From the deep shadow of the smithy, Silas watched the world through the shimmer of it, the air a liquid lens that distorted the already wavering lines of the dry-goods store and the saloon across the way. His hammer was silent, resting on the anvil where it had last fallen, its steel head still holding a deep, resonant warmth that bled into the cooling iron of the horseshoe beneath it. For hours, the only sounds had been the buzz of a persistent fly and the creak of the saloon doors as men slipped out of the sun and into the manufactured twilight within, their thirst a more urgent need than any work the day might hold. Silas was a man made of stillness, his large frame settled onto a low stool in a way that suggested he had grown there, a part of the soot-stained timbers and the hard-packed earth of the floor. His hands, resting on his knees, were a map of his life, the palms thick with callus and the knuckles scarred with old burns and the fine, white lines of careless cuts, each one a memory of metal made compliant. He did not move often, and when he did, it was with a deliberation that conserved every ounce of effort, a habit learned from years of working alone under a sun that gave no quarter.