You watch Cruz Montoya lean over Héctor’s bar like a man asking for ammunition, not gossip. The lantern light cuts his scar into two halves, one calm, one furious, and you can tell he’s the kind of cowboy who doesn’t threaten. He simply arrives, measures the room, and starts counting exits.
Héctor glances toward the back door, then lowers his voice. “Father Baltasar,” he says, “is a saint on Sunday and a wolf on Tuesday.” He wipes the same spot on the counter twice, nervous. “He’s got a weakness. Women. Young ones. And wine he never pays for.”
Cruz’s jaw tightens. “Proof,” he says.
Héctor exhales. “You want proof?” he murmurs. “Go behind the sacristy after midnight. You’ll see who knocks.”
You don’t sleep that night either, not really. You lie on a thin mattress that smells like damp straw, your ribs aching from the spoon’s last kiss, and you listen to the house breathe like a creature that hates you. Isidora’s footsteps move overhead, slow and satisfied, as if pain is something she stores in jars.
When the clock finally drags itself past midnight, you hear the faintest creak. Not in your room. Outside. A shape crossing the yard like it belongs there.
You creep to the crack in the wall and look.
A woman in a shawl slips along the fence line, head down, moving toward the church. She walks like she’s ashamed of her own shadow. And behind her, another figure, taller, following with deliberate patience.
Cruz.
Your stomach clenches. You whisper, “Go,” as if your breath can push him away. Because if he’s caught, Isidora will punish you for it. In this house, consequences are always delivered to you, like bills you didn’t make but still have to pay.
The next morning, Isidora is in a mood that tastes metallic. She sets your breakfast on the table, not food, not really, just cold tortillas and water with a float of grease, and she watches you eat like she’s feeding a dog she dislikes.
“You were up,” she says casually, eyes sharp.
You keep your gaze down. “No, señora.”
She smiles, and the smile is a knife. “Lying is a sin,” she says. “But sins can be… corrected.”
The spoon hangs from her hand, casual and dangerous. You swallow the last bite without tasting it, because your tongue is too busy praying you won’t vomit fear.
By afternoon, the news begins to leak through the cracks of Barranca Colorada the way smoke leaks under a door. Doña Rosa whispers to another woman in the marketplace. A miner’s wife crosses herself and says, “Dios nos perdone.” A child runs by repeating something he doesn’t understand: “El padre had a lady at night. El padre had a lady at night.”
And you realize Cruz didn’t just watch.
He pulled a thread.
You see him again at sundown, leaning against the post outside Héctor’s cantina, watching the road like he’s waiting for a snake to come out of a hole. When your eyes meet his, he doesn’t smile. He only nods once, like he’s telling you: I’m still here.
Your chest tightens with a feeling you hate because it’s dangerous. Hope.
You try to walk past without speaking, but his voice stops you, low and controlled. “If Isidora touches you again,” he says, “you come to Héctor.”
You almost laugh because it sounds impossible. “I can’t,” you whisper. “She’ll kill me.”
Cruz’s gaze doesn’t move. “Then I’ll make sure she can’t,” he says.
Before you can answer, Isidora’s mosquito door slams.
“There you are,” she calls out, sweet like rot. “Talking again.”
Your spine turns to ice.
Cruz straightens slightly. “Good evening, señora,” he says, polite.
Isidora’s smile widens, but her eyes are hard. “Cowboys pass through,” she says. “They don’t plant roots in other people’s yards.”
Cruz tips his hat. “I’m not planting,” he says. “I’m checking the soil.”
Isidora’s jaw tightens a fraction. “My home is my business,” she says.
Cruz steps closer, just enough that she has to tilt her head up to maintain her pride. “And the law is everyone’s business,” he replies.
Isidora laughs softly. “Law?” she says. “In Barranca Colorada?”
Then she turns to you, and the sweetness drops. “Inside,” she snaps.
You move, because your body is trained to obey faster than your mind can argue. You feel the air shift as you pass her, feel the punishment waiting like a raised hand.
The door closes behind you. The house smells like soap and violence.
Isidora doesn’t hit you immediately. That’s how you know it will be worse. She walks around you slowly, circling, spoon in hand, and you keep your eyes down because looking at her is “disrespect.”
“You like that cowboy,” she whispers.
You shake your head. “No, señora.”
Isidora’s breath hits your ear. “Liar,” she says. “You’re getting ideas.”
You taste bile. “I don’t—”
She grabs your hair and yanks your head back. “Listen,” she hisses. “Your father left you nothing. Nothing. Not land, not gold, not even a decent name after the mine crushed him.”
Your throat burns. You hate how she says your father like he was trash.
“He was a good man,” you whisper before you can stop yourself.
The spoon hits your cheek so fast you see sparks. Your face explodes with heat, but you don’t cry. You bite the inside of your mouth until you taste blood, because tears feed her.
“Good men die,” Isidora says quietly. “And girls like you…” She leans close, voice soft as poison. “Girls like you belong to whoever pays for you.”
Your skin goes cold. “What do you mean?” you whisper.
Isidora smiles, satisfied. “I mean you’ll stop being a problem soon,” she says. “A man from the mine has been asking. He needs a wife. He needs hands. He pays in silver.”
Your stomach drops like you stepped off a cliff. “No,” you say, breathless. “Please—”
Isidora’s eyes glitter. “You don’t get to say no,” she replies. “You’re a mouth I feed. A body I own.”
That night, you don’t sleep. You don’t even lie down. You sit with your back against the wall and listen for footsteps, because the idea of being sold makes your skin crawl like ants under it.
At dawn, you do something you’ve never done.
You run.
Not far, not gracefully. You stumble across the yard, barefoot, breath shredding your lungs, and you sprint toward Héctor’s cantina like the ground behind you is burning. You hear Isidora’s shout explode in the air, sharp enough to cut birds out of the sky.
“Elena!” she screams. “Get back here!”
You don’t. You can’t.
You burst into the cantina, hair wild, face swollen, hands shaking so hard you can barely stand. Héctor looks up, startled, and then his expression hardens like he’s finally ashamed.
Behind the bar, Cruz is there, already awake, already waiting as if he knew the exact second you’d break. His eyes flick over your bruises and something changes in his face, something deep and dangerous.
You open your mouth, but the words come out broken. “She’s going to sell me,” you whisper. “She said I’m… I’m hers.”
Cruz steps toward you slowly, careful not to spook you like a wounded animal. “Look at me,” he says.
You lift your eyes.
“You’re not hers,” Cruz says, voice steady. “You’re a person. And you’re under my protection now.”
Before you can answer, the door slams open.
Isidora storms in wearing her Sunday face and Monday rage, spoon in hand like a scepter. Two men follow her: the mine foreman and Father Baltasar Urrutia himself, robe dusty at the hem like he came in a hurry.
“There she is,” Isidora cries out, performing for the room. “My poor, sick girl. She runs off and frightens people. Forgive her. She’s not well.”
Father Baltasar lifts his palms, holy and greasy. “Child,” he says, eyes on you like you’re something he wants to pin down, “come home. Obey. Your stepmother has cared for you.”
You feel your stomach twist. The priest’s gaze lingers too long, and your skin crawls.
Cruz doesn’t move aside. He stands between you and them like a fence built out of bone.
“You want her to come home,” Cruz says to the priest, calm. “To what? More bruises?”
Isidora gasps theatrically. “Bruises?” she repeats. “She falls! She’s clumsy. She—”
Cruz lifts a hand, stopping her. “Save the play,” he says. “The town’s tired of your theater.”
Father Baltasar’s eyes narrow. “Who are you,” he asks, “to accuse a respectable woman?”
Cruz’s voice is quiet and deadly. “The man who watched you behind your sacristy,” he says. “The man who saw the shawl. The man who heard the coins.”
The priest’s face twitches, a crack in his saint mask. The mine foreman shifts uneasily. Héctor behind the bar goes pale, realizing this is bigger than gossip now.
Isidora’s smile stiffens. “Lies,” she snaps. “This stranger comes to stir trouble. Elena is mine by law.”
“By law?” Cruz repeats, and his mouth almost curves into a smile, except there’s no humor in it. “Then let’s talk law.”
He reaches into his coat and pulls out a folded paper, worn at the edges, like it has traveled far. He holds it up so the room can see the stamp.
“Do you recognize this?” Cruz asks.
Isidora’s eyes flick to it, then away. “I don’t read papers,” she scoffs.
“You should start,” Cruz says, and he hands it to Héctor instead. “Read it out loud.”
Héctor’s hands tremble as he unfolds the document. His eyes scan, then widen. He clears his throat. “It’s… it’s a claim,” he stammers. “From the mining company’s insurer. Compensation for the Reyes family. For Samuel Reyes’ death in the collapse.”
Your breath catches. Compensation. Your father.
Héctor continues, voice growing steadier as he reads. “It says the payment was never delivered to Elena Reyes,” he says. “It says it was diverted… signed for by Isidora Paredes de Reyes.”
Isidora’s face drains of color. “That’s… that’s—”
Cruz’s voice slices through her. “The money your father died earning,” he says to you, not softly. “She stole it. And she’s been using your silence to keep it.”
Your knees go weak. You grip the edge of the bar to stay upright. “My father… left something?” you whisper.
Father Baltasar steps forward quickly, voice sharp. “This is not the place,” he says, trying to regain control. “We will handle this privately.”
Cruz turns to him, eyes like flint. “No,” he says. “Private is how monsters survive.”
He nods toward the door. “Marcos,” he calls.
A man you haven’t noticed before steps in from outside, tall, quiet, wearing no badge but moving like law. Behind him, two uniformed rurales appear, boots heavy on the floorboards.
Isidora’s mouth opens, stunned. “What is this?” she sputters.
Cruz’s voice is steady. “It’s the part where consequences arrive,” he says.
Father Baltasar backs up a step. “You can’t—”
One of the rurales lifts a paper. “Padre Baltasar Urrutia,” he says, “you are requested for questioning regarding abuse of office and—” he glances at the document “—coercion.”
The priest’s face turns gray. Isidora grabs her spoon tighter as if a wooden utensil can fight the law. The mine foreman starts sweating, eyes darting toward the door, calculating escape.
And you stand there, shaking, realizing something big and terrifying.
Cruz didn’t come through Barranca Colorada by accident.
He came with purpose.
Because when he looks at you now, he doesn’t look like a cowboy passing through. He looks like a man who has been tracking a debt for years and finally found the thief.
Isidora snaps into rage. “She belongs to me!” she screams, pointing at you. “She’s mine!”
Cruz takes one step forward, and his voice drops into a quiet that makes the whole cantina freeze. “She belongs to herself,” he says. “And if you touch her again, Isidora… you’ll learn what it feels like to be treated like livestock.”
The rurales move in. Isidora shrieks, struggling, but her power collapses the second hands grab her arms. Father Baltasar tries to protest, but his words crumble when the crowd begins to gather outside, drawn by the noise, drawn by the scent of scandal.
People who ignored your bruises now stare, wide-eyed, watching the “saint” and the “respectable widow” dragged into the light.
You stand trembling as the room shifts around you. Héctor looks at you like he’s seeing you for the first time. Doña Rosa peeks through the doorway, hand to her mouth, shame written all over her face.
Cruz turns back to you and speaks softly now, like he’s stepping away from war to address a survivor. “Elena,” he says, using your name like it matters, “you’re safe.”
You swallow, eyes burning. “Why?” you whisper. “Why would you do this?”
Cruz’s gaze holds yours. “Because your father saved my life once,” he says. “In the mine. He pulled me out when the beams fell. And before he died… he asked me to look for you if anything ever happened.”
Your breath catches. Your father’s shadow rises in your mind, steady hands, kind eyes, a man who died without knowing if you’d be okay.
“And you came,” you whisper.
Cruz nods. “I came,” he says. “And I’m not leaving until you’re free.”
Outside, Isidora’s screams fade into the dust of the street. Inside, for the first time in three years, you stand without a command over your head.
Your hands still tremble. Your body still expects pain. But the air feels different.
It feels like the world finally noticed you exist.
And now, the town that looked away is going to watch what happens next.