Red Willow Crossing

The forge in Red Willow couhed like an old mule at dawn. Etta Hale felt the heat against the inside of her forearms the way other people felt a clocked hour: steady, insistently exact. Coal snapped with the small, bright sounds of insects; a bead of sweat traveled the ridge of her nose and dropped onto the anvil with a soft, satisfying hiss. Around her the town rose slow and practical: clapboard houses leaned as if in conversation, the saloon's sign drooped on a single hinge and the preacher's bell sat cold and small in its steeple. Wind came through the alley with the faint tang of the willow creek, carrying dust and the iron-sweet smell of river water that always made her think of childhood afternoons when her mother braided her hair by the kitchen door.

Etta's hammer fell again. The horseshoe took shape, the metal folding under the heat and her rhythm. She knew the horses that came through Red Willow by the set of their hocks, by the way a mare would nibble at the anvil's corner when a stranger leaned close. The first customer of the morning, old Mr. Park, came with his piebald mare and a list of complaints about a loose shoe. He settled on the workbench with the long, patient face of a man whose only business was to wait until the world made small compromises.

'You hear about them surveyors?' Mr. Park asked, jaw working as if he might grind the words out with his teeth.

Etta wiped her hands on a rag and glanced toward the street where the telegraph pole cast a narrow, proud shadow. 'Heard they're marking the river bank. Ward & Co., they say.'

Mr. Park spat, a wet, careless thing. 'Company men smell like soap and money. They mark, then they take. Rivers make good bargains.'

Her father, Cal Hale, came in then, slow as the years had made him. His hands were still the same pair that had taught Etta the bellows and the tempering — nicked, burn-scarred, the knuckles knotted like old rope. He set down a battered lunch pail and watched her work with the quiet gravity of a man who had built his life in small, hard things.

'Don't let the talk scare you,' he said, and his voice was a rasp of gravel. 'Wind and men pass through towns. We keep the forge and the well and hold our teeth when the fancy comes.'

Etta wanted to agree; the truth lodged in her throat like a pebble. The town could be stubborn, could patch a roof and laugh off a new threat, but the river changed every year and so did the mapmakers. She looked at the piece of folded paper in her father's breast pocket and felt its crease like a seam through the day. It was a small map, the sort men kept when they thought the world might be traded in pieces. She tamped the hot steel, flattened a curl, and listened to the clap of boots on the boardwalk outside. Red Willow had its routine and the routine had a dangerous comfort: it made people believe any disruption would be brief. When men come with stamps and contracts, Etta could not tell if she had more fear or more stubbornness. Either way, she wrapped the new shoe and tied the leather. The bell over the bakery jingled, and with it the town prepared for another ordinary day.