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A young photographer rides into a thirsty New Mexico town and finds a land baron trying to own water itself. When her telegraphist brother vanishes, she follows a trail through quarries and ranch gates, using flash powder and nerve to expose forged deeds, free her kin, and help the townsfolk claim their spring.
The stagecoach lurched as if it had stepped on a rattler. Dust boiled up, coughing through the seams. When the door swung open, Juniper Ames set her boots to the street of Drybell and felt the town’s heat roll under her skirt like an oven door. A red water tower leaned on its stilts. A line of hitching posts baked by the false-front shops. The sun sat on the mountains and did not blink.
“Junie!” A skinny boy in a telegraph cap ran from the depot. His ears were too big for his head, and his grin went ahead of him.
She let him slam into her. “You grew,” she said into his hair. It smelled of ink and hot dust. “Or else I shrank on the road.”
Eli bounced back and tried to look like a man. “I got promoted to night watch for the wire. Mr. Granger says I can type with eyes closed.” He peered at her cases. “It all made it?”
Juniper patted the wooden trunk and the leather satchel that held her camera, plates, tripod. “All here. No broken glass. I’ll need a dark corner and water. Plenty of both, I hope.”
Eli’s grin faded. “Water’s a talk people don’t finish lately. Come on. I’ll show you the livery. Ocho lets folks rent a stall if they keep it neat.”
They crossed the narrow street. A piano clinked inside the cantina. The canvas door slapped open and a warm smell of beans and fried dough drifted out. A woman with a braid thick as a rope watched them from the shade—eyes careful, hands gentle on a boy’s shoulders.
“That’s Widow Estrada,” Eli said. “She feeds half this town when their pockets go thin. She’ll feed you, if you let her.”
Juniper tipped two fingers off her hat. Widow Estrada nodded like they’d already met. In the livery, a dozen horses flicked tails. Dust motes spun in a shaft of light. Juniper unbuckled her cases and rolled up her sleeves.
“We can black out this corner,” she said. “Hang the tarp. I don’t need much.” She tested boards with her knuckles. “This’ll do.”
“You ain’t setting up no glass contraption,” a voice said behind her.
She turned. A tall man with a red vest leaned in the door. He had a neat mustache you could measure fence lines with. Two men stood behind him with spurs talking in whispers.
“I’m Calder Nash,” the man said. “I own Red Butte, and most water from here to the ridge. Don’t want folks snapping up pictures and stirring gossip with ‘em. A camera makes a man look twice where once would do.”
Juniper set the satchel between her boots. “I take landscapes. Families. Babies in bathtubs. Gossip is your own business.”
He smiled. It didn’t touch his eyes. “Keep your glass away from my spreads. We’re clear?”