The Spring of Sagebrush Hollow

The sun came up slow over Sagebrush Hollow, a round coin of pale fire that rubbed the dust on Main Street into a kind of glow. Marta Reyes turned the iron on her anvil and gave it another short, practiced tap. Sparks flew like tiny, disgruntled stars and landed in the grainy dirt, smoking for a second before surrendering to the wind. The bell above the workshop door was a bit loose, but it made a trustworthy, familiar clatter when someone entered; Marta liked the sound — it meant life, trade, the town moving like a stubborn clock.

Her hands were a map of small burns and lines where metal had met skin and taught her something each time. She wrapped a leather strap over the wheel hub of a wagon axle, feeling the grain of the wood beneath her palm, smelling grease and coffee and the faint citrus of soap from yesterday's wash. That was the kind of morning she preferred: simple, certain. Her brother Tommy whistled a tuneless song out by the hitching post, his voice up a pitch that made him sound younger than his fourteen years. Marta had once been that careless; she remembered the way town smelled when she was a child — miners' smoke, the sharp tang of horses, a river that always seemed a day away.

Tommy came in wiping his hands on his trousers and leaving a half-circle of dust on the floor. 'Done with the rim, Marts?' he asked. He always called her Marts when he wanted something — she knew that look.

'Almost. There's a hairline in the spoke that needs one more heat.' She tapped the metal and felt it tick, like a small heart. 'You'll help me roll it in, won't you? Then you can fetch the postman's saddlebag. Old Huxley said the bank's got papers to sign.'

At the mention of the bank, Tommy's face hardened. Everybody in town kept a careful eye on the bank lately. Mr. Huxley, in his pressed coat and spectacles, had the sort of smile that looked like a coin glinting when the sun hit it just right. Today, the bank had something that tugged at the edges of every conversation: a surveyor's flag, bright and stubborn, sticking out near the old spring on Cartwright's land.

Outside, a wagon rolled past, the wheels thumping in that low, unmistakable rhythm that made horses snort and people glance up. From the saloon came the scrape of a chair and the muffled laugh of someone telling a story that could be true or true enough.

Marta wiped her hands on her apron and leaned on the anvil. The town had its usual rhythm, but she could feel an edge under the steady beat, like a string pulled tight. Folks whispered about the railroad men with their maps and glass instruments — men who measured land and then decided it belonged to the one who counted it first. For Marta and Tommy, the spring on the Reeses' land was not just a landmark; it meant water for the vegetable patch in summer, enough feed for the mare Brindle in deep drought, and a little dignity in a town that traded dignity for contracts without asking first.

Tommy left with the saddlebag clutched to his chest. Marta held the rim in the vise and listened to the town breathe around her, the way an animal listens before it runs. She had learned early that small things could taste like trouble: a ledger missing a line, a surveyor's flag that changed the flow of a road. She set her jaw and decided to finish the wheel.