Dusk began to rise over the town of Two Stone, a gray and purple mess of sunbeams over the desert and the little structures erected upon it. Adelaide Preston sat on a railing at the old church on the corner of the street. The bell tower rang one sharp, crisp tone, signifying that it was 7:30, the final bell toll after sunset.
Adelaide was due to return to her home across town where she lived with her parents. They didn't appreciate that the eighteen-year-old didn't live someplace else with a husband, even if she did earn enough working at the church to contribute to the family.
There was a hollering in the air, like there was a commotion somewhere on the outskirts of town. Adelaide hitched up her skirt so that the fabric wouldn't get caught on the low-hanging weeds and brambles that lined the ground. A coyote laughed somewhere far-off in the plains, and Adelaide used what was left of the daylight to navigate towards home and to the lighted part of the street.
The commotion continued as soon as she'd crossed the first block, not even half a mile from her home. A group of horses and their people were snickering as they traveled down the street at a trot. The bounty hunters that rode along the road cussed and spat like drunkards.
"Blazes, girl," mumbled the one in the front of the pack. Adelaide gripped at the long sleeves of her blouse, as a chill wind had picked up, dismissing them as lowly wolf-whistlers who preyed on the teenage girls in town. "Mind if we stop you over here for one second?" The burly man commanded, blocking her from continuing on the path under the streetlight.
"I'll be damned," Adelaide spat out softly to herself, trying to move so that the men would leave her alone. They ought to have better things to do, she thought, considering that all they were after was a little bit of the government's money in exchange for catching criminals. She hopped over a low-lying fence bordered by darkness to avert their attention, but when she came back to the lighted street she was met with a burgundy horse in her face.
"Ah, see, this one's out here airin' her lungs," a scrawny fellow towards the back on a dun stallion guffawed, "Bet she's the one."
"I beg your pardon," Adelaide said, trying to avoid the group, but startling when she looked up to find herself face to face with the barrel of a revolver. She looked at the thick finger resting tentatively on the trigger, refusing to say a word.
"Naw, that can't be her, she couldn't be that dull to run around here right now."
"This is her," he said, gunned hand refusing to bow as he pulled a folded piece of paper from a pocket, a wrinkled photograph. He passed it to the man next to him who had dismounted his horse and held the dusty photograph up in front of Adelaide's face. The photo of the woman was dim and he narrowed his eyes.
"Cook, I'm tellin' you, this is the one." He lowered his gun, seeing she wasn't going anywhere, and Adelaide supposed it was time to ask who in the world they thought she was.
"Hey, hey!" She protested, as they started to bind her wrists from behind. "What's going on? I haven't done a thing! I'm just trying to get home!"
"Sure, you haven't, Miss McIntyre. We're gonna have to take you down to the sheriff real quick, then after that you can go wherever you want."
"My name's Preston, it's not McIntyre," she said, pointless amidst the boyish commotion of the hunters. Without acknowledging her, they gathered quickly and pitched her small body onto the back of one of the horses like she was an unruly drunkard. She protested several times more, precariously balanced and tied, traveling the road into the darkness surrounded by the smell of horse shit and human sweat. Her heart thumped in her chest as she lay behind a strange man who reeked of tobacco as they moseyed down the road towards the sheriff's office
"Alright now, baby," the gruff leader said as he let her off the back of the horse. She relaxed a bit knowing that she wouldn't fall six feet face-first onto the gravel. A few of them hooted like she was a prostitute flirting on the corner. "We're just gonna hand you over and Mr. Lancaster will take good care of you." Adelaide decided not to say a thing as they unlocked the door to the dark building and shoved her in. She didn't look forward to explaining this when she got back home, smelling like horses with a dusty skirt.
"Sir, I don't know what you're talking about. I swear on my mother's life." Adelaide was sat in an office lit only by a single lamp in the corner. Her face was flushed and there was a whine in her voice like she was about to cry. It was late now, she hadn't had a meal in hours, and now she was all the way across town. "I was just walking home from the church - I was working there - and these men came and picked me up and didn't tell me nothing about what I had done."
"Cora McIntyre..." A man lit dimly by the lamp mumbled, scribbling something down on some paperwork he had strewn upon his desk. Adelaide sat in the chair facing him; the door to the office was shut and one of the posse who'd brought her there was positioned outside.
"That's not my name, I'm Adelaide Preston. I live at the end of the street that the church is on, I swear. My family hasn't been here long. I don't know if we have the proper papers. But I haven't done a single illegal thing in my life."
The sheriff looked up at her like she was telling a good joke. "Huh?" He looked her up and down. "See, what I have here is that twenty-year-old Cora McIntyre walked into Bell's Grocery down on High Street at 7:15 this evening, pulled out a six-shooter stolen from her father, and took all the cash in his register." He shifted the papers around. "And you're telling me that's not you?"
"I told you already. I live in town, and my name's Adelaide Preston."
"My boys told me you said that. Can't seem to find that in any of my records, though. Convenient." He stood up to double-check, searching in a drawer behind him that held the town documents. "Are you sure you have all the necessary papers filed, if you are who you say you are?"
Adelaide stuttered, not wanting to tell him how she was born out of wedlock and outside the country, something her parents had had an unresolvable amount of shame over for nearly the past two decades. They had told her that they'd lost her birth certificate in a fire when she was very young, but Adelaide now knew the truth. For now, the lack of documentation mostly meant that it was hard for her to live there without losing her job. If the sheriff found out, her family would have one less source of income.
"I...they must be in there somewhere." She wrapped her fingers around a tight fist.
"You said you worked over at that church across town?" He'd returned back to the desk.
"Oh," she froze up, fearing saying anything else that would either incriminate her as an undocumented teenager or imply she really was this Cora McIntyre, wherever that girl was now.
"Well, then," the sheriff said, candlelight glinting off his gilded badge. "Miss Preston," he used a lilt when he said her name. "I suppose you can either provide me with your documentation, or you can tell me what I'm looking to hear. There's really no other option."
Adelaide sat there, tight, avoiding his glare, face red.
"That's what I thought," he moved the photograph of the woman to the side. "I don't know what's going on with you, or whether you really are one of those ladies from the bed-house, but until we come across a gal who says she did it, I'm afraid county law says we gotta hold you."
"Sorry, from where?" Adelaide's posture straightened, suddenly aware of her possible fate. "You can't do that, I can't stay here! My family doesn't know I got picked up out there, they're probably worried about me!" With the lack of a gun in her face, she felt like she could say anything she wanted to the gentleman.
"Well, honey," he murmured, peering to the window next to him that did little more than look upon a dark alley. He ruffled the dark shirt he was wearing, bringing his hand up to his hair, slicked back with grease. "I'm sure the county would be able to let it fly if they had, say, a five dollar donation." His eyes were dark but Adelaide felt compelled to look at him.
"Five dollars?" Adelaide said, catching herself, remembering the man outside the door was probably waiting to act if things got a little too rowdy. She had maybe fifteen cents in a little bag somewhere, but when she went messing around in her coat pocket she found that it was missing. "I don't have anywhere near that amount on me." She boldened up. "And I don't think the county even takes bribes, mister."
"Sweetheart. Whoever you are, whatever your name is and wherever you're from," he cooed, "I'll tell you a thing you should learn from Two Stone. First, it'd be better if you called me Sir, and second, I'm sure there's some way we can work this out." It didn't look like there was going to be a way out of there anytime soon, unless she gave the man what he was after.
