By sunset, five children would either leave Silver Creek together—or spend the rest of their lives wondering what had happened to one another.

And the only person fighting to keep them together was six years old.

Clara Whitmore stood barefoot beside the courthouse wagon while snow gathered in her tangled brown hair.

Her coat had once belonged to a grown man. It swallowed her shoulders, hung nearly to her ankles, and had been patched so many times that little remained of the original cloth.

Three boys crowded beneath its folds.

Eli was crying silently.

Jonah stared at the frozen ground.

Micah watched the townspeople with the terrible, motionless suspicion of a child who had already discovered that adults could not always be trusted.

At Clara’s feet rested a wicker basket lined with a faded blue quilt.

Inside lay Daniel, their premature baby brother.

He was barely three weeks old.

His face was smaller than Clara’s palm.

Every breath sounded borrowed.

The people of Silver Creek had gathered beneath a bruised winter sky to watch the children be given away.

Men from the mines stood with their gloved hands buried inside heavy coats. Ranchers leaned against hitching posts. Women clustered beneath storefront awnings, scarves covering their mouths.

Everyone watched.

No one stepped forward.

County Clerk Horace Bell climbed onto the wagon and opened his ledger.

“Three male children,” he announced. “Approximately four years old.”

The boys moved closer together.

Bell looked toward the basket.

“One infant male. Premature. Weak constitution.”

Someone near the back muttered, “Won’t last till spring.”

Clara heard him.

Her mouth tightened.

The clerk looked at her last.

“One girl. Six years of age.”

The words sounded like an inventory.

Not children.

Not frightened human beings who had lost their mother and father within the same terrible month.

Inventory.

A cattle rancher shook his head.

“I might take one of the boys once he’s old enough to work.”

His wife whispered something sharply to him.

Another man said, “Feeding five mouths in winter? You’d have to be touched in the head.”

Laughter rose uneasily.

Clara lowered her face.

She had learned something about grown people during the weeks since her parents disappeared.

Sometimes crying made people kinder.

Sometimes it merely made them uncomfortable.

And uncomfortable people often walked away.

So Clara did not cry.

Instead, she climbed onto the wagon.

The clerk turned.

“Child?”

Her bare feet left tiny red marks on the snow-covered boards.

Clara stood beside him, shaking so hard she had to hold her arms against her body.

“Please.”

The square went silent.

She pointed toward Eli, Jonah, and Micah.

“Please take the boys together.”

Nobody spoke.

“They sleep better together,” she continued. “Eli gets scared when it’s dark. Jonah doesn’t like thunder. Micah knows how to make them stop crying.”