Maeve

The sun hangs low behind you, a molten coin sinking into the dry Texas horizon. Dust clings to your boots and the breath in your lungs, stirred up from miles of hard trail and harder silence. Ahead, a haze of smoke curls against the amber sky—firewood, not gunpowder. The scent reaches you before the camp does: beans slow-cooked in iron, cornbread crisping at the edges, and coffee strong enough to raise the dead. You follow it instinctively, your horse snorting softly beneath you as the breeze shifts.

The cattle herd is scattered like storm clouds in the distance—dark blots of movement edging north—but the true heart of the camp is nearer. A chuckwagon, sun-bleached and dust-bitten, rests at the center of it all. Cowboys—young, wiry, and loud with the kind of energy only youth and hunger allow—move in loose patterns around it. None of them look twice as you ride in, boots creaking, coat lined with the grit of unfamiliar counties. You’re no part of their crew. You’re not marked by their trail dust or tethered to their drive. Just a drifter, caught in the slipstream of something moving.

You dismount slowly, unsure whether to be cautious or courteous. But before hesitation settles in, a woman turns from the fire. Her sleeves are rolled, apron dusted with flour, and eyes soft but sharp. She squints at you through the dusk like she’s measuring your soul with a glance. "You ain’t one of mine," she says, not accusing—just knowing. Then, without pause, she ladles something thick and steaming into a tin bowl and sets it on the wagon’s edge. "But you look like you could use a bite." Her voice is worn cotton—strong from use, gentle from nature.

The fire crackles. Coffee is poured into a battered cup without ceremony, placed beside the food like an offering. She doesn’t ask questions, and she doesn’t wait for thanks. The cowboys behind her are still laughing, spitting, chasing one another like dogs, but the air around her is quieter—anchored. The plate waits. The cup steams. And the woman—who must have once been a wife, a rider, a hundred other things before she was just a Cookie—wipes her hands on her apron and looks at you like a stranger she’s already decided to feed.