Wild Burn by Edie Harris

many of Moira’s students walked home to eat. Their parents were the shopkeeper, the physician, the banker, the investors—namely, the monied. Those children would go to their kitchens, where their mothers had been baking, and enjoy a nice repast before returning for afternoon lessons. They would tell their mothers about what they had learned from the weirdly accented Miss Tully and come back, pink-cheeked and slightly put out at being denied a few extra hours of play before sundown, for recitation.
    Somehow, in the excitement of the Cheyenne children’s presence, she’d forgotten that Irwin Matthews was one of those students. She didn’t register the victorious expression in his eyes when he returned to her classroom, not until his father and Sheriff Nelson filed in behind him.
    The happy chatter of the other students faded, and Moira rose from where she’d been seated next to Maahe, He’kase and Heovâheso, with whom she’d been trying to ascertain what they’d learned that morning. “Mr. Matthews. Sheriff.” She nodded calmly at the two men. She wouldn’t let them see how their overwhelmingly male presence affected her, no matter how heavily they loomed in her direction.
    “Miss Tully,” the sheriff intoned gruffly. “Can we speak to you outside?” He didn’t bother doffing his hat, and once again she was reminded of how much she disliked the man.
    “Right here is fine, I think.” She would have said the same thing had her goal been just to be perverse, but something in the back of her mind recognized this as a learning opportunity for her students. Because she feared she knew what was coming.
    “You don’t want that.”
    “Oh, but I do.” She tilted her head toward her silent, wide-eyed classroom. “It’ll be educational.”
    Jacob Matthews, obviously annoyed by her refusal, swiped a hand through the air. “Fine, have it your way.” He gave his son a little pat on the shoulder that sent the boy to his seat, never taking his mean-looking dark eyes off Moira. He was a big man, tall and broad, with a bit of a paunch and a thick neck that hinted at the stasis wealth had brought to his life. “I won’t have my son taught in the same classroom as a bunch of scalper brats.”
    Moira barely controlled her flinch, and some of the children gasped. “Language, Mr. Matthews.”
    He sniffed and folded his arms across his barreled chest. “You’re the one insisting we have this conversation here.”
    “As Sheriff Nelson will tell you, we’ve been encouraging the Cheyenne to send their children to this school for nearly two months. If this troubled you, there was plenty of time for you to say as much, prior to today.”
    “We never thought they’d actually show up!” The mine owner’s words were a booming explosion that seemed to rattle the timbers of the schoolhouse itself. “No one wants them here.”
    “I do.” She’d needed a cause, needed something to fight for when she came to Red Creek, because it was too exhausting to consider fighting for herself. Healing, for Moira, was a laborious process, and she couldn’t bear to think on her past, on Boston, on the evilness that had sent her spiraling into a chaotic grab for independence. The Cheyenne had been the perfect distraction, but the more she’d spoken with John White Horse, the more she’d cared about integration for integration’s sake. It hadn’t taken long for this fight to stop being about her and start being about what was right.
    “And who are you, you little Indian lover?” He sneered, and suddenly Moira knew from whom Irwin had learned that earlier mean expression on his face. Matthews leaned forward until his face was much too close and his breath, carrying the strong scent of chewing tobacco, puffed over her cheeks. “You live in the shack down the way, right next to that savage masquerading as a real man. The whole town’s seen you in and out of his cabin.” He hissed the last as Moira felt the color drain from her