The sky above the eastern ridge was still a bruised, deep indigo, the sun an hour away from breaking the horizon. In the quiet courtyard of a small farmstead three miles from the Silver River, Silas was already cinching the final leather strap over the canvas cover of his cart.
He was loading delicate cargo.
In the wooden crates stacked behind his driving bench sat two dozen heads of crisp, pale green summer cabbage, baskets of unbruised heirloom tomatoes, and fragile glass jars of fresh sheep's milk.
