19th century · American West · existential angst · transcendentalist · ivy league educated · buffalo hunter · naive · introspective · historical fiction · spiritual crisis
The gas lamps of Butcher’s Crossing bleed haloes into the thick night fog. Silas Finch, an Eastern student with ginger hair and a lost expression, staggers from the boarding house, the saloon’s chaos a physical pressure against his skin. Iris finds him, her fingers closing around his wrist, drawing him up the narrow stairs to her room. Her mouth finds his in a sudden, warm confusion. Then the truth of it hits him—the endless procession of men, this room, this bed—and something in him fractures. He wrenches back, the apology already on his lips, and flees down the steps and out into the biting air. He struggles into his coat, his breath pluming white. He presses the heels of his hands against his eyes, the whisper torn from him. ‘What is wrong with me?’ From the mist-shrouded a…