In September 1878, in the Colorado Territory, Crispin “Cole” Brenner had little left in the world: eight dollars, a loyal bay horse named Maverick, and a Colt at his hip.
Behind his rough cabin stood three weathered crosses bearing the names Sara, Tomás, and Jaime—his wife and sons, lost eight years earlier. Since then, Cole had been surviving, not living.
One afternoon, returning from Denver after selling cattle for almost nothing, Cole spotted what looked like a pile of rags beneath a pine tree. He nearly rode past. Stopping for other people’s tragedies had a way of reopening wounds. But the bundle moved.
It was a young girl, no more than eight or nine, filthy, dehydrated, and with legs twisted from what appeared to be a lifelong disability. Her name was Emilia “Emi” Guadalupe Figueroa. She had been abandoned by her parents, who claimed she was too slow and would “die anyway.” Worse, she revealed that a man in a black coat had been speaking to her father about buying unwanted children as laborers for mines and factories. Her parents had likely sold her.
