He whispered:

“No.”

Neya’s eyes filled.

“You remember.”

“You were there.”

“I was six.”

Corvin stood so quickly the chair fell backward.

The room disappeared.

He saw smoke.

A little girl screaming beside a dead horse.

He had picked her up.

Carried her across shallow water.

A bullet tore through his hand.

She had refused his canteen.

He had told her:

Drink.

Neya said quietly:

“You carried me through the eastern wash.”

Corvin looked at the scar across his palm.

“I thought…”

His throat tightened.

“I thought you died.”

“I survived.”

“What about your mother?”

Neya’s expression changed.

“She did not.”

Corvin closed his eyes.

“I went back.”

“I know.”

“I couldn’t find—”

“I know.”

Dasoda stood near the window.

“My daughter.”

Corvin looked at him.

Neya’s mother had been Dasoda’s daughter.

Corvin struggled for words.

“I am sorry.”

Dasoda regarded him.

“For nineteen years I hated many men.”

Corvin waited.

Dasoda said:

“You were never one of them.”

Outside, a rider shouted.

Dasoda turned toward the window.

The southern dust cloud was closer.

Neya closed Abram’s ledger.

“Vane knows Mercer found you.”

Corvin picked up his rifle.

“How long?”

“Less than one hour.”

IV. THE MAN FROM THE SOUTH
Silas Vane arrived with forty-seven men.

Corvin counted every one.

Some wore deputy badges.

Others looked like ranch hands.

Several were gunmen Corvin recognized by reputation.

Vane rode at the front.

He had aged elegantly.

Silver hair.

Trim beard.

Black coat.

A fine horse.

He looked less like the army captain Corvin remembered and more like a politician.

Perhaps that was worse.

Vane stopped beyond rifle range.

His men spread behind him.

The surrounding Apache warriors did not move.

Vane removed his hat.

“Corvin Torne.”

Corvin stood beside the well.

“Silas.”

Vane smiled.

“Nearly twenty years and that’s all?”

“That’s all you earned.”

Vane looked around.

“Quite a gathering.”

“They’re thirsty.”

Several of Vane’s men laughed nervously.

Vane did not.

“You know why I’m here?”

“Apparently you heard I serve excellent water.”

Vane’s eyes settled on Neya.

His expression sharpened.

“You survived.”

Neya said, “Your men were disappointed too.”

Corvin looked at Vane.

“You ordered her killed?”

Vane ignored the question.

Instead he looked toward Dasoda.

“This does not concern you.”

Dasoda replied, “You made it concern us nineteen years ago.”

Vane exhaled.

“Red Hollow.”

The name passed through his men like wind.

Some glanced at one another.

Vane said:

“A military action conducted during a violent period. Tragic, perhaps. Necessary at the time.”

Corvin felt something inside him harden.

“Children were necessary?”

Vane looked at him.

“You were always sentimental.”

“I was twenty.”

“You were disobedient.”

Corvin lifted Abram’s black ledger.

Vane’s face changed.

Small.

Instantaneous.

But Corvin saw it.

Fear.

“You recognize this?”

Vane said nothing.

Corvin opened the cover.

“Captain Silas Vane ordered Lieutenant Bell to shoot survivors fleeing through the eastern wash.”

One of Vane’s deputies looked toward him.

Corvin continued.

“Captain Vane instructed Sergeant Holcomb to burn the bodies and report Apache aggression.”

“Enough.”

Vane’s voice cut sharply across the yard.

Corvin smiled without warmth.

“That sounds like recognition.”

Vane straightened.

“A dead drunk’s fiction proves nothing.”

Corvin’s fist tightened.

“My father was many things. A liar wasn’t one.”

Vane looked almost amused.

“You are certain?”

Corvin stared.

Something in the question bothered him.

Before he could respond, a rider appeared on the eastern ridge.

Not Apache.

Three white men descended.

The first wore a long dark coat and carried a badge.

Neya said:

“Marshal Cross.”

Vane’s expression became flat.

Deputy United States Marshal Nathan Cross rode into the yard.

He dismounted carefully.

“Silas Vane.”

Vane laughed.

“Nathan.”

Cross pulled a folded paper from his coat.

“I have a federal warrant for your arrest.”

Vane’s men shifted.

“On what charge?”

“Murder conspiracy, falsification of federal land claims, bribery, intimidation of witnesses, obstruction of federal inquiry.”

Vane looked at Abram’s ledger.

Cross added:

“And perhaps more, once I read that.”

Vane’s hand moved.

Corvin saw it.

“Cross!”

Too late.

Vane drew.

The gunshot cracked across the yard.

Marshal Cross fell.

For half a second, every living thing froze.

Then chaos erupted.

Vane’s gunmen opened fire.

Apache rifles answered from the hills.

Corvin grabbed Neya and pulled her behind the stone well.

Bullets shattered wood.

Horses screamed.

Dasoda shouted commands in Apache.

Corvin fired twice.

One gunman dropped behind a trough.

Neya reached for a rifle lying nearby.

“You know how to use that?”

She looked offended.

Then fired and knocked a rider from his saddle.

Corvin blinked.

“Fine.”

“Less talking.”

Another bullet struck the well stones.

Corvin ducked.

Across the yard, Marshal Cross crawled toward cover.

“He’s alive!”

Neya fired again.

Vane’s men had numbers.

The Apache had the terrain.

Within minutes, the attackers were trapped.

Several surrendered.

Others tried to flee south and found mounted warriors blocking every wash.

Vane stayed near the center.

He fired wildly.

Then saw his men collapsing around him.

He turned his horse.

“Vane!” Corvin shouted.

Vane galloped south.

Corvin ran toward his own horse.

Neya caught his sleeve.

“No.”

“He’ll escape.”

“No, he won’t.”

Four Apache riders emerged from the wash.

Vane turned west.

Three more appeared.

He tried east.

Blocked.

He stopped.

For a moment, he sat alone on his horse beneath the enormous sky.

Then he slowly raised both hands.

Marshal Cross limped toward him, blood staining his coat.

“You’re under arrest.”

Vane laughed bitterly.

“By whose authority?”

Cross produced shackles.

“The authority you’ve spent half your life buying.”

Vane dismounted.

As Cross secured him, Vane looked past the marshal at Corvin.

“You think you know what Abram wrote.”

Corvin said nothing.

Vane smiled.

“You have no idea who that man was.”

V. ABRAM’S LETTER
Six men died in the gunfight.

Eleven were wounded.

By sunset, the surviving prisoners sat beneath guard.

Corvin carried water to everyone.

Even Vane.

When Corvin held out the cup, Vane looked at him.

“You always were weak.”

Corvin crouched.

“No.”

He placed the cup on the ground.

“I just don’t need a man dying of thirst to feel strong.”

Vane’s jaw tightened.

Corvin walked away.

Later, Neya found him sitting beside the well.

“You gave him water.”

“He was thirsty.”

“He killed people you loved.”

“So?”

Neya studied him.

“Nothing.”

Corvin looked at her.

“What?”

She smiled faintly.

“Just remembering.”

Night settled.

Marshal Cross planned to leave at dawn.

Corvin agreed to testify.

The decision terrified him.

Neya knew.

“You could run,” she said.

They sat inside the cabin beside Abram’s documents.

“I’m good at that.”

“Yes.”

Corvin glanced at her.

“That sounded insulting.”

“It was.”

He almost smiled.

They continued sorting papers.

There were survey maps.

Army orders.

Letters.

Photographs.

One image showed Abram standing beside Silas Vane and another man.

Corvin turned it over.

Names were written on the back.

Abram Torne.

Silas Vane.

Thomas Vale.

Corvin frowned.

“Thomas Vale.”

Neya looked up.

“You know him?”

“No.”

At the bottom of the iron box lay an envelope.

Corvin had overlooked it earlier.

His name was written across the front.