She was a young woman with calm, dark eyes, strong features, and a small scar near her temple.

Amaya saw his expression and lowered her eyes.

“Is it really that terrible?”

Thomas looked at Nahuel.

“No.”

The young woman raised her head.

“Then why are you looking at me like that?”

“Because your father lied to me.”

The silence became unbearable.

Amaya frowned.

“About what?”

“He told me no man wanted you. That I had to marry you to get the land.”

All calm disappeared from Amaya’s face.

She slowly turned toward her father.

“That isn’t what you told me.”

Nahuel did not answer.

Thomas felt something break between the three of them.

“What did he tell you?” he asked.

Amaya looked directly at him.

“That you had asked to marry me.”

# PART 3

Thomas thought he must have misunderstood.

“What?”

Amaya did not look away.

“My father told me you came asking about the land by the river and that after learning he had an unmarried daughter, you asked to discuss marriage.”

Thomas turned toward Nahuel.

“I never said that.”

Amaya breathed slowly.

Her fingers still held the veil.

“He also told me you agreed not to see me beforehand because you wanted to prove that my appearance didn’t matter to you.”

“I agreed not to see you because he told me it was the only way to get the land.”

A murmur moved through the semicircle.

Nahuel raised one hand.

Silence returned.

But it was no longer the same obedient silence from three days earlier.

Now everyone was waiting for an explanation.

Amaya stepped toward her father.

“Look at me.”

Nahuel did.

“Did you lie to me?”

The hardness disappeared from the chief’s face.

“Yes.”

The answer surprised even Thomas.

Amaya tightened her grip on the veil.

“To both of us?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Nahuel looked at his daughter.

“Because every time I tried to protect you by speaking honestly, men found a way to turn that honesty to their advantage.”

Amaya slowly shook her head.

“That doesn’t answer the question.”

Nahuel looked around.

He seemed aware that all his people were listening.

“Since you turned sixteen, men have come wanting to marry you because you are my daughter. Some wanted cattle. Others wanted access to the river. Others simply wanted to boast that they had obtained what other men desired.”

Thomas looked at Amaya.

She didn’t seem surprised by that part.

Nahuel continued.

“You rejected every one of them.”

Thomas felt another piece fall into place.

“Then it isn’t true that no man wanted her.”

Amaya turned toward him.

“It never was.”

Anger began replacing her embarrassment.

“I was the one who rejected them.”

Thomas remembered the warrior who had lowered his eyes.

The woman who had stopped working with the beads.

The child who had been silenced.

They had all known the truth.

Nahuel had built an entire story around his own daughter.

“Why the veil?” Thomas asked.

This time, Amaya answered.

“Because I got tired.”

She touched the white fabric.

“I got tired of men who had never spoken to me deciding what kind of wife I would be after looking at me for a few minutes.”

Thomas remained silent.

“Three years ago, I started covering my face whenever traders, ranchers, or visitors came. Then I did it more often. Eventually, it became easier.”

“And the scar?”

Amaya touched the small mark near her temple.

“I fell from a horse when I was nine.”

Thomas almost laughed, but there was nothing funny about the moment.

The entire story about a woman so unpleasant to look at that no man could bear her had been built around nothing.

Or worse, around a woman who had tried to reclaim control over who was allowed to look at her.

Amaya turned back toward her father.

“And you thought the solution was to trick another man into promising to marry me?”

“I thought you needed to find a man who would give his word before knowing what you looked like.”

“You don’t know what I’m like.”

“I am your father.”

“You know who I was when I was ten. You know what food I prefer. You know when I’m angry.”

Her voice trembled for the first time.

“But if you knew who I am, you would have understood that I would never accept a husband obtained through a lie.”

Nahuel took the words without moving.

Thomas realized he needed to say something.

“The ceremony ends here.”

Everyone looked at him.

Nahuel’s expression hardened.

“You gave your word.”

“I gave my word based on a lie.”

“A man’s word is still his word.”

Thomas felt the old temptation.

The river was behind them.

So was the fertile land.

He could stay silent.

He could marry her.

He could obtain in a single afternoon what he had worked five years to achieve.

He looked at Amaya.

She was waiting.

Not for a romantic declaration.

For a decision.

Thomas placed his hat back on his head.

“I’m not marrying a woman who believes I chose her when the truth is that I came here looking for land.”

Nahuel spoke coldly.

“Then there will be no land either.”

Thomas felt the blow.

“I figured as much.”

He looked at the river one last time.

Then at Amaya.

“I’m sorry.”

She seemed surprised.

“Why?”

“Because you were put here without knowing the whole truth too.”

Thomas turned.

He began walking away.

“Thomas.”

Amaya’s voice stopped him.

It was the first time she had said his name.

He turned around.

The young woman looked at her father.

Then at Thomas.

“I don’t accept this ceremony either.”

A much louder murmur swept through the gathering.

Nahuel closed his eyes for a moment.

Amaya removed the veil completely.

She folded it.

Then handed it to an older woman standing nearby.

“If I ever marry, no one will have to lie to make it happen.”

Thomas said nothing.

He shouldn’t.

That decision belonged to her.

The ceremony ended without a marriage.

Thomas spent that night in a small camp he had made several miles from the river.

At sunrise, he saddled his horse.

He had lost the land.

That was what he kept telling himself.

He had lost the land.

But whenever he looked toward the trail leading back to the Apache dwellings, another thought appeared.

He had avoided obtaining it in a way that would have made it impossible to ever truly feel that he owned anything.

He was tightening the cinch when he heard a horse approaching.

Amaya appeared alone.

She wore no veil.

She stopped several paces away.

“You’re leaving?”

“Looks that way.”

“Where will you go?”

“Tucson first. Then wherever there’s work.”

“And the land?”

Thomas vaguely gestured toward the river.

“Your father was pretty clear.”

Amaya dismounted.

“My father is angry.”

“I’d be angry too if a man rejected an offer like that in front of all my people.”

“He isn’t angry with you.”

“Then with whom?”

“Me.”

Thomas shook his head.

“That doesn’t seem fair.”

“I didn’t say it was.”

A brief silence followed.