She looked at the women behind her.
“We chose to leave.”
Eli's expression hardened.
“How long have you been running?”
“Twenty-two days.”
“And the others?”
Naya's face changed.
“Two died.”
Silence settled over the yard.
Eli looked down.
Then back at her.
“You've got nowhere to go.”
“No.”
“People will come looking.”
“Yes.”
“And if they find you here?”
Naya's eyes remained fixed on his.
“Then they find us.”
Eli glanced toward the distant hills.
He knew exactly what that meant.
Trouble was coming.
Maybe not today.
Maybe not tomorrow.
But eventually.
He had spent three years avoiding trouble.
Now trouble had walked through his front gate.
He sighed.
“Fine.”
Naya blinked.
“Fine?”
“You can stay.”
A murmur passed through the women.
“But you work.”
Several women smiled.
Naya nodded.
“We work.”
“And nobody touches my house.”
A few women laughed.
Eli frowned.
“I mean it.”
Naya's smile grew.
“Then we will build our own.”
That sentence changed everything.
Over the next several days, the ranch transformed.
Eli had believed twenty-five people would create chaos.
Instead, they created order.
They divided the work without arguing.
They repaired the fence.
They cleaned the barn.
They planted crops in places Eli had abandoned.
They found moisture beneath a dry patch of earth and showed him how to dig a shallow irrigation trench.
They knew plants he had never seen.
They knew which roots survived drought.
They knew how to preserve meat without wasting salt.
They knew how to make clothing from almost nothing.
Most importantly, they knew how to work together.
Eli began to understand something.
He had not rescued them.
They had rescued themselves.
The water had merely been the door.
And now that the door was open, neither side could easily close it.
But Dry Creek was watching.
A ranch that suddenly had twenty-five Apache women working on it could not remain a secret forever.
Three days later, a rider arrived.
Sheriff Thomas Bell.
He rode through the gate with two deputies.
Eli walked out to meet him.
Bell looked past him.
“What have you got here?”
Eli answered without hesitation.
“Workers.”
“Apache workers?”
“Yes.”
Bell's hand rested on his belt.
“You understand what kind of trouble you're inviting?”
“I understand.”
“Where'd they come from?”
Eli shrugged.
“Don't know.”
Bell stared at him.
“Eli, I'm not your enemy.”
“I know.”
“Then don't make me investigate something I don't want to investigate.”
Eli looked directly into his eyes.
“They're not hurting anybody.”
“That wasn't my question.”
“No.”
Bell's expression hardened.
“Men from Red Mesa have been asking about a group of women who disappeared.”
Eli said nothing.
Bell leaned closer.