“You ride a long way for three horses,” she said.
Ethan accepted the bowl.
“They were expensive horses.”
“How expensive?”
“Expensive enough that I would have ridden farther.”
Sani laughed.
Naya gave her a warning glance, but the younger woman only smiled.
For a few minutes, they ate in comfortable silence.
Ethan noticed that the sisters were not simply daughters of a chief waiting for someone else to decide their future. Naya carried herself like a leader. Lena moved between the cooking fire and the doorway, checking on the children and making sure the older people had water. Sani examined the rifle beside her and adjusted its sights with the practiced movements of an experienced rider.
These were women who understood the country around them.
Tomas watched Ethan observing his daughters.
“You have been alone a long time,” the chief said.
Ethan looked up.
“Long enough.”
“Your father told me you were once promised to a woman in Prescott.”
“That was years ago.”
“What happened?”
“She wanted a life I could not give her. I wanted a life she could not give me.”
Tomas nodded.
“Sometimes people discover the truth too late.”
Ethan set his bowl aside.
“Chief, I appreciate the meal, but I should return to Cedar Ridge. If the company is coming tomorrow, I need to find that survey.”
Tomas leaned forward.
“Then you will return.”
He paused.
“But before you leave, I want you to understand something about my family.”
Naya put down the cloth she had been folding.
Lena looked toward her father.
Sani stopped repairing the saddle strap.
Tomas continued.
“My daughters have no husbands. They have refused men who wanted to marry them because of my name, my land, or the influence they believed they would gain.”
Ethan shifted uncomfortably.
“I don't see how that concerns me.”
“It concerns you because you have come into our valley without demanding anything. You speak to my daughters as people, not possessions. And you have offered to help us when you could have ridden away.”
Naya looked directly at Ethan.
“Father.”
Tomas raised one hand.
“I know what I am saying.”
He turned back to Ethan.
“If you wish to remain with us, I will offer you a place in my family. But I will not force any daughter to accept a husband she does not choose.”
Ethan stared at him.
Tomas's next words would follow Ethan Cole for the rest of his life.
“Choose one of my three daughters.”
The shelter fell silent.
Ethan looked at Naya, then Lena, then Sani.
He understood the seriousness of the offer. Marriage among families in the territory could create alliances, strengthen communities, and establish trust between people who had reason to fear one another.
But he also understood that Tomas's daughters were not cattle to be selected at a market.
He placed his bowl on the ground.
“Chief, I cannot choose one of your daughters as if the others do not matter.”
Tomas's eyes narrowed slightly.
“Then what are you saying?”
Ethan looked at the three women.
“I am saying that I would not ask any of them to give up her freedom to make my life easier. If one of them wished to know me, I would be honored. But I would never accept a marriage that required the others to become strangers to me.”
Sani's lips parted in surprise.
Lena lowered her eyes, hiding a smile.
Naya remained still.
Tomas studied Ethan for a long moment.
“You would refuse my offer?”
“I would refuse to treat your daughters as a prize.”
The chief's expression softened.
“And if all three wished to stand beside you?”
Ethan did not answer immediately.
He looked at each sister again.
Naya met his gaze without hesitation.
Lena appeared thoughtful.
Sani was smiling now, but there was no mockery in it.
Ethan finally spoke.
“Then I would be honored to stand beside all three.”
No one moved.
Outside, a horse stamped against the earth.
Tomas slowly leaned back.
Then, to Ethan's surprise, he began to laugh.
It was a deep, warm laugh that filled the shelter.
“You have no idea what you have just said.”
Ethan rubbed the back of his neck.
“I suspect I am beginning to.”
Naya stood.
“Father, this is not a joke.”
“I know.”
She looked at Ethan.
“And you should understand that we are not asking you to save us.”
“I don't believe you are.”
“We have lived here all our lives. We know how to defend ourselves.”
“I have seen that.”
Lena set her bowl aside.
“Then perhaps we should speak without Father deciding what the conversation means.”
Sani rose beside her.
“For once, I agree with Lena.”
Tomas looked at his daughters, then at Ethan.
“Very well.”
He stood and stepped outside.
At the entrance, he paused.
“The company comes tomorrow. Whatever else happens, that is the first matter we must face.”
He looked at Ethan.
“Return to your ranch. Find the survey. Come back before sunset.”
Ethan nodded.
“I will.”
Tomas turned to his daughters.
“And you three will decide what you want.”
Naya folded her arms.
“We already know what we want.”
The chief's expression changed.
“Then you will tell him yourselves.”
He walked away.
For several moments, Ethan remained seated, uncertain whether he should follow.
Naya finally spoke.
“You have made a complicated situation more complicated.”
“I apologize.”
“Don't apologize yet. You have not heard our answer.”
Lena sat down beside the fire.
“I think we should begin with the simplest question.”
She looked at Ethan.
“Are you staying because you believe we need a husband to protect us?”
“No.”
“Are you staying because you believe our father will give you land?”
“No.”
“Are you staying because you feel you owe us something?”
Ethan considered the question.
“I am staying because the company is trying to take water from people who need it. I would help you even if I had never met your father.”
Sani nodded.
“That is the answer I wanted to hear.”
Naya looked at her youngest sister.
“You cannot speak for all of us.”
“I know.”
Sani turned toward Ethan.
“But I can speak for myself.”
She held his gaze.
“I would like to know you better. Not because Father has offered anything. Not because we are facing trouble. Because I want to know whether the man who spoke in there is the man he appears to be.”
Ethan felt the weight of her words.
“I would like that too.”
Lena smiled.
“Then we have a beginning.”
Naya remained quiet for a long moment.
Finally, she said, “I will not promise marriage to a man I have known for less than an hour.”
“I would not ask you to.”
“But I will ride with you tomorrow. If you return with the survey, I want to see it.”
Ethan nodded.
“That seems fair.”
Naya turned toward the doorway.
“And if the company comes, I will ride beside you then, too.”
Lena stood.
“So will I.”
Sani grinned.
“Then it appears you have chosen all three.”
Ethan looked at her.
“No. I have chosen to stand beside all three. That is not the same thing.”
For the first time, Naya smiled.
It was brief, but Ethan saw it.
Outside, the sun had begun to sink behind the red cliffs.
The valley was quiet, yet the western ridge remained watchful.
Ethan gathered his hat and stepped toward the entrance.
“I will return tomorrow.”
Naya followed him outside.
“You had better.”
He mounted Boone and looked down at her.
“Do you think I will?”
Naya glanced toward the horses drinking beneath the cottonwoods.
“Your horses found their way here. Perhaps you will, too.”
Ethan smiled.
Then he rode east toward Cedar Ridge, carrying a promise that had become far more important than the three missing horses he had come to find.
The ride back to Cedar Ridge took nearly three hours.
Ethan traveled through the narrow passes in the fading light, thinking about the valley and the three women he had left behind. He had met many women during his years as a rancher, but none had spoken to him with the kind of directness he had encountered in Tomas's daughters.
Naya was disciplined and guarded, a woman who seemed to carry responsibility as naturally as she carried a rifle. Lena possessed a gentler manner, though Ethan suspected her kindness concealed a stubbornness that few people had tested. Sani was quick-witted and fearless, with the curiosity of someone who refused to accept that the world had already decided what her life should become.