Nita waited.
“But I won’t.”
One of the women muttered something.
Nita answered her in Apache.
Then she returned her attention to Ethan.
“You do not know us.”
“No.”
“You do not owe us anything.”
“No.”
“Then why stay?”
Ethan looked toward the hidden valley.
“Because I know what it feels like when armed men decide they can take something because they believe nobody will stop them.”
Nita studied him.
He did not look away.
Finally she lowered her rifle.
“Come.”
“Where?”
“To our camp.”
Ethan hesitated.
“Am I invited?”
“No.”
A faint smile appeared on her face.
“You are being watched.”
Ethan nodded.
“Good enough.”
He mounted Copper.
The women led him through a maze of narrow canyons.
After an hour, they reached a small camp hidden beneath cottonwood trees.
Ethan counted twenty women.
Seven old men.
Children.
Only six fighting-age men.
Several were injured.
Then Ethan understood.
The thieves had not attacked randomly.
They had waited until most of the tribe’s strongest riders were away on a hunting expedition.
They had taken the herd when the camp was vulnerable.
An elderly man approached Ethan.
Nita spoke to him.
The old man listened.
Then he looked at Ethan.
“This is my father,” Nita said. “His name is Tala.”
Tala’s face was deeply lined by age and sun.
He spoke quietly.
“You found our horses.”
“Yes.”
“Will you help us recover them?”
Ethan looked around the camp.
A little girl was repairing a leather halter.
A boy carried water toward an elderly woman.
Several children watched Ethan cautiously.
He thought of San Marcos.
The ranch job.
The money he needed.
Then he thought of the man striking the gray mare.
“Yes.”
Nita frowned slightly.
“You answered quickly.”
Ethan looked at her.
“I’ve spent seven years walking away from places before they could become my problem.”
He glanced toward the children.
“I’m tired of walking.”
That night, they planned.
And before the sun rose again, Ethan Graves had become part of something he had avoided for years.
A fight worth staying for.
CHAPTER TWO — THE WOMEN WHO REFUSED TO SURRENDER
At sunrise, Ethan learned exactly what kind of people he had agreed to help.
They were not waiting to be rescued.
They were preparing to rescue themselves.
Twenty women stood near the fire.
Some were young.
Some were mothers.
Some were old enough to have grandchildren.
Every one of them carried a weapon.
Nita moved among them, checking saddles and ammunition.
Ethan watched from beside Copper.
Tala approached.
“You seem surprised.”
“I am.”
“Why?”
“I expected more men.”
Tala smiled without humor.
“Men are away hunting.”
“And the thieves knew that.”
“Yes.”
Tala looked toward the western ridge.
“They watched us for weeks.”
Ethan’s expression darkened.
“This wasn’t ordinary horse theft.”
“No.”
“What do they really want?”
Tala did not answer.
Instead, he handed Ethan a folded piece of paper.
It was a survey map.
Ethan opened it.
The Apache camp sat beside a river running through a fertile valley.
South of the river was a stretch of land marked with red ink.
Proposed Cattle Route — R. C. Harlan Company.
Ethan looked up.
“Harlan.”
Tala nodded.
“You know the name?”
“Everybody knows the name.”
Rufus Cole Harlan owned cattle ranches stretching across two territories.
He controlled freight contracts, grazing rights, water wells, and enough hired guns to make local sheriffs suddenly remember appointments elsewhere.
Ethan studied the map.
“Harlan wants your valley.”
“Yes.”
“The horses were step one.”
Nita approached.
“Without horses, we cannot move food, hunt properly, or defend the river.”
“And if you leave…”
“Harlan takes the land.”
Ethan folded the map.
“What does he claim?”
“That we abandoned it.”
Ethan laughed bitterly.
“After his men make survival impossible.”
Nita nodded.
“That is the plan.”
One of the younger women approached.
She was perhaps nineteen.
Her name was Sewa.
She spoke English carefully.
“My horse is in the valley.”
Ethan looked at her.
“He is white with brown ears.”
“I saw him.”
Her eyes widened.
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
She exhaled.
Another woman stepped forward.
“My mare has a black star on her forehead.”
“Alive.”
Another asked about two gray horses.
Another about a foal.
Ethan answered each question as well as he could.
He realized the herd was not wealth in the way a rich cattleman understood wealth.
These horses were family history.
Transportation.
Food gathering.
Hunting.
Marriage gifts.
Memories.
A way of life.
Nita waited until the questions ended.
Then she spread a rough drawing of the valley on the ground.
“We cannot charge the enclosure.”
Ethan nodded.
“Too many horses.”
“So we need another way.”
He crouched.
“Which direction does the wind usually blow at night?”
“East.”
“Every night?”
“Almost.”
Ethan drew a line in the dust.
“If we create smoke here, outside the valley, the guards will think there’s a brush fire.”
Nita studied the drawing.
“They will move the herd.”
“Exactly.”
“To where?”
Ethan tapped the northern entrance.
“That’s the only path wide enough for two hundred horses.”
Nita understood.
“We make them move the herd for us.”
“And we take control once they enter the pass.”
Tala smiled.
Nita did not.
“What if they shoot?”
“They probably will.”
“Then horses may die.”
“Not if we separate the guards from the herd first.”
Ethan pointed at three places along the pass.
“Put riders here, here, and here. When the herd begins moving north, your people cut the thieves away from the animals.”
Nita studied the plan.
“You think like a soldier.”
Ethan’s expression changed.
“I used to.”
She noticed.
But she did not ask.
That evening, preparations began.
Dry brush was gathered.
Blankets soaked in water.
Ropes prepared.
Paths cleared.
The women practiced riding through the narrow northern pass in groups of three.
Ethan discovered that Nita was one of the best riders he had ever seen.
She handled a horse with almost invisible movements.