The next month arrived too quickly.
Maggie packed books.
Clothes.
A saddle.
The compass.
A photograph of the family.
Ayasha gave her medicine.
Elena gave her money.
Maverick gave her a rifle.
Ayasha immediately objected.
“She is going to law school.”
“She'll be traveling.”
“She'll be in a city.”
“Exactly.”
Maggie laughed.
“I'll keep it locked.”
“Good.”
Ayasha shook her head.
“You two are impossible.”
On the morning of departure, Maverick saddled the horse.
Maggie stood beside him.
“Dad.”
“Yes?”
“Don't look sad.”
“I don't.”
“You do.”
“I have dust in my eyes.”
“There isn't any dust.”
“Arizona.”
“We're in the valley.”
“Valley dust.”
She smiled.
Then hugged him.
Maverick held her tightly.
“You don't have to come back every week.”
“I know.”
“Or every month.”
“I know.”
“If you find a life somewhere else—”
“I know.”
He swallowed.
“But don't disappear.”
Maggie pulled away.
“I won't.”
She touched his cheek.
“You taught me that home isn't a place.”
Maverick smiled.
“So where is it?”
She pointed toward her heart.
“Here.”
Then she mounted.
Ayasha hugged her.
Elena kissed her forehead.
Maggie turned toward the road.
For a moment, Maverick saw himself.
A young rider leaving.
A road stretching forward.
A future he could not control.
He finally understood what Nathan had meant.
The hardest part of loving someone was accepting that you could not choose their destination.
Maggie rode away.
Maverick stood there until she disappeared.
Ayasha came beside him.
“You're crying.”
“No.”
“You are.”
“Wind.”
“There is no wind.”
“Then I'm getting sentimental.”
She smiled.
“Ancient.”
He laughed.
They walked back toward the house.
The valley remained.
But it felt different.
Their daughter was gone.
The house was quieter.
The table had an empty chair.
Maverick found himself wandering toward it.
He touched the back of the chair.
Ayasha watched him.
“She'll come home.”
“I know.”
“Then why are you sad?”
“Because she won't be the same when she does.”
Ayasha nodded.
“That is the point.”
Weeks passed.
Letters arrived.
Maggie wrote about Santa Fe.
The university.
The people.
The law professors.
The strange food.
The snow.
She hated the cold.
She loved the library.
She wrote about cases involving land rights.
She wrote about Native communities fighting corporations.
She wrote about families facing eviction.
She wrote about a professor who had told her that the law was not justice.
“It is only a tool,” Maggie wrote.
“People decide what to do with it.”
Maverick read that sentence three times.
He smiled.
“She sounds like Elena.”
Ayasha took the letter.
“She sounds like you.”
Maverick frowned.
“I don't know anything about law.”
“You know what is fair.”
“That's different.”
“Not always.”
The years changed.
Maggie graduated.
Then passed the bar.
Then accepted a position in Albuquerque.
She became known for taking difficult land cases.
She refused wealthy clients who wanted to exploit families.
She represented farmers.
Ranchers.
Tribal communities.
People who could not afford expensive lawyers.
Her name appeared in newspapers.
Maverick pretended not to care.
He secretly kept every article.
Ayasha discovered the collection.
“You're ridiculous.”
“She did good work.”
“You saved twenty copies of the same article.”
“It was a good article.”
“You framed one.”
“It had a photograph.”
Ayasha laughed.
Elena was especially proud.
She would read every letter.
Sometimes she and Maggie argued.
They argued about politics.
Law.
History.
The past.
But they never stopped speaking.
That was progress.
One autumn afternoon, Maggie returned to the valley unexpectedly.
She arrived alone.
Maverick was repairing the western fence.
He heard hooves.
He looked up.
His daughter dismounted.
“You're home.”
“For a while.”
“Why?”
She looked serious.
“I found something.”
Maverick immediately knew.
“What?”
She removed a folder from her saddlebag.
Inside were documents.
Old ones.
Very old.
“I was researching Nathan's case.”
Maverick's expression changed.
“What case?”
“The original investigation into his disappearance.”
“I thought there was nothing.”
“There wasn't.”
“Then?”
“I found something.”
She handed him a report.
Maverick read.
The report had been filed twenty years after Nathan disappeared.
A former deputy claimed that Nathan had survived the ambush.
He had seen him alive.
Three days after the official date of death.
Maverick's hands began to tremble.
“No.”
Maggie watched him.
“What?”
“He's dead.”
“I know.”
“This could be wrong.”
“It probably is.”
“Then why show me?”
“Because there's a name.”
She pointed.
The former deputy's name.
Samuel Redd.
Maverick recognized it.
He had heard the name from his mother.
Once.
Only once.
A man who had helped Nathan escape.
A man who disappeared afterward.
Maverick looked at Maggie.
“Where is he?”
She smiled.
“That's the problem.”
“What?”
“He died six months ago.”
Maverick closed his eyes.
“Of course.”
“But before he died, he left a package.”
Maverick opened his eyes.
“Where?”
“Santa Fe.”
The next morning, they rode together.
Father and daughter.
Like the old days.
Except now Maggie carried legal documents instead of a rifle.
The package was kept in a small historical archive.
A curator handed it to them.
The box was sealed.
Maggie opened it.
Inside were three things.
A photograph.
A key.
And a letter.
The photograph showed Nathan Cole standing beside a wooden building.
He was older.
Thinner.
But alive.
Maverick stared.
For twenty years he had carried his father's absence.
Now he had proof.
Not proof that Nathan lived forever.
Proof that he had survived the night Maverick had believed killed him.