"No," Corvin said, stepping back a pace. "I didn't do this for silver or turquoise."

The giant woman did not lower her hand. She stared directly into Corvin's gray eyes, her expression unyielding, her dark face set like granite.

"Take," she said.

It was the first word she had spoken in English since her arrival. Her voice was deep, resonant, and low, sounding like gravel sliding down a mountain slope.

Corvin looked at her for a long moment, realizing that to refuse her gift would be a deep insult to her dignity and her honor as a warrior.

He reached out and took the turquoise necklace and the silver belt, holding the heavy, polished stones in his hands.

"Thank you," Corvin said quietly.

She nodded once—a single, firm movement of her head—and swung her long, powerful legs out of the bed, her boots hitting the timber floorboards with a heavy thud.

She left Cold Springs at noon, just as the sun was beginning its long ride toward the western mountains.

She wore a fresh buckskin dress Corvin had traded from a local Tohono O'odham weaver, her side securely bandaged under the leather. She carried a new Winchester rifle, three boxes of ammunition, and two full canteens of spring water packed onto the back of Corvin's leggy roan colt—a gift he insisted she take for her long journey north.

Corvin stood by the perimeter fence, leaning his elbow against the top rail, watching her prepare to leave.

She swung herself smoothly up onto the roan colt's back, her tall, colossal frame sitting tall and majestic against the vast, open horizon of the Arizona borderlands.

She turned her horse around, looking down at Corvin one last time.

"What is your name?" Corvin asked, his voice carrying clearly across the quiet dirt yard.

The giant woman held his gaze for five long seconds. The wind rustled her dark hair, blowing the yellow trail dust off her shoulders.

"Kaya," she said, her deep voice echoing off the limestone sinkhole. "My people call me Kaya."

Corvin nodded softly, a faint, genuine smile touching his gray eyes. "I am Corvin."

"I know," Kaya said simply.

She turned the roan colt toward the north—toward the high, wild canyons of the Dragoon Mountains where her scattered people were rebuilding their lives in the hidden valleys beyond the reach of syndicates and border outlaws.

She did not look back. She rode with a slow, steady rhythm, her broad back straight, her tall figure outlined against the bright, silver light of the desert sky.

Corvin stood by the wooden rail for a long time, watching her shadow grow smaller and smaller against the red rocks until the shimmering heat of the alkali flats swallowed her completely, turning her into a dancing ghost before she vanished entirely into the mountains.

Years passed over Cold Springs.

The railroad came through the valley two years later, but it bypassed Corvin's land, leaving the three hundred acres of broken rock and red clay in absolute, peaceful isolation. The Black Ridge Syndicate collapsed after Silo Brant was sentenced to twenty years in the territorial penitentiary at Yuma, and no other land speculator ever dared to set foot on the property.

Corvin Torne lived out his years quietly on his ranch. He built a larger barn, expanded his herd of longhorns, and maintained the stone well over the limestone sinkhole, keeping the cold subterranean water clear and endless for any traveler who passed through the desert.

He kept the heavy turquoise necklace hanging above his fireplace hearth, its sky-blue stones gleaming bright against the dark stone wall.

And whenever drifting cowhands or traveling traders stopped at Cold Springs for water and asked about the huge, eight-foot stone cairn standing high on the limestone ridge above the house, Corvin would simply look up at the mountain peaks, smile into his graying mustache, and say:

"That's just a marker. To remind people that this water belongs to those who know how to respect it."