They brought it into Corvin's yard.
Then they dropped it onto the earth.
The sound was heavy.
Metal beneath leather.
Tazhaa dismounted.
She approached Corvin.
The old chief spoke.
Tazhaa translated.
But before Corvin could understand the words, every warrior surrounding the valley lowered his head.
Corvin felt a chill.
He suddenly realized that the woman he had found beside his fence was not ordinary.
She mattered.
A great deal.
Tazhaa knelt beside the bundle.
She looked at Corvin.
Then she pulled back the hide.
Devil's Wash
Sunlight flashed across metal.
Corvin stared.
Inside the buffalo hide were rifles.
Revolvers.
Maps.
Leather satchels.
An iron box stamped with the seal of the Territorial Land Office.
And gold.
A great deal of it.
Beside the gold were dozens of land deeds.
Corvin recognized some names immediately.
Ranchers.
Neighbors.
People he knew.
The signatures were forged.
The revolvers belonged to Harlan Vance.
Corvin looked at Tazhaa.
"Vance."
"Harlan Vance is dead," she said.
Her English was fluent.
Corvin's eyes narrowed.
"How?"
Tazhaa told him.
Two nights earlier, she had watched Vance's camp from the cliffs above Devil's Wash.
Forty men.
Dynamite.
Oil.
Weapons.
Vance had planned to attack Cold Springs at midnight.
Corvin would have been murdered in his sleep.
His house would have been burned.
The well would have been poisoned.
Then Vance would have blamed Apache warriors.
Corvin felt something cold settle inside him.
"He wanted a war," Corvin said.
Tazhaa nodded.
"A war would have cleared the land."
"And the water."
"Yes."
Corvin looked toward the well.
The meaning of it all became clear.
Vance did not merely want his ranch.
He wanted control of every source of water in the valley.
And to get it, he was willing to sacrifice hundreds of lives.
"What happened at Devil's Wash?"
Tazhaa's expression hardened.
"We surrounded them."
"You attacked?"
"We waited."
She paused.
"Then the darkness did the rest."
Vance's men never reached Cold Springs.
They were destroyed in the canyon.
Tazhaa and her people had recovered the evidence.
The gold.
The weapons.
The land records.
Everything that could expose the syndicate.
Then she explained why she had returned.
"When I came to your fence," she said, "I thought I would die."
Corvin said nothing.
"I knew white men often killed Apache travelers."
She touched the scar at her temple.
"I expected the gun."
"But you received water."
Tazhaa nodded.
"You gave life to someone you did not know."
She looked toward her father.
"My father says a man is measured by what he does when no one is watching."
Corvin looked uncomfortable.
"It was only water."
"No."
Her voice became firmer.
"It was a choice."
Before Corvin could answer, Tazhaa's father spoke.
She translated.
"The blue coats are coming."
Corvin looked east.
"How many?"
"Eighty cavalrymen."
"When?"
"Before noon."
Corvin's expression changed.
He knew exactly what would happen.
If Captain Marcus Thorne arrived and found three hundred Apache warriors surrounding Vance's stolen fortune, he would call it an Apache attack.
He would open fire.
The army would retaliate.
The entire region could burn.
Corvin looked at Tazhaa.
"We can't fight them here."
She studied him.
"Why?"
"Because you would win the battle and lose the war."
Tazhaa said nothing.
Corvin continued.
"We need evidence."
He pointed toward the iron box.
"We need Thorne to see what Vance was doing."
"And if Thorne is part of it?"
"Then he will try to destroy the evidence."
Tazhaa's eyes sharpened.
Corvin smiled without humor.
"Which means he'll follow me."
"Where?"
"The Stone Throat."
Tazhaa understood.