Nalin studied the white man's face carefully. She took note of the faint scars along his jaw line and the hollow, lonely look in his eyes—a look she had seen in many of her own people who had lost their families and their traditional grounds to the relentless march of the blue-coated soldiers.
"You ride like a warrior, but you walk alone," Nalin observed gently. "You have no ranch. You have no blood kin in these lands. Why do you wander?"
Caleb looked out into the darkness beyond the ring of firelight. "I used to have a home. A farm up in the valley near the river. A wife named Sarah, and a boy who wasn't old enough to ride a full-grown horse." He stopped, his throat tightening slightly, before continuing in a flat, distant tone. "Ten years ago, during the war, a band of irregular cavalry burned the valley to the ground. They didn't care who lived there or what side we claimed. When I came back from the fighting, there was nothing left but ash and stone."
He picked up a dry stick and tossed it into the fire, watching the sparks fly up into the dark.
"I’ve been riding ever since," Caleb added softly. "Looking for nothing in particular. Just trying to leave things a little better than I find them when I can."
Nalin looked at him with a deep, newfound understanding. The barrier of skin and language seemed to melt away in the warm glow of the campfire. They were two survivors of two different wars, bound together by the shared weight of loss and the quiet resistance of their spirits.
"My people have a name for men like you," Nalin said softly, her eyes reflecting the flame. "They call them Shil-ne-nah—the ones who walk between two worlds because they belong to neither."
"Sounds about right," Caleb murmured with a faint, tired smile.
Suddenly, the buckskin stallion at the edge of the camp raised its head sharply, its ears pinning back as it let out a low, uneasy snort. Caleb's hand moved instantly to the stock of his Winchester rifle. He stood up smoothly, stepping out of the direct firelight into the deep shadows near the canyon wall.
Nalin set her tin cup down without making a sound, her eyes narrowing as she listened to the dark desert night.
From down the narrow entrance of the canyon came the distant, unmistakable sound of multiple horses moving at a trot over stone.
"Stay down behind the rocks," Caleb ordered in a tense whisper, leaning against the cold stone face of the canyon wall.
Nalin did not hide. Instead, she slid silently over to the horse, pulling a long hunting knife from Caleb’s saddle scabbard with practiced ease. She crouched low near the water spring, her body coiled like a panther ready to spring.
The sound of horse hooves grew louder, echoing off the narrow sandstone walls until four armed men rode slowly into the glow of the dying fire.
At the head of the party was Marshal Arthur Vance. Beside him rode three rough-looking deputies—the same trail hands who had been drinking outside the saloon earlier that afternoon. They carried double-barreled shotguns across their saddles, their eyes red and wild in the firelight.
Vance pulled his horse to a halt, looking around the small camp with a grim, vicious smile.
"Well now," Vance called out, his loud voice reverberating off the cliffs. "Looks like we found ourselves a cozy little nest."
Caleb stepped out from the shadows into the edge of the firelight, his Winchester lever raised to his shoulder, the barrel pointed directly at Vance’s chest.
"You're outside your jurisdiction, Vance," Caleb said, his voice flat and dangerous. "And you've got three gold coins in your vest pocket that say that woman belongs to no one."
Vance laughed—a harsh, ugly sound that lacked any real humor. "Jurisdiction is wherever I ride, stranger. And as for that gold... well, I got to thinking after you left town. A white man paying good gold for an Apache woman ain't right. It's treason against your own kind. So I decided I'm taking the gold andthe prisoner back to Oakhaven."
"You're a thief and a coward," Caleb said quietly. "Turn those horses around and ride back, or this canyon becomes your grave."
"There's four of us and one of you, drifter!" Vance shouted, drawing his revolver with a lightning-fast jerk of his wrist. "Take 'em!"