“Yours isn’t.”
Rand moved.
Fast.
His hand dropped toward his revolver.
The gunshot cracked through the afternoon.
For one instant, Clara thought the sound had come from Rand.
Then she saw him bend forward.
His pistol had barely cleared the holster before it fell into the dust.
Rand clutched his right hand.
Blood slipped between his fingers.
Boone released Clara so quickly his nails scraped her skin.
Nobody spoke.
Thin smoke curled from the stranger’s revolver.
He did not look at Rand.
He looked at the others.
“Anyone else?”
The question was quiet.
No one answered.
Rand gritted his teeth.
His face had gone pale beneath the dust.
Clara reached behind her without looking.
Her fingers closed around the worn wooden stock of her father’s Winchester rifle.
The familiar weight steadied her.
The stranger eased his revolver back into its holster.
No hurry.
No hesitation.
As if the entire moment had already been decided before anyone had reached for a weapon.
Clara lifted the Winchester.
The men noticed.
For the first time since arriving, Rand looked uncertain.
The stranger finally turned toward her.
Only for a second.
He did not ask if she was all right.
He did not offer sympathy.
His eyes simply measured her.
Then he faced Rand again.
“You’re still breathing.”
Rand glared at him.
The stranger’s expression did not change.
“That was on purpose.”
For several seconds, the only sound was water dripping from the red roan mare’s mouth.
Then the stranger spoke again.
“Ride out.”
Rand looked around.
At his men.
At the sheriff.
At Clara’s rifle.
Then at the stranger.
Nobody moved.
“Now.”
One of Rand’s riders finally reached for the injured man’s reins.
The others followed.
Slowly.
Carefully.
They had arrived like men who owned the land.
They left like men who had suddenly remembered it belonged to someone else.
Clara kept the Winchester trained on them until the last rider disappeared beyond the southern rise.
Only then did she lower the barrel.
The cottonwood leaves above the spring stirred.
The first breath of wind had returned.
The stranger dismounted.
His boots touched the ground softly.
He led the roan mare toward the trough.
Clara watched him carefully.
“You know who that was?”
“I do.”
“You shot his hand.”
“I did.”
She studied him.
Her father had taught her to study men.
Not their words.
The spaces between them.
The things they did not say.
“You got a name?”
The stranger allowed his horse to drink.
Then he looked at Clara.
“Cal.”
“Cal what?”
For the first time, something moved behind his eyes.
Not fear.
Memory.
“Deveraux.”
The name meant nothing to Clara.
Not yet.
Cal glanced toward the spring.
Toward the ranch house.
Toward the hills beyond the property.
“You’re going to have more trouble.”
Clara tightened her grip on the Winchester.
“I already do.”
“They’ll come back.”
She looked at the southern horizon.
“How do you know?”
Cal Deveraux watched the dust settling in the distance.
“Because men like Rand never believe the first loss is real.”
The words settled heavily over the yard.
Clara looked at him.
“And next time?”
Cal turned toward her.
“Next time, they won’t make the same mistake.”
Clara thought about her father.
Samuel Whitmore.
Dead eight months.
Buried beneath the cottonwoods on the western ridge.
He had spent forty years protecting the spring.
He had always said the water was the heart of the land.
Without it, the cattle would die.
The ranch would die.
And the Whitmore name would disappear from Haskell County.
After he died, Willis Rand had made an offer.
Clara had refused.
He made another.
She refused again.