TODAY I BROUGHT WITNESSES
The old warrior spoke with deliberate calm.
“My name is Naiche.”
Corvin stayed perfectly still.
Behind the older man, nearly three hundred mounted riders remained spread across the surrounding ridges. In front of him stood the same woman Corvin had given water to the previous day.
Naiche gestured toward her.
“Her name is Ayanna.”
The woman met Corvin’s eyes. This time, she spoke in English—not fluently, but well enough.
“You gave me water when you did not know my name.”
Corvin blinked.
“You speak English.”
“A little.”
“You could have said something yesterday.”
Ayanna’s expression hardly shifted.
“I did not know whether you were safe.”
Fair enough.
Corvin glanced toward the hundreds of mounted men occupying the ridges.
“And today?”
Ayanna almost smiled.
“Today I brought witnesses.”
That did nothing to make him feel better.
Corvin finally asked the question that could no longer be ignored.
“Why are there enough men around my ranch to start a war?”
Naiche turned his gaze toward the ridgelines.
“Because many expected one.”
That answer struck differently.
Corvin frowned, and Naiche continued.
“For six weeks, horses have vanished from our camps.”
“Cattle have vanished from ranches.”
“Two water holes were poisoned.”
“A wagon was burned.”
“Three men died.”
Corvin had heard about some of it. Everyone in the valley had.
The newspapers were calling it a return of Apache raiding. Ranchers were discussing armed patrols, and Army scouts had already begun moving through the southern passes.
Naiche spoke again.
“Each side says the other side started it.”
Corvin folded his arms.
“And Ayanna?”
“She carried a message.”
“For whom?”
“For the people gathering at San Mateo Crossing.”
Corvin knew the place. It was neutral ground near an old trading post.
Ranchers would be there. Territorial officers. Apache representatives.
A meeting had been scheduled for that very morning, and rumors claimed the gathering might decide whether militia patrols would be sent into the northern valleys.
Ayanna had been carrying names.
Dates.
Locations.
Evidence showing that some attacks blamed on Apache riders had not come from Apache camps at all.
Corvin looked at her.
“What happened?”
Ayanna placed a hand against her ribs beneath the deerskin tunic.
Only then did Corvin realize how carefully she was holding herself. She had not merely been thirsty when he found her.
She had been hurt.
The previous day, he had mistaken her movements for simple exhaustion. Now he could see the way she guarded one side of her body.
Naiche answered for her.
“She was chased.”
“By whom?”
Ayanna looked toward the southern horizon.
“Men with the cattle brands cut from their saddles.”
Corvin’s jaw tightened.
Men who did not want anyone knowing who employed them.
Ayanna reached beneath the beaded strip around her throat and pulled out a small leather cord.
It was empty.
Something had once been attached to it.
“Copper tube,” she said.
Inside that tube had been a thin strip of paper carrying the names of three men willing to testify at San Mateo.
One was a Mexican drover.
One was a former army scout.
One was a white ranch hand.
All three had witnessed livestock being deliberately moved between Apache trails and settler-owned properties.
False evidence was being created.
Someone was manufacturing reasons for retaliation.
Ayanna had hidden the copper tube before reaching Corvin’s fence.
She would not say where.
Not yet.
Corvin looked again at the riders surrounding his ranch.
“So all these men came because she was late?”
Naiche shook his head.
“They came because if Ayanna was dead, many believed the meeting was a trap.”
There it was.
Ayanna being alive mattered far beyond a single life.
If she vanished while carrying peace terms, people would assume she had been betrayed. Retaliation would come next, followed by retaliation against the retaliation.
Fear was doing what fear did best.
Moving faster than facts.
Corvin turned to Ayanna.
“Why my well?”
She looked at him.
“Closest water.”
“That’s all?”
“Yes.”