“Nothing.”
“That wasn’t nothing.”
She walked toward the animal.
Samuel followed.
“You asked whether I’d give Vane water.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Elena tightened the saddle strap.
“Because you should not.”
Samuel stared.
“What does that mean?”
She mounted.
For such a tall woman, she moved onto the horse with surprising ease.
Samuel stepped closer.
“Elena.”
She looked down.
“Vane has enough water.”
Samuel frowned.
“Not this year.”
“He has yours.”
Samuel said nothing.
Elena turned the horse south.
“What does that mean?”
She looked back once.
“Your well is deeper than you think.”
Then she rode away.
Samuel remained beside the trough until she disappeared into the shimmering heat.
That night he dreamed of Miriam.
Not unusually.
What was unusual was that in the dream she stood beside the well holding a bucket with no bottom.
Water poured endlessly through it while she laughed at Samuel for trying to fill it.
He woke before dawn.
The house was dark.
For several seconds he lay listening.
Then he heard cattle.
Not his.
Too many.
Samuel climbed from bed and stepped outside carrying a rifle.
The eastern sky had barely begun turning gray.
A line of animals moved along the far ridge.
Then Samuel realized they were horses.
Mounted horses.
Dozens.
No.
Hundreds.
He stopped breathing.
The ridge stretched nearly half a mile.
Riders covered it from one end to the other.
More appeared behind them.
Samuel stood barefoot on his porch.
He lowered the rifle without consciously deciding to.
The silhouettes did not move.
They simply watched.
His first thought was Elena.
His second was that he had been a fool.
Every warning he had ignored came back at once.
Do not let strangers use your well.
Do not trust people crossing from reservation country.
Do not advertise that you live alone.
Do not think kindness makes you exempt from consequence.
Samuel felt shame immediately after thinking it.
Not because fear was irrational.
Because fear was turning Elena’s thirst into evidence against her.
He went inside.
Put on his boots.
Loaded the rifle.
Then left it beside the door.
If hundreds of mounted men intended to kill him, one Winchester was not a plan.
The sun rose.
The riders remained.
As daylight strengthened, Samuel could see families among them.
Women.
Children.
Pack horses.
Not a war party.
Still far more people than Samuel wanted surrounding his ranch before breakfast.
One rider separated from the group.
An elderly Apache man on a dark horse.
Another rider followed.
Elena.
Samuel exhaled.
They approached slowly.
Behind them, the hillside remained covered.
Elena’s horse looked rested now.
She wore the same turquoise necklace.
The older man beside her had a deeply lined face, long gray hair, and a blanket folded across his saddle despite the heat.
They stopped twenty feet from Samuel.
The elder looked at the house.
The corral.
The trough.
Then Samuel.
He spoke in Apache.
Elena translated.
“My uncle asks if the water is still for thirsty people.”
Samuel glanced toward the ridge.