“The dam.”
Elena nodded.
Samuel looked toward the ridge.
“You’re planning to tear it down.”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“Show it.”
“To whom?”
Now Elena smiled slightly.
“You.”
Samuel almost laughed.
“Why me?”
Her uncle spoke.
Elena translated:
“Because white law hears a white rancher faster.”
The words embarrassed him because they were true.
Samuel looked at the old man.
“Your uncle really said that?”
Elena smiled.
“Not exactly.”
Samuel almost smiled back.
Then movement behind them caught his attention.
Four riders descended from the ridge carrying something between two horses.
A long, dark shape.
Samuel squinted.
When they entered the yard he realized it was an enormous black bear hide stretched across two poles.
The fur was thick.
Nearly six feet from head to rump.
Samuel stared.
“What is that?”
Elena’s uncle spoke.
She translated.
“Payment.”
“For water?”
Samuel looked horrified.
“I don’t want payment.”
The elder replied.
Elena’s mouth curved.
“He knows.”
“Then why?”
“He says refusing every gift is another way of making yourself important.”
Samuel stared at the older man.
“Does he insult everyone he meets?”
Elena answered without asking him.
“Yes.”
The elder laughed.
Samuel looked at the bear hide.
“Where did it come from?”
Elena touched the fur.
“This bear killed three calves near our camp.”
“You killed it?”
She looked at him.
Samuel understood the answer before she spoke.
“Yes.”
He studied her.
“Yesterday?”
“Three days ago.”
“Before riding alone through the heat?”
“Yes.”
“You are either very brave or very foolish.”
Elena looked toward the ridge.
“Same could be said of a man giving water to someone every neighbor tells him to fear.”
Samuel had no response.
He accepted the hide.
Not ceremonially.
Not as a symbol he understood.
As a gift.
Two people had carried it miles.
Refusing would be vanity disguised as humility.
By eight that morning, Samuel’s yard had become something he never imagined seeing.
Apache families watered horses in organized groups of ten.
No one rushed the trough.
Children sat beneath mesquite shade.
Women filled skins and clay containers.
Men helped Samuel repair a section of corral fence one of the pack horses accidentally damaged.
Samuel tried explaining that he could repair his own fence.
No one listened.
Elena laughed at him.
“You are bad at receiving help.”
“So I’m told.”
“By Miriam?”
Samuel looked at her.
“Yes.”
Elena’s expression softened.
Samuel went into the house and climbed to the loft.
Dust covered Miriam’s boxes.
He found them after twenty minutes.
Letters.
Her father’s notebooks.
Railroad maps.
Receipts.
A blue dress Samuel had not been able to throw away.
Then a leather survey book.
MIRIAM HALE.
His hands shook.