Elias Ward first saw the woman just before sunset.
At first, he thought the shape beside the dry creek bed was a dead horse.
The Arizona Territory had been without meaningful rain for nearly four months. The grass surrounding Ward Ranch had turned the color of old rope, cattle traveled farther each morning to graze, and even the cottonwoods along the wash had begun dropping leaves too early.
Elias had spent most of that August afternoon repairing a windmill when he noticed buzzards circling nearly a mile east of his house.
That was usually bad news.
A dead calf.
A crippled steer.
Sometimes a stranger who had underestimated the desert.
He saddled his bay gelding, Cooper, and rode toward the wash with a rifle beneath his leg.
What he found was a woman.
She sat with her back against a flat sandstone boulder, one knee raised, the other leg stretched awkwardly across the sand.
She was Apache.
She was also the tallest woman Elias had ever seen.
Even sitting down, there was something imposing about her. Broad shoulders beneath a dust-covered buckskin shirt. Long black hair partially braided but loose from hard travel. Strong hands resting beside her legs.
A bruise darkened one side of her face.
Blood had dried near her temple.
Her lips were cracked.
A broken bow lay several feet away.
There was no horse.
Elias stopped twenty yards from her.
The woman's eyes opened immediately.
One hand moved toward a knife at her belt.
Elias remained mounted.
"Easy."
Her fingers stayed on the handle.
Elias reached slowly behind his saddle and removed his canteen.
The woman watched.
He took a drink first.
Then corked it again.
"I'm going to set this down."
No response.
He dismounted.
He walked five steps forward, placed the canteen in the dirt, then backed away.
The woman stared at it.
Then at him.
Elias pointed.
"Water."
Her expression suggested she understood the word.
She waited another ten seconds before reaching for it.
She drank carefully.
Not greedily.
That impressed him.
A person dying from thirst often tried to swallow too much too quickly.
She took three small drinks, lowered the canteen, waited, then drank again.
Elias looked around.
"Where's your horse?"
The woman did not answer.
"Anyone with you?"
Nothing.
Elias glanced at the sky.
The sun would disappear within the hour.
Coyotes would begin moving soon.
Temperatures would drop.
He could leave her water and ride home.
Part of him thought that would be smartest.
There had been trouble north of Silver Creek.
Missing cattle.
Shots exchanged near a trading trail.
Rumors moved faster than truth in Arizona, and every rumor seemed to end with somebody reaching for a rifle.
Elias was thirty-eight years old.
He had survived this long largely because he knew the difference between courage and stupidity.
Then the woman tried to stand.
She made it halfway.
Her injured leg collapsed.
Elias caught her before she hit the ground.
The knife was suddenly at his throat.
He froze.
The woman was easily six feet tall.
Maybe more.
Despite dehydration and injury, she had enough strength left to make the warning convincing.
Elias slowly removed his hands.
"Fair enough."
She studied his face.
Then lowered the knife.
Elias pointed toward his ranch.
"My house."
He pointed toward her.