Then gave her water.
Small amounts.
She watched the cup suspiciously.
“You watched me pump it.”
He said.
“No poison.”
Her eyes lifted.
“White men have poisoned wells.”
Caleb paused.
“Yes.”
It was not the answer she expected.
He could see that.
He sat on the chair beside the bed.
“I haven’t.”
She drank.
After several minutes she whispered:
“Horse.”
“I gave her one bucket slowly.”
Another swallow.
“She’ll get more.”
The woman’s eyes closed.
Caleb studied her face.
Young.
Perhaps twenty-eight.
Maybe thirty.
Dust made age difficult.
A narrow bruise crossed one cheekbone.
Not from the fall.
Her clothing carried other signs.
A torn sleeve.
A ripped seam near one knee.
A strip of leather around her waist where something had once been tied and removed.
She had not simply been traveling.
She had escaped something.
Caleb stood.
Her eyes opened immediately.
“Where?”
“Horse.”
She relaxed only slightly.
“Then I’m making coffee.”
Her expression suggested coffee was a threat.
Caleb almost smiled.
“Don’t worry. Everyone hates it.”
Outside, the mare drank another careful amount.
Caleb removed the saddle.
A dark stain marked one edge.
Blood again.
Not the horse’s.
He checked the saddlebags.
One nearly empty water skin.
A blanket.
Dried meat.
A bundle of herbs.
No ammunition except six rifle cartridges.
No rifle.
That bothered him.
The woman had ridden armed at some point.
Someone had taken the weapon.
Or she had lost it.
Inside the second saddlebag Caleb found a folded piece of cloth.
He almost ignored it.
Then he noticed dark writing beneath the edge.
Paper.
Several pages had been wrapped in cloth and hidden between the saddle leather and lining.
Caleb did not open them.
He stared for several seconds.
Then put them back exactly where he found them.
He had lived long enough to know secret papers usually brought public trouble.
He returned to the cabin.
The woman was awake.
She watched him enter.
“You search saddle?”
Caleb stopped.
“Yes.”
Her expression hardened.
“I was looking for medicine.”
“You find paper?”
“Yes.”
Her left hand tightened against the blanket.
Caleb continued:
“I didn’t read it.”
“Why?”
“Because it wasn’t mine.”
She stared.
That answer seemed stranger to her than theft would have.
Caleb poured coffee.
“Name?”
The woman said nothing.
“Mine’s Caleb.”
Still nothing.
“You don’t have to tell me.”
He sat at the small kitchen table visible through the open bedroom doorway.
“My horse is Levi. The black cow outside thinks her name is Queen Victoria because my late wife thought that was funny. The rooster does not deserve a name.”
The woman watched him.
After almost a minute:
“Elena.”
Caleb looked toward her.
“English name?”
“Yes.”
He nodded.
“What do your people call you?”
Her gaze sharpened.
Caleb lifted one hand.
“None of my business.”
She studied him.