By the time the sun cleared the ridge, Corvin Torne had counted so many horses that he stopped trying.
They poured out of the pale morning dust in long, deliberate rows, filling the road that wound between the red bluffs and the small Arizona ranch he had spent seven years trying to keep alive.
There were men in the saddle, women riding beside them, older people moving at an unhurried pace, and younger riders watching the land with the alertness of those who knew exactly where they were. Nearly three hundred Apache people had come to his gate.
Corvin stood behind the fence with both hands gripping a weathered rail. He had forgotten to put on his boots properly. On the porch behind him, a tin cup lay on its side beside the empty water bucket. It was the same cup he had used the afternoon before, when a stranger had been so close to death that his lips could barely move.
Across the yard, his old hired hand, Jonah Price, stepped out of the barn and froze. Jonah had seen cavalry patrols and angry creditors, but never a gathering like this. He looked at Corvin as though the answer to what was happening might be written on his face.
"Tell me you didn't do something foolish yesterday," Jonah whispered.
Corvin did not look away from the riders. "I gave a man some water."
"What man?"
"An Apache man. He was hurt."
Jonah's eyes widened. "You should have mentioned that before breakfast."
The riders slowed. Their horses shifted in the red dust, but no one charged the fence. A young woman with long dark hair rode near the front on a chestnut mare. Her plain tan riding clothes were creased from travel, and she held her reins with the steady confidence of a person who had spent years on horseback. She studied Corvin without smiling. Behind her, an older man with silver threaded through his braids sat straight-backed on a dark horse. His expression was stern, though not hostile.
Corvin knew, suddenly and with a strange clarity, that whatever these people wanted, running would be pointless. The ranch had one road, one working well, and no place to hide hundreds of miles from the people who knew these hills better than he did. He took his hands off the fence and stepped into the open.
The woman raised a hand. The riders behind her came to a gradual stop. Wind moved through the mesquite. For a long moment, nobody spoke.
Then the woman looked past Corvin toward the overturned tin cup on the porch.
"You are the man who helped my brother," she said in clear English.
Corvin swallowed. "If he's your brother, I hope he's still breathing."
Her expression changed. Not quite into a smile, but into something that made the tightness in his chest loosen.
"He is," she answered. "That is why we are here."
Only twenty hours earlier, Corvin had thought his greatest problem was going to be the drought.