Corvin built a narrow splint from two straight branches and secured it with the torn saddle straps. He covered the stranger with his spare shirt and put his hat over the man's face to shield him from the sun. As the light softened, Corvin climbed to the ridge and waved a strip of white cloth where it could be seen against the red rock.
An hour later, two riders appeared along the upper trail. One was the young woman Corvin would see again at dawn. The other was a lean older man who moved down the rocks as quickly as if he had walked them a hundred times. Their faces hardened when they saw the fallen horse. The woman hurried past Corvin and dropped beside the injured stranger.
She spoke to him in Apache. His answer was weak, but her shoulders relaxed a fraction. The older man checked the splint, gently tested the injured man's hands, and then looked at the empty canteens and the cup beside Corvin's boot.
"You did this?" the woman asked in English.
"Found him here. He needed water."
She looked at the stranger, who spoke again, longer this time. Her eyes returned to Corvin.
"He says you gave him all you had."
"It wasn't much."
"It was enough for him to speak."
The older man began preparing a carrying sling from two blankets. Corvin helped without being told. Between the three of them, they lifted the injured stranger to a gentle slope where the riders could support him against a fresh horse. When they were ready to leave, the woman hesitated.
"His name is Elias," she said. "I am Mara. He is my brother."
"Corvin Torne. My place is south, past the split ridge."
"I know the place." Her gaze settled on the small stitched mark of a star inside his father's tin cup. "He will want to thank you when he can."
"Tell him to get well first."
Mara studied him with the cautious seriousness of someone deciding whether a kindness was exactly what it appeared to be. Then she nodded, swung into her saddle, and rode away beside her brother. Corvin watched them until the dusk swallowed the last pale shape of the blankets.
He should have felt relieved. Instead he looked at the dry wash beneath his boots. He thought about Elias's cracked lips and the first swallow of water. He thought about the dead horse and the fresh tracks on the north trail. It struck him that nobody should have been so close to dying of thirst within riding distance of a spring that used to run all summer.
The ride home took twice as long without water. His horse stumbled on loose stone, and Corvin walked the final mile to spare it. He arrived after dark with dust in his throat and a headache that made the kitchen lantern look too bright. Jonah was waiting on the porch with a bucket of well water, which Corvin handed to the horse before drinking himself.