"You look like a man who tried to wrestle the desert," Jonah said.
"The desert won."
Over cold beans, Corvin explained what he had found. Jonah listened without interrupting until he heard that the stranger was Apache. His spoon stopped halfway to his mouth.
"Harlan Voss won't like that," he said.
"Harlan Voss isn't invited to supper."
"You know what I mean. He hears somebody helped an Apache rider, he turns it into a story about secret deals and stolen cattle."
"Let him tell his stories."
Jonah leaned back. "You weren't saying that last winter when he threatened to stop selling us hay."
Corvin had no answer. Jonah was not wrong. In a drought, a man could be pushed around by whoever controlled the feed wagon and the nearest decent watering place. Corvin had spent months pretending he could mind his own business and keep his ranch out of other people's quarrels. That afternoon had shown him how little control he really had over where his conscience would lead him.
Before bed, he set the tin cup beside the dry kitchen sink. His father had carried it across the plains years before Corvin was born. A crude little star had been scratched on its rim, not for decoration but so it would not get lost among the cups of other men. When Corvin was young, his father had insisted that a traveler who asked for water should never be made to explain where he came from before receiving it.
Corvin had remembered the words without thinking much about them. Now, in the dark, they sounded less like an old man's advice and more like a promise he had nearly forgotten making.
At dawn, Jonah woke him by pounding on the bedroom door.
"Corvin. Horses. The ridge is covered."
That was how Corvin came to stand behind his fence, barefoot in one boot, looking at more Apache riders than he had ever seen in one place. Now the young woman from the ravine sat at the front, and the older man behind her watched the ranch house with calm, searching eyes.
"His name is Chief Tomas," Mara told Corvin when he stepped closer. "He leads our community. Elias is his son."
The older man dismounted slowly. Corvin saw the stiffness in his knees and the dust packed into the seams of his clothing. He did not look like a man who had brought a crowd on a whim. He looked like someone who had ridden far because there was something important enough to say in person.
Tomas approached the fence but stopped a respectful distance away. He spoke briefly to Mara, who listened before turning to Corvin.
"He wants to know if we are welcome to speak on your land."