Tahoma nodded.
Yara looked toward him.
“You don’t have to.”
“I know.”
“California?”
“California will probably still be there next month.”
That drew laughter.
Eli continued.
“But I have conditions.”
Tahoma’s smile widened.
“Of course you do.”
“I need everything you know about Voss.”
“Agreed.”
“I need authority to change patrols and horse movement if I see something your people haven’t considered.”
Yara folded her arms.
“You will work with me, not command me.”
Eli nodded.
“Fair.”
“And?”
He looked at her.
“We stop treating each other like punishment from the spirits.”
Yara thought about that.
“Agreed.”
The horse corrals changed everything.
Eli had spent most of his life around ranch stock. He knew mustangs, working horses, Army remounts, stubborn geldings, half-broken mares, and expensive animals whose owners knew more about money than horsemanship. The Red Mesa herd was unlike anything he had seen.
The horses were compact, muscular, intelligent, and astonishingly calm. Several lines had been bred for endurance across rocky desert terrain, while others possessed speed that would have made racing men rich. Eli understood immediately why Lucien Voss wanted them.
“These aren’t horses,” he whispered.
Yara leaned against the fence.
“What are they?”
“Trouble with four legs.”
She smiled.
A black stallion approached Eli.
He held out one hand.
The horse sniffed him, then lowered his head.
Yara looked impressed despite herself.
“He doesn’t like strangers.”
“Horses like people who don’t lie to them.”
“Convenient philosophy.”
“It keeps me employed.”
They spent the morning studying patrol routes.
Yara knew every canyon.
Eli understood how horse thieves thought.
“Your people watch the obvious trail.”
“Because that is where they came last time.”
“That is why they will not come there again.”
She looked annoyed.
Then thoughtful.
“What would you use?”
He pointed toward a narrow wash on the map.
“This.”
“That path is terrible.”
“For horses, yes.”
“For men?”
“Possible.”
Yara smiled slightly.
“You really have done this before.”
“I’ve chased stolen cattle.”
“Not the same.”
“No.”
He looked at the map.
“Thieves are thieves.”
By afternoon, Eli asked for the fastest horse available and enough provisions to reach Red Rock.
Yara frowned.
“You’re leaving?”
“Only temporarily.”
“Why?”
“Because everything we know about Voss comes from what you’ve seen here.”
He tapped the map.
“I want to know what people outside are saying.”
“I’ll come.”
“No.”
Her eyes hardened.
“Excuse me?”
“You and I entering Red Rock together will draw every eye on the street.”
“So?”
“So a stranger cowboy asking about another outlaw is ordinary.”
Eli paused.
“A cowboy arriving with the chief’s daughter from a hidden Apache settlement is a story.”