"If I do not pay it, my son's spirit will carry shame. My honor will carry shame. You will accept payment."
He turned and called out in Apache. The riders parted, and from behind them came 20 women on foot. They were young, most of them, ranging from maybe 18 to 30. They wore traditional Apache dresses, deerskin and calico and wool, and they walked with their heads down, eyes on the ground.
My stomach dropped.
"Choose one," Kuruk said. "She will be your wife. That is how we pay debts of life."
I stared at him. At the women. At the impossible situation unfolding in front of me.
"I don't want a wife. I just did what was right."
Kuruk's face went hard again. "You do not understand. If I do not pay this debt, it will poison my son's future."
"It will poison relations between my people and yours. You will choose, or you will insult me and my tribe."
The women stood in a line now, silent and still. Most of them kept their eyes down. A few glanced up briefly, then away. They were terrified.
I could see it in the set of their shoulders, the way they held themselves, ready to run or fight or collapse. One woman stood slightly apart from the others. She didn't look down. She looked straight ahead, past me, past everything, like she was somewhere else entirely.
She was maybe 27, with long black hair in a single braid and a face that might have been beautiful if it wasn't so carefully empty of expression. Her dress was patched at the hem, and there was a faint bruise on her jaw, old and fading. Something about her steadiness drew me. Or maybe it was the way she didn't seem to care what happened next.
Like she'd already survived worse than this. I pointed at her.
"Her."
Kuruk looked at the woman, then back at me. "You choose wisely. Takala has no family left in our tribe. She will serve you faithfully."
He said something in Apache. The other women melted back toward the horses. Takala didn't move. She stood there, alone now, still looking at nothing.
Kuruk mounted his horse. Chaska appeared in the doorway, leaning on the frame, and his father rode over to him. They spoke briefly, too quiet for me to hear. Then Kuruk reached down and gripped his son's shoulder once, hard, before turning away.
The riders left the way they'd come, a silent procession back up the ridge. In minutes, they were gone, swallowed by distance and the gray winter sky. I turned to look at Takala. She was looking at me now.
Really looking. What I saw in her eyes made my blood freeze. Hatred. Pure and absolute.
She walked toward me, slow and deliberate, and stopped three feet away. "I know who you are," she said in perfect English. "Eight years ago, you killed my husband."
The world tilted. I grabbed the porch railing to steady myself.
"His name was Matto," she continued, her voice flat and cold. "The battle at Rio Grande, 1875. You shot him while I watched. Do you remember?"
I did remember. God help me, I remembered every detail. The skirmish line. The order to fire.