"I know."
A pause.
"My people will come first."
He looked at her. "How do you know?"
"Because I have been on your ridge for seven days, and they have been following where I go since I left the south. They are two days behind me, maybe less now." He thought about that. "You've known all week they were coming."
"Yes."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
She held his gaze. "Because I did not know you yet." He had no argument for that. It was the most honest thing anyone had said to him in a long time.
He stood with it in silence, and neither of them felt the need to add anything to it. The following morning, Cal walked out before dawn and found his ranch had acquired an audience. They were not hiding. They were simply present.
Arranged on the ridges around his property with the unhurried ease of people who have arrived somewhere and intend to understand it before they act. He counted around 20 riders spread across the northern and western high ground, sitting their horses in the pale light with a stillness that was older than threat and older than peace. A single rider separated from the group and began to descend. He was perhaps 55, with gray braided into his hair and a face that gave away nothing except the strong suggestion that a great deal of thought was happening behind it.
He rode to within 40 feet of the yard and stopped. His eyes moved from Sia to Cal and back again. He spoke in Apache. She answered at length, and while she spoke, the man's gaze moved back to Cal and did not move away.
Finally, Sia turned to Cal. "He wants to know who you are."