For a moment, I expected her to refuse. At last, she took it. She drank slowly, watching me over the metal rim the entire time. When she finished, she handed it back with deliberate care, making certain our fingers did not meet. "Why did they do this to you?"
I asked. She remained silent for several moments. I could see her deciding how much truth she could safely give a white stranger. Because I witnessed something I was never supposed to see, I waited without pressing her. The railroad water crew is poisoning the water at the Red Mesa Apache settlement.
The Red Canyon Railroad wants our people driven off the land. If poisoned water kills us first, their men won't need to waste bullets later. Her words struck harder than any gunshot. This had never been a simple execution. It was the opening move in something far larger.
I turned my eyes toward the horizon. Far off, beneath the dust still hanging over the open country, the pounding of fresh hoof beatats began to carry across the ground. She heard them, too. They came back, she whispered. I slowly shook my head.
No, they brought more men. I looked toward the narrow trail leading to my old cabin. It was the only defensible ground close enough to give us any chance of surviving. My place is closer than the Red Mesa Apache settlement. If they mean to take you, they'll have to come through me first.
For the first time, Nia met my eyes without anger burning in hers. Instead, I saw a silent question. Could she risk placing her life in the hands of another white man? She gave me no answer. But when she climbed onto my spare horse and urged it after mine, I understood that she had just made one of the hardest choices of her life.
Nia did not ask a single question as we rode. She never asked who I truly was, why I had risked my neck for a stranger, or even where I intended to take her. She kept her horse several yards behind mine, always watchful, turning every so often to study the trail stretching behind us. That silence told me more about her than a long conversation ever could. Distrust had kept her alive.
After what I had just witnessed, she had every reason to hold tightly to it. The wind spun dust devils between the hills, while our horses struck a hard rhythm against the sunbaked earth. Miles of scrub, cactus, and red stone spread across the country. To our right. To our left, the tracks of the Red Canyon Railroad continued across Apache land like a scar that refused to heal.
Nia finally broke the silence. They will not stop hunting me. It was not a question. It was a certainty. I nodded without looking back.
I know. Then they will come after you too. A weary smile crossed my face. I stopped worrying about my own height a long time ago. She said nothing.
For several minutes, only the wind traveled between us. Then she spoke again. Why did you do it? The question lingered in the dry air. I could have claimed that any decent man would have done the same.