Clay sat beside him for a while without moving. Then he did the only thing that felt right. Using his camp shovel, he dug a shallow grave in the hard red soil. He wrapped the old Apache in his own blanket, lowered him carefully into the earth, and marked the resting place with a small pile of white stones gathered from the dry creek bed. Clay left the string of beads around the man's wrist.
He did not know Apache burial customs well enough to be certain, but taking the beads away felt wrong, so he left them there. Afterward, he drove the cattle down toward the lower pasture. Then he rode home. He told no one had happened because there was no one there to tell. For the next two days, the memory stayed with him.
He turned it over in his mind the way a man worries at a question that has no answer. Then eventually he forced himself to leave it alone. 4 days after the encounter on the trail, Klay was sleeping before sunrise when he heard the door. Not a knock. The latch.
His rifle was already up before his eyes were fully open. That old soldier's instinct had never completely left him. He pushed himself upright on the edge of the cot, weapon raised, and in the gray light slipping through the cabin's only eastern window, he saw her. She stood near the kitchen table without moving. She was a patchy, young, barely past 20, dressed in buckskin.
Her black hair fell loose over her shoulders, and a short knife rested at her belt. She had not drawn it. Her eyes were calm and steady. There was no fear in them, no threat either. She looked like a woman who had traveled a long way and had learned not to be surprised by much, not even by waking a man who now had a rifle pointed at her.
Clayor's finger never tightened on the trigger. Something in the woman's stillness stopped him. For several seconds, neither of them moved. Then Klay asked in a rough, guarded voice, "How did you get in?" It barely sounded like a question.
Through the door, she answered. Her English came slowly and carefully. Every word placed with the same precision a person might use when laying stones along a narrow trail. I knocked. You did not wake.
Clay lowered the rifle a few inches. Who are you? My name is Nia. My father was Toma. She paused before continuing.
He was a healer among the Mescalero Apache. He died 4 days ago on the road toward Ruidoso beside a stand of pyon trees. Her eyes remained fixed on Clay. You stayed with him. Klay lowered the rifle until it rested across his knees.
He said nothing. Before he went to the spirits, he spoke. Two men from my people, Caro and Rico, were traveling nearby. They were too far away to reach him in time, but close enough to hear his final words. Nia held Clay's gaze as she continued.