They reached Apache land by mid-morning the next day. Two scouts found them first, faces opened with shock at the sight of Naellili, alive and whole. She called out to them in her own tongue, then switched to Spanish so Wyatt could follow along. This man saved my life. Take us to my father.
The scouts eyed Wyatt with plain suspicion, but nodded and led the pair onward through a wide green valley toward the heart of the trib's main camp. The sight of it stopped Wyatt cold a moment. Dozens of lodges spread across the valley floor. Smoke rising lazy from a dozen fires. Children chasing each other through the tall grass.
Women working hides near the tree line. Warriors sparring with spears not far off. Somewhere beyond the lodges, a string of horses grazed in a fenced meadow greener than anything Wyatt had seen in months. And the whole valley smelled of wood smoke and pine and something cooking that made his stomach ache with hunger. He'd been too keyed up to notice until just then.
The instant somebody spotted Naellili, a cry went up through the whole camp, and people came running from every direction. Her name carried on pure joy. A woman, her mother, Wyatt realized, reached her first, sobbing openly as she pulled her daughter into her arms. Then the crowd parted, and Chief Grey Owl stepped forward. He was an imposing figure, despite years that had clearly seen more than 50 winters, tall and thick through the shoulders, his face carved deep by decades of hard living and harder battles.
A ceremonial headdress crowned with real eagle feathers sat heavy across his brow. He studied his daughter a long moment as though he still couldn't quite believe she stood in front of him, then pulled her into an embrace fierce enough to carry every sleepless night since she'd vanished. "My daughter, I feared I had lost you. I'm here, father. " She held him back just as tight. I'm safe.
When they finally separated, Grey Owl turned his full attention on Wyatt, studying him boots to hat with a gaze that missed nothing. You the scouts tell me you're the one who brought my daughter home. Wyatt swung down off Duke and stood straight, meeting the chief's eyes without flinching, having learned somewhere along the trail that showing weakness before a man like this would be its own kind of mistake. Yes, sir. found her at a slave market in Split Rock, bought her freedom, and kept her safe from the men who came looking to drag her back. A ripple of low murmurs moved through the gathered crowd.
Buying implied ownership in most minds, and ownership could get read a dozen different ways. Grey Owl's eyes sharpened. You bought her paid money for my own daughter, father. Na stepped forward before Wyatt could answer it all. Let me tell it properly.
For several minutes she laid out the whole of it, the ambush, her capture, the veil, the market where nobody would bid because of it. How Wyatt had been the only man willing to buy what everyone else refused. The bandits on the road, the raid on his ranch, and how through every mile of it, he'd never once treated her as anything less than an equal. He saved my life twice, father, and never once disrespected me. He's an honorable man.