I'll do what digging I can. Quiet like, "See if I can't find something that ties Thorne directly to what happened to your father, but it's going to take time." And time's one thing I can't promise you plenty of. Understood, Jed said. Tate mounted back up, looked down at the two of them a long moment. "
Watch this place close," he said. " A man like Thorne once he sets his mind on something. He doesn't stop coming just because the first try failed." He rode out, the dust rising soft behind him, same as Wit had 3 days before. And Jed and Desa stood in the yard, watching the ridge swallow him whole.
The silence afterward heavier than before he'd arrived. That night, Desa didn't sleep in the barn. She sat instead on the porch step, staring out at the dark line of the horizon. The paper still folded in her lap like something alive she was afraid to let go of. Jed found her there when he came out to bank the fire pit.
He almost turned back inside. Almost. Except something stopped him. Some pull he didn't examine too closely. Room for one more out here?
He asked. She didn't answer right away, which he took his permission. He sat down two feet away, careful with the distance. The way you'd sit next to something wild that hadn't decided yet whether you were safe. My father used to sit like this, she said finally.
Every night, no matter the said the stars were the one thing that never lied to a man. Sounds like he was a decent judge of things. He was. Her voice wavered just slightly. Except when it came to trusting the wrong people, apparently.
You don't know that yet. I know a man who filed three offers on land and got turned down three times. Doesn't just let it go. I know men like that. Her hands tighten on the paper.
I've spent my whole life caught between two worlds that both decided I didn't belong. You learn to read greed pretty quick growing up like that. Learn it in a man's eyes before he ever opens his mouth. Jed said nothing. Let her keep going.
Because sometimes the kindest thing a man could do was just shut up and listen. I keep thinking, she said, if I'd known if he'd what? I don't know. Her voice cracked open just a hair. Protected him maybe.
Or run sooner or or gotten yourself killed alongside him, Jed said quietly. That lance cursed you the second you were born his daughter. Nothing you'd have done would have changed that math. She turned to look at him then. Really look like she was recalculating something behind her eyes.
You always this comforting? she said. Or am I getting a special rate? The corner of his mouth twitched despite everything. First almost smile she'd pulled out of him since the creek.
Special rate, he said. Don't tell anyone. Ruins my reputation as a miserable old widower. You're 35. Feels older some days.
Some days she agreed softly. I feel about a hundred. They sat there a long while after that, not talking, just letting the night settle around them, cold and clear and full of stars that apparently never lied. The attack came four mornings later. Jed felt it before he saw it.
That particular wrongness in the air that a man learns to recognize after enough years alone on open land. The birds gone quiet wind carrying a smell that didn't belong. He was checking the north fence line with Desa when three riders crested the eastern ridge. down," he said. Already moving, they didn't run.
Running invites a bullet in the back. They walked quick and low back toward the cabin. Desa's hand, finding the second rifle just inside the door without needing to be told where it was kept. The three riders reined in 30 yards out. Cyrus in the lead this time, cocky again now that he wasn't alone and unarmed against a man with a rifle already up.
Reeve flanked him on the left, silent, watching. Amos hung back. The nervous one. The one whose hands never quite settled on his reins. " The morning, Callaway," Cyrus called out, grinning like this was a social visit. "
Come to have ourselves a conversation." " Funny," Jed called back, rifle steady across his forearm. " Yesterday you were on my land uninvited. Today, you're back for more of the same. Yesterday was a misunderstanding."
Cyrus's grin widened. " You let us take what’s ours? We forget about that little warning shot. Everybody rides off happy. Nothing here belongs to you.
That Indian woman does. The words landed like a slap. Jed felt Desa go rigid beside him. Saw her knuckles whiten around the rifle stock. She's not property, Jed said, voice flat and hard.
She's a person and she's under my protection now. Reeve spoke for the first time. The voice as flat and cold as creek stone in winter. Protection's expensive, Callaway. Costs blood sometimes.
You sure you want to spend that kind of coin on some half breed you've known all of a week? Already spent it, Jed said. The moment I cut her loose. The question now is whether you three are ready to pay the price of trying to take her back. Cyrus glanced sideways at Reev, looking for direction the way a dog looks for its master's Q. Reeve studied Jed a long, silent moment, calculating.
We got three guns to your one, Cyrus said. And you ain't even fully armed. Jed smiled. No warmth in it at all. That's where you're wrong, he said.
I'm always armed, and even if I wasn't, you'd still have yourselves a problem. What problems that? The one watching you from the barn loft. Winchchester aimed square at your backs. All three men turned at once.