He dreaded facing her. He expected her to be gone, to have run, or worse, to be back as she was when she first arrived. A silent, weary ghost. He got up and splashed cold water on his face from the basin. He opened the cabin door.
Tyen was outside, feeding the chickens a handful of cracked corn. The morning air was washed clean, and the sun was bright. She seemed calm, her movements deliberate. He was about to speak, to apologize, to try and explain again. When she turned, he stopped.
Her hair, it was not in the simple loose braid she usually wore. The style of a young unmarried girl. It was different. It was parted, pulled back tight, and woven into two intricate braids, which were then looped and tied up at the back of her head with a strip of his own cured leather. It was a style that was severe, complex, and elegant.
It was the style of a woman. He just stared. She did not look at him directly. She scattered the last of the corn. "Your hair," he said, his voice a rasp.
She finished her task and stood, her back straight. She looked toward the mountains, not at him, but her voice was clear and steady, with no trace of the fear or the pleading from the night before. "In my tribe," she said. "This is how married women wear their hair." The silence in the cabin had changed.
It was no longer a space Daniel filled with his solitary thoughts with Tyen a silent observer. It was their silence. Her new hairstyle was a declaration, a bold, quiet statement that he had no idea how to answer. He had refused her in the storm, and she had responded not with retreat, but with a symbolic claiming of a future he himself was too afraid to consider. He said nothing about it.
He could not to acknowledge it was to accept a new reality and he was not ready. He continued his chores. He chopped wood. He repaired the corral. He hunted.
She worked beside him. Her presence a constant warm weight. She still did not enter his space without invitation. But the line between her small room and his main cabin had blurred. The latch on her door remained unused.
But the homestead could not remain an island forever. Spring was advancing and their supplies, stretched thin by the long winter, were dwindling. He was out of salt, low on coffee, and dangerously low on ammunition. The ground was soft enough to plant, and he needed seed. He put off the trip to Santa Fe for as long as he could.
It was not just the ride, it was the people. He had been a recluse for 5 years, visiting town only four or five times a year, a gaunt, bearded ghost who bought his supplies and spoke to no one. But he had been alone then. Now he was not. He rode Sully hard, leaving at dawn.
The buckskin sensing his urgency, he tried to tell himself that nothing had changed. He was just a homesteader going for supplies, but he knew it was a lie. He had been in town once briefly in the dead of winter to buy the wool shawl for Tyen. He'd seen the looks he got from Silas, the storekeeper, who had asked why he, a man who never bought fixings, was suddenly interested in women's apparel. Daniel had ignored him, paid his coin, and left.
But the seed of rumor had been planted. Santa Fe was busy. The plaza was thick with wagons, horses, and men back from wintering trap lines. The adobe storefront seemed to bake in the strengthening sun. He tied sully outside the general store, his gaze low, his hat pulled down.
He just wanted to get in and get out. The moment he pushed open the door, the talk stopped. Silas Cooper was behind the counter polishing a glass jar. Three men were leaning against the far wall by the stove. Though it was unlit, he recognized them.
Clay Hackett and Jeb Smith, two hands from the Miller ranch, and a third man, a drifter he'd seen around. "Reed?" Silas said, his voice flat, not welcoming. "Silas," Daniel nodded. He walked past the men, grabbing a sack of flour and another of beans.
He moved to the counter, gathering salt, coffee, and two heavy boxes of.44 caliber cartridges. "Stocking up heavy," Clay Hackett had observed. His voice was lazy, but it carried across the small store. Daniel ignored him. Need corn seed, Silus and rye.
Silas moved to scoop the seed into brown paper sacks. Heard you got company up on that ridge. Reed. Jeb Smith chimed in, spitting a stream of tobacco juice into the sawdust on the floor. Heard you ain't so lonely anymore.
Daniel's back stiffened. He kept his eyes on the counter. My business is my own, Jeb. Not when it concerns a Christian soul, Clay said, pushing himself off the wall. He was a big man, broad in the shoulders with a mean, pinched mouth.
We heard what you did. Took that little Apache girl from Reverend Pike. Reverend Pike bought her like cattle, Daniel said, his voice low and cold. She was half dead. She was a convert, Clay sneered, stepping closer.
He was saving her. And you? You took her. Heard you're keeping her up there for yourself. Ruining a good Christian girl.
She's not a girl, Daniel said, turning to face him. And she's not yours to save or his. She's a. Hackett spat. And you're no better than a buck for keeping her.
Bet you're having a fine time, ain't you? After your half-breed wife died, you just had to get another one. The mention of Elara was a lit match to dry tinder. Daniel felt the blood roar in his ears. A hot red tide that drowned out all reason.
He didn't think. He moved. He hit Clay Hackett at once. A straight hard right born of military training and fury. It connected with the man's jaw with a sickening crack of bone and cartilage.