What happened in the 3 weeks that followed was not a straight line. Nothing in this country ever was. Boon rode to Prescott and found the lawyer, a small dry man named Aldis Vain, who had made a career out of taking cases that larger firms considered beneath them and winning about half of them, which was a better record than it sounded like in country where the scales of justice were routinely loaded on one side. Vain listened to what Boon had to say with an expression of concentrated skepticism that slowly shifted into something more interested as the details accumulated. He said he would look at the grant documents.
He said he needed 3 weeks. He said it would cost money that he could see Boon didn't have. And then he said that the water rights attached to this particular creek had been contested in a preliminary filing 2 years ago and a favorable ruling would be worth his time on its own merits and so they could work something out. Boon rode back to the valley with the news and with a document from vain that described the terms of the challenge and listed the relevant grant boundaries. Grey Elk looked at the document for a long time.
Then he looked at Boon and said something in Apache to Yuma that she translated as, ""He says you have made yourself part of this."" Boon said that was probably true. Grey Elk said something else. Yuma paused before translating, which meant it was something that didn't have a clean English equivalent. Finally, she said, ""He says, if you are part of this, then we are part of whatever comes for you."" That is how it works. What came for Boon arrived on a Thursday.
He had ridden into the nearest town, a place called Cutters Ford, with a main street that was mostly dust and bad intentions to pick up supplies and check whether Vain had filed the preliminary documents. He had done both things and was tying his purchases to August when two men appeared on the street who had the walk of men who have been sent somewhere with specific instructions. The larger of the two told Boon that Mr. Rearen had heard he'd been making trips to Prescott and wanted a word. The tone suggested that Rearen's definition of a word was flexible.
Boon looked at the two men with the specific calm he used when he wanted to make something very clear without raising his voice. He said he would speak to Rearen directly at a time and place of Boone's choosing if Rearen had legitimate business to discuss. He said if Rearen's business was not legitimate, he should speak with a man named Aldis Vain, whose address he was prepared to provide. He said this quietly and without moving his hands from where they rested, and then he mounted August and rode out of Cutter's Ford at a steady pace that communicated absolutely nothing about the speed at which his heart was beating. He made camp that night in a dry wash 6 mi out of town, not at the valley, not wanting to bring whatever was following him directly to people who were not prepared for it to arrive that way.