Beside him rode an old woman, small spine bent forward with age, wrapped in a blanket the color of dried blood. Her eyes, though, her eyes moved faster than anybody's, had a right to at her age, taking in the cabin, the yard, the well, Wade himself, all in about 2 seconds flat. Quiet water, Grey Talon said. By way of introduction, as the old woman dismounted without help from anybody. Thank you very much.
She heals. She will look at my daughter. She is inside. Wade said fever broke sometime before sunup. Quiet water gave him a look that suggested she'd believe that when she saw it with her own eyes, and not one moment sooner, she went in.
Wade didn't follow. Some rooms a man learns aren't his to walk into. Grey Talon stayed outside with him, arms crossed, watching the horizon like he expected it to give him an answer. Nobody else had managed yet. You have something to show me, he said.
Not a question. He'd clearly heard from the watch commander that Wade had asked. I do. Then show me. Not yet.
Wade held his ground, which took more nerve than he expected it to. Want your daughter's healer to clear her first. And I want her awake and steady before I take you anywhere. What I've got to show you. It's half a day's ride.
I'm not leaving her here alone to do it. Something moved behind Grey Talon's stone expression. Not quite approval. Something adjacent to it, though. A man recalculating again, the shape of somebody he'd already decided he didn't trust.
You care what happens to her? He said slowly. Beyond the debt. Wade didn't answer right away. Yeah, he said finally.
Reckon I do. Grey Talon studied him a long moment. said nothing more about it, but something in the set of his shoulders had eased just slightly, like a man setting down one small corner of a heavy weight. Quiet water came back out a while later. Her verdict short and final the way verdicts from very old women tend to be. She lives, the healer said.
The leg will need a season, maybe more, to mend proper, but she lives, and that is your doing, white man. Whatever else you turn out to be. Wade, he said. Name's Wade. I know your name.
Quiet water's eyes glittered, sharp as broken glass. I am deciding if I care to use it yet. She walked off toward the fires without waiting for a response. And Wade found himself, despite everything, almost smiling. Seemed like everybody in this family had the exact same gift for making a man feel simultaneously respected and thoroughly put in his place.