“You too.”
Isaiah pointed toward him.
“I’m older. I have an excuse.”
Then he rode away.
Abigail watched until the trees hid him.
The valley became theirs slowly.
Not legally.
Not immediately.
But through work.
Mateo fenced a small pasture.
Abigail planted beans, squash, and herbs beside the cabin.
They bought three goats from a rancher who did not ask where their names came from.
At night, they sat beside the river.
Abigail read aloud.
Mateo usually pretended not to listen.
One evening she stopped halfway through a poem.
He looked over.
“Why’d you stop?”
“You weren’t listening.”
“I was.”
“What was the last line?”
Mateo repeated it exactly.
Abigail stared at him.
He shrugged.
“I didn’t say I liked it.”
They married beside the river without a preacher.
Abigail wore a simple blue dress purchased from a widow near Benson. Mateo wore a clean white shirt and the silver bracelet his mother had given him years before.
No church bell rang.
No judge recorded the vows.
Only cottonwood leaves moved above them.
Mateo tied a narrow strip of red cloth around Abigail’s wrist.
She tied a strip of leather around his.
“I choose you,” she said.
Mateo looked at her.
“After everything?”
“Because of everything.”
He took her hands.
“I choose you.”
“That sounded easier.”
“I practiced.”
She laughed.
Then kissed him.
For the first time, neither looked over a shoulder afterward.
Months became years.
Red Hollow faded into stories travelers brought beside campfires.
Sheriff Caleb Rusk lost his office after Deputy Nathan Webb testified about the planted evidence and the sheriff’s attempt to shoot Mateo during the escape. Gideon Strake was investigated when three of the supposedly stolen horses were discovered on land owned by one of his cousins.
The theft had been arranged.
Strake had moved his own horses to create evidence against Mateo and avoid paying what he owed.
Judge Horace Bell claimed he had been misled.
Nobody in Red Hollow believed him completely.
Nathan Webb resigned from the sheriff’s office.
Years later, he rode south looking for Abigail and Mateo.
He found their cabin near dusk.
Mateo met him outside.
Neither man reached for a weapon.
Nathan removed his hat.
“I came to apologize.”