Corvin had buried him with it eleven years earlier.

His voice barely worked.

“Where did you get that?”

The old rider opened the watch.

Inside the lid were two engraved initials.

G.T.

Corvin took one step forward.

“That belonged to my father.”

The woman looked at him for a long moment.

Then she said:

“No.

It belonged to the man who raised you.”

Twenty-four hours earlier, Corvin’s world had been much simpler.

He had been angry about a broken fence post.

That was the great crisis of his afternoon.

The valley had been suffering beneath two months without decent rain.

Dust lay over everything.

Grass had turned brittle and yellow.

The creek behind Corvin’s ranch had shrunk into a ribbon of mud between cracked banks.

His well remained deep enough to give water, but every bucket required effort.

Corvin had been hauling one upward when he noticed something beside the western fence.

At first he assumed it was a calf.

Then the shape moved.

He tied off the rope and walked toward it.

A woman sat collapsed against the rails.

Apache.

That much he could see immediately.

Her clothing was dusty and torn.

Blood marked one sleeve.

Her dark hair hung loose across her face.

Corvin stopped ten feet away.

He had heard enough frontier stories to know what many men would have done.

Reach for a weapon.

Ask where the rest of her people were.

Demand her name.

Treat kindness as stupidity until proven otherwise.

Corvin did none of those things.

He went back to the well.

Filled a ladle.

Returned.

Her eyes opened before he reached her.

Sharp eyes.

Not helpless eyes.

Her right hand moved weakly toward a knife at her belt.

Corvin stopped.

“I’m not taking it.”

She watched him.

He lowered himself into a crouch so he would not tower above her and extended the water.

The woman stared at the ladle.

Then at him.

Corvin said nothing.

After a moment, she accepted it.

She drank.

Slowly at first.

Then again.

Then again.

Corvin refilled the ladle twice.

When he offered food, she shook her head.

“You’re bleeding.”

No response.

“I can clean that.”

Still nothing.

Corvin sighed.

“Fine.

You don’t have to like me.”

The woman’s eyes changed slightly.

He wondered whether she understood.

Apparently, she did.

When she finally stood, Corvin realized just how tall she was.

He was six feet himself.

She came close to matching him.

Her shoulders were broad, her posture almost regal despite exhaustion.

For several seconds she studied his face.

Then her eyes shifted toward the cabin.

Toward the old horseshoe nailed above the door.

Toward the name carved crudely into the timber beside it.

TORNE.

Something flickered across her face.

Recognition.

Corvin noticed.

“You know that name?”

Her expression closed immediately.

She turned north.

“You sure you can travel?”

Nothing.

“You’ve got a horse somewhere?”

Nothing.

Corvin rubbed his jaw.

“You always this talkative?”

For the first time, he thought he saw amusement in her eyes.

Then she walked away.

Corvin watched until the land swallowed her.

At 7:42 that evening, he opened the ledger he had kept for years and wrote:

Apache woman at well.

Hurt.

Gave water.

Left north.

He stared at the words for a while.

Then closed the book.

He had no idea that four miles away, the woman was meeting men who had waited eleven years for the answer to a single question.

Now Corvin stood surrounded by riders while the dead man’s watch ticked in an old Apache’s hand.