“What?”
Kele walked to the window.
Outside, hundreds of riders waited.
“The water,” he said.
Corvin looked toward his well.
“What about it?”
Mara answered.
“Your well does not belong to one ranch.”
Corvin’s eyes narrowed.
“It’s on my deed.”
“The deed is a lie.”
The truth unfolded over the next hour.
And each part was worse than the last.
Beneath Corvin’s ranch lay one of the deepest natural underground water channels in the valley.
The well was merely its easiest opening.
For generations before fences crossed the land, families had traveled through the valley using springs fed by that underground water.
Then surveyors discovered something else.
Copper.
A massive vein ran beneath the same ridge.
Thirty-two years earlier, a private mining company called Red Meridian had learned of it.
But extracting the ore required controlling the water.
And controlling the water meant removing everyone who had claim to the valley.
Red Meridian hired men.
Some dressed like soldiers.
Some like deputies.
Some like ordinary thieves.
They burned camps.
Destroyed food stores.
Killed witnesses.
Among the dead was Corvin’s biological father.
Gideon arrived afterward.
He had been trading with Kele’s people.
He found Corvin’s mother dying after childbirth.
She gave him her infant son.
Gideon took the child east for several years.
Then something unexpected happened.
Red Meridian collapsed.
Its investors scattered.
Its founder disappeared.
Gideon returned and purchased the abandoned ranch directly over the water source.
He spent the next twenty years guarding it.
Corvin stared at Kele.
“Why?”
“To keep them from trying again.”
“Who?”
Mara crossed her arms.
“The men coming here today.”
Corvin laughed once, without humor.
“You already have three hundred men surrounding my ranch.”
“They are not surrounding you.”
Mara looked through the window.
“They are surrounding the well.”
Corvin felt cold.
Kele reached into his shirt and removed another paper.
“This arrived six days ago.”
It was a printed notice.
RED MERIDIAN CONSOLIDATED MINING & RAIL.
Corvin knew the company.
Everybody in Arizona Territory knew it.
Rail lines.
Mines.
Timber.
Warehouses.
Its owner, Ezra Vale, had become one of the richest men in the Southwest.
The notice declared that a new survey proved Corvin’s property lay within an older mining claim.
It demanded surrender of the ranch.
Corvin stared.
“I never received this.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because the courier carrying your copy never reached you.”
Mara’s expression darkened.
“I found him.”
Corvin looked at the bloodstained cloth tied around her arm.
Understanding struck.
“You were attacked.”
“Three riders.”
“You killed them?”
“One.”
Corvin looked toward Kele.
“And the other two?”
“Escaped.”
Corvin turned to Mara.
“You brought the notice here?”
She nodded.
“Then why didn’t you just tell me yesterday?”
Kele answered.
“Because of Gideon.”
Corvin looked again at the letter.
Near the bottom was another paragraph.
If Red Meridian ever returns, they will come first for the well and then for everyone who needs it.
Kele will ask for your help.
But before he does, he has promised me one thing.
He will send someone to you in need.
Not someone begging.
Not someone offering payment.
Someone who gives you no reason to help except that help is needed.
If you give water freely, Kele may trust you with the truth.
If you refuse—
Corvin swallowed.
He turned the page.
—then they are to leave you alone.
Corvin stared at the words.
Slowly, he looked at Mara.
“You walked to my ranch half dead because a dead man asked you to test me?”
Mara’s expression hardened.
“I was already wounded.”
