That was the terrible thing about old friendships.
The heart remembered trust long after the mind discovered betrayal.
Crowe dismounted.
“Thank God you’re alive.”
Corvin remained beside the well.
Crowe began walking toward him.
“I heard they’d surrounded you.”
“Who told you?”
Crowe stopped.
“What?”
“Who told you?”
“Pike sent a rider.”
Corvin glanced toward Pike.
Pike’s face changed.
Barely.
But enough.
Crowe continued.
“We need to get you out.”
“Nobody’s keeping me here.”
Crowe looked at Sela.
Then saw the open iron box.
His face lost all color.
Only for a heartbeat.
But Corvin saw it.
So did Sela.
Crowe smiled.
“What have you got there?”
“My father’s papers.”
Silence.
Pike swore softly in the distance.
Crowe’s eyes hardened.
“Give them to me.”
“No.”
“Corvin.”
“No.”
Crowe sighed.
“Don’t make this harder than it needs to be.”
Something inside Corvin broke.
Not loudly.
Not dramatically.
Just a final thread of loyalty snapping.
“Did you kill my father?”
Crowe stared at him.
Sela remained motionless.
Pike’s men shifted nervously.
Finally Crowe gave a weary smile.
“Your father fell from a horse.”
“Did you kill him?”
“You’ve always been stubborn.”
Corvin raised his Winchester.
Forty cavalry rifles immediately pointed at him.
Three hundred Apache weapons followed.
Suddenly one nervous movement could start a slaughter.
Crowe lifted both hands.
“Think carefully. If one Apache fires, every soldier here answers.”
Sela called something toward the hills.
Not one warrior moved.
Crowe smiled.
“You can’t control three hundred frightened men.”
Sela’s answer was quiet.
“They are not frightened.”
The smile disappeared.
From behind Crowe came another voice.
“Captain.”
Ransom Pike rode forward.
Sweat darkened his collar.
“We need to leave.”
Crowe ignored him.
“Captain!”
Pike’s voice cracked.
Corvin looked at him.
The wealthy cattleman suddenly didn’t look powerful.
He looked terrified.
Not of the Apache.
Of Crowe.
Corvin understood.
“Pike isn’t your partner.”
Crowe’s eyes shifted.
Corvin almost laughed.
“He’s your employee.”
Pike’s expression confirmed it.
Crowe slowly turned.
“Ransom.”
Pike reached toward his coat.
Crowe drew first.
The gunshot exploded across the ranch.
Pike toppled from his saddle.
Chaos erupted.
One of Pike’s men fired.
A cavalry horse screamed.
Three soldiers raised their carbines.
“NO!” Corvin roared.
Sela shouted simultaneously.
For one impossible second, hundreds of armed people hovered at the edge of war.
Then another rifle fired.
A soldier fell.
Corvin saw the muzzle smoke.
Not from the Apache ridge.
From behind his barn.
Someone was hidden there.
Another shot struck a cavalryman’s saddle.
Crowe spun toward his troops.
“They’re firing! Return—”
“THE SHOTS ARE BEHIND YOU!”
Corvin sprinted.
He crossed the yard as bullets cracked overhead.
Sela ran with him.
They rounded the barn.
A man crouched behind the water trough.
One of Pike’s hired riders.
He wore an Army cartridge belt.
He fired toward the soldiers again.
Corvin slammed into him.
They hit the dirt.
The man’s rifle skidded away.
He punched Corvin across the jaw.
Corvin answered with an elbow.
The man reached for a revolver.
Then Sela’s enormous hand closed around his wrist.
She lifted his arm as though bending iron.
The revolver dropped.
