Cole’s hand stopped.
Twenty-two Apache women stepped forward.
They ranged from young women perhaps twenty years old to women old enough to have grown children.
Every man in the group became silent.
The women formed a line beneath the blood-red sunset.
Cole instinctively took one step backward.
The older leader pointed toward him.
Then toward the women.
He began speaking.
Cole understood almost nothing.
A younger warrior standing beside him listened, then looked at Cole.
Unlike the others, he wore an old cavalry shirt beneath a leather vest.
“You speak English?” Cole asked.
“A little.”
“What did he say?”
The young man hesitated.
Then he said something that made Cole’s stomach drop.
“He says these twenty-two women are now yours.”
Cole stared at him.
“What?”
The interpreter repeated slowly.
“Yours.”
Cole looked from him to the women.
Nobody smiled.
Nobody seemed pleased.
Several appeared furious.
One looked frightened.
Cole’s face hardened.
“No.”
The translator blinked.
“No?”
“No.”
Cole stepped forward.
“I gave water because people were dying. I didn’t buy anybody.”
The interpreter said something to the leader.
The older man listened.
Then his expression changed.
Not anger.
Almost amusement.
He answered briefly.
The translator looked embarrassed.
Cole narrowed his eyes.
“What?”
The young man cleared his throat.
“I used the wrong word.”
“That’s a fairly important word to get wrong.”
The interpreter pointed toward the women.
“He does not give you the women.”
Cole folded his arms.
“I’m delighted to hear it.”
“He gives you…”
The young warrior struggled.
“Their voices.”
Cole frowned.
“Their voices?”
The chief spoke again.
This time several women stepped forward and opened their hands.
Cole’s amusement disappeared.
Each woman held something.
A metal button.
A broken cartridge.
A strip of canvas.
A brass buckle.
One carried a silver watch.
Another held the burnt corner of a freight ledger.
And the woman nearest Cole held a small iron plate bearing a symbol stamped into its surface.
Cole stopped breathing.
A capital M inside a broken circle.
For several seconds, the desert vanished.
Cole saw instead a warehouse in Tucson.
Freight wagons.
Men loading crates.
His father sitting behind a massive oak desk.
And his older brother Wade laughing as he burned that exact brand into the first wagon their family ever owned.
Maddox Freight & Supply.
Cole snatched the iron plate from the woman’s palm.
“Where did you get this?”
She did not understand.
The interpreter translated.
The woman answered quietly.
Cole watched the young man’s expression darken.
“What did she say?”
The interpreter looked directly at him.
“From the wagon.”
“What wagon?”
“The wagon that poisoned the water.”
Cole’s fingers tightened around the iron plate.
The interpreter continued.
“Three nights ago, these women were gathering mesquite near their spring. They saw men arrive with six wagons. The men emptied white powder and broken barrels into the water.”
