Three Hundred Warriors Came at Dawn. Only One of Them Knew Why Corvin Torne Had Been Chosen.

The first thing Corvin Torne understood when he saw nearly three hundred Apache warriors surrounding his ranch was that none of them had come by accident.

The second thing he understood was worse.

The enormous young woman he had saved from dying of thirst the previous afternoon was riding directly toward him.

And every armed man on the ridge moved aside to let her pass.

Corvin stood outside his cabin in an unbuttoned work shirt, one suspender hanging loose beside his hip, while dawn turned the eastern sky the color of old blood.

The horses had already sensed what he had not.

They crowded against the far side of the corral, trembling, their nostrils white with foam.

On the northern ridge, mounted warriors stretched from one rocky outcrop to another.

More occupied the eastern slope.

Others waited beside the dry creek.

There were rifles.

Lances.

Bows.

Long knives flashing when the sun caught them.

Corvin had stopped counting after two hundred.

His Winchester leaned against the doorframe less than an arm’s length away.

He did not touch it.

One rifle against three hundred armed men wasn’t courage.

It was a particularly stupid form of suicide.

An elderly warrior descended first.

His horse walked slowly, almost lazily, as though the hundreds of men behind him were no more threatening than cattle waiting to be watered.

He stopped fifty feet away.

His face looked carved from desert stone.

Deep lines crossed his brow and cheeks. Silver threaded his long dark hair. One hand rested loosely against his thigh.

The other rose.

Corvin’s mouth went dry.

The elder pointed.

Not at Corvin.

At the well.

Then riders along the eastern slope separated.

Through the opening came the woman.

Yesterday she had been barely conscious beside Corvin’s fence.

Today she sat straight-backed in a dark saddle, her long black hair braided behind her shoulders, her deerskin clothing cleaned of most of the blood. A strip of cloth covered the wound near her ribs.

Even mounted, there was something unusual about her size.

She was extraordinarily tall, broad-shouldered, powerfully built.

Not clumsy.

Not brutish.

Simply formidable.

Yesterday, thirst had nearly reduced her to nothing.

This morning, warriors lowered their eyes respectfully when she passed them.

She stopped beside the elder.

Her gaze found Corvin.

He recognized it immediately.

The same steady, unnervingly intelligent stare she had given him before taking the ladle from his hand.

Corvin swallowed.

“Well,” he murmured, “I suppose you’re feeling better.”

Nothing moved on the ridges.

The woman did not smile.

The elder slowly reached beneath his clothing.

Corvin’s eyes flicked toward the Winchester.

The old man withdrew something small.

Not a pistol.

Not a knife.

A brass key.

Corvin stared.

The elder lifted it between two fingers.

Sunlight flashed across its strangely shaped teeth.

Something tightened inside Corvin’s chest.