Vale looked at him.
“Ride in.
Kill me.
Burn the cabin.
Blame them.”
“You sound upset.”
“My father said you had a talent for making murder look respectable.”
Silence.
Vale’s expression hardened.
“You should be careful speaking about dead men.”
“My parents were dead before I turned five.”
That caught him.
Barely.
But enough.
Corvin pulled the letter from his shirt.
“I know my name.”
Vale’s face went white.
Behind him, one rider whispered something.
Vale ignored him.
“Elias was a fool.”
The words escaped before he could stop them.
Corvin felt something inside him settle.
Not rage.
Something colder.
Certainty.
“You knew.”
Vale looked toward the ridges.
Then back at Corvin.
“My father knew.”
“You knew who I was.”
“I knew who Elias claimed you were.”
“You came to his funeral.”
“Yes.”
“You looked me in the eye.”
“Yes.”
“And you knew your family killed mine.”
Vale sighed.
Suddenly the polished gentleman vanished.
What remained was tired and cruel.
“Your parents made a bad choice.”
Corvin’s hand closed around the letter.
Vale continued.
“They owned forty useless acres in a valley my father needed.
He offered them money.
They refused.”
“So he murdered them.”
“My father employed men who solved problems.”
Behind Corvin, someone inhaled sharply.
Vale seemed to realize too late what he had said.
Corvin looked past him.
At the armed riders.
At the deputies.
At the ranch hands Vale had probably paid to believe they were coming to stop an uprising.
One deputy lowered his rifle.
Vale turned.
“Keep your weapon up.”
The deputy stared at him.
“You said the Apache killed the Hale family.”
“They did.”
“You just said your father’s men—”
Vale drew his pistol.
Fast.
Faster than Corvin expected.
The gun fired.
The deputy fell.
Everything exploded.
Warriors surged along the ridges.
Vale’s hired gunmen shouted.
Horses reared.
Corvin dove behind the well.
Sena seized his shirt and dragged him lower as bullets tore splinters from the fence.
“Do not fire!” her father shouted.
Again, louder.
“DO NOT FIRE!”
It took Corvin a second to understand.
Even now, with Vale’s men shooting into the ranch, the Apache warriors were holding their fire.
Vale wanted a battle.
Needed a battle.
Sena rose behind the stones.
Corvin grabbed her arm.
“What are you doing?”
“Ending it.”
She stepped into the open.
A bullet struck the well inches from her hip.
Sena did not flinch.
She shouted toward Vale’s men.
“Ask him who shot first!”
The gunmen hesitated.
“Ask him why your deputy is dead!”
Another shot came from Vale.
Sena dropped.
Corvin’s heart stopped.
Then she rolled behind a trough.
Unhurt.
Vale shouted at his men.
“Fire, damn you!”
No one did.
The riders looked toward the ridges.
Hundreds of Apache warriors could have killed half of them in seconds.
Yet not one rifle had fired.
The truth was suddenly visible.
The supposed savages were showing restraint.
The respectable landowner was murdering his own men.
Vale understood it too.
He mounted.
“Move!”
He wheeled his horse east.
Corvin stood.
Sena’s father shouted something.
Ten riders broke from the ridge.
Not shooting.
Chasing.
Vale reached the dry creek bed.
His horse stumbled.
He flew from the saddle.
When Corvin arrived minutes later, Gideon Vale was on his knees with his hands raised.
Sena stood above him.
Her father beside her.
The surviving deputies had followed.
One produced iron shackles.
Vale looked at Corvin.
