Broad shoulders.

A scar beneath his left eye.

Corvin felt thirty years of memories tear themselves apart.

Gideon Torne smiled.

“Boy.”

Corvin’s rifle trembled.

Gideon noticed.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Corvin stepped beyond the porch.

“You’re supposed to be dead.”

“So are lots of men.”

Merrick Voss rode forward.

“Corvin, move away from the house. We can still get you out.”

Corvin looked at the sheriff.

“You forged telegrams badly, Merrick.”

Voss’s expression changed.

Only slightly.

But enough.

Corvin raised the letter.

“I know about the railroad.”

Gideon sighed.

“That woman filled your head with stories?”

“My mother is inside.”

For the first time, Gideon’s composure cracked.

His gaze snapped toward the house.

Corvin saw it.

And knew.

Every word was true.

Gideon recovered quickly.

“She ain’t your mother.”

“She remembers more about my childhood than you ever told me.”

“Corvin—”

“Who is Samuel?”

Silence.

Merrick Voss slowly turned toward Gideon.

That surprised Corvin.

Apparently even the sheriff did not know everything.

Gideon’s face became expressionless.

“Samuel was weak.”

Corvin’s heart stopped aching.

Something else replaced it.

Cold certainty.

“You killed him.”

Gideon did not deny it.

“Samuel had no stomach for the world as it is.”

“He was your brother.”

“He stood between me and something valuable.”

Corvin almost whispered the next words.

“And I was valuable.”

Gideon smiled.

“There’s the boy I raised.”

Corvin raised the Winchester.

“No.”

His voice carried across the valley.

“The boy you stole.”

Every warrior on the ridges remained silent.

Gideon leaned forward.

“You think those people are your family now?”

Corvin glanced toward Naya.

Toward Hasken.

Toward the hundreds of riders surrounding the valley.

“I think the woman you told me was dead is lying in my bed.”

Gideon’s smile disappeared.

“And I think the sister you took from me walked twenty miles with blood running down her face to warn me you were coming.”

Naya stepped onto the porch.

Gideon’s eyes narrowed.

Corvin continued.

“So right now, they’re doing a better job of being family than you ever did.”

Gideon slowly drew his revolver.

Merrick Voss caught his wrist.

“Not yet.”

Gideon looked at him.

Voss lowered his voice, but the valley was so quiet Corvin heard every word.

“We need them to fire first.”

That was the plan.

Corvin understood instantly.

A massacre required justification.

Three hundred Apache warriors surrounding a white ranch would make a perfect story.

Especially if several deputies died.

Voss raised his voice.

“Corvin Torne is being held against his will! By authority of the territory, disperse immediately!”

Nobody moved.

Voss called again.

Still nothing.

Corvin almost smiled.

The sheriff needed gunfire.