“You’re leaving.”

“I have to take the documents.”

“Right.”

“There will be hearings.”

“Right.”

“Price must testify.”

“Right.”

She stared down at him.

“Do you know any other words?”

Corvin thought about it.

“Beans.”

Kessa laughed.

He grinned.

Then the moment became difficult again.

Corvin rubbed the scar on his hand.

“When will you come back?”

Kessa looked toward the house.

“You want me to?”

The question hurt more than it should have.

“You’re my sister.”

“Yesterday I was a stranger at your fence.”

“Yesterday I was an idiot.”

“That has probably not changed.”

“Runs in the family.”

Kessa smiled.

Then, unexpectedly, she dismounted.

She stepped toward Corvin.

For one uncertain second, neither moved.

Then she wrapped her arms around him.

Corvin froze.

Thirty-two years of loneliness cracked somewhere deep inside him.

He hugged her back.

Hard.

Kessa whispered against his shoulder.

“I thought you were dead.”

Corvin closed his eyes.

“I thought you never existed.”

Her grip tightened.

When they separated, both pretended not to be crying.

Their uncle waited nearby.

Corvin looked at him.

There were a thousand questions.

Only one came out.

“What should I call you?”

The old man’s eyes warmed.

“You can begin with uncle.”

Corvin swallowed.

“All right.”

The old man extended his hand.

Corvin took it.

Then his uncle glanced toward the well.

“Your father would be relieved.”

Corvin looked at Elias’s letter.

“I don’t know whether I forgive him.”

“You don’t have to.”

That surprised Corvin.

The older man continued.

“Forgiveness given because the dead cannot defend themselves is not forgiveness.”

“What is?”

“When truth no longer frightens you.”

Corvin looked toward the setting sun.

“That might take a while.”

His uncle mounted.

“You are alive.”

A faint smile crossed his face.

“You still have choices.”

Corvin nearly stopped breathing.

His uncle turned away.

Then rode after the others.

Three months later, Red Mesa Land and Cattle Company collapsed.

Not because justice suddenly became easy.

It did not.

Silas Vale had judges.

Lawyers.

Money.

Influence.

But he had something he had never faced before.

Witnesses who refused to disappear.

Daniel Price testified.

The county deputy testified.

Corvin testified.

Kessa testified.

So did men who had remembered Abraham Vale’s original surveys.

Federal investigators found altered maps in Red Mesa’s archive.

The forged deeds came next.

Then bribes.

Then fraudulent land claims.

By spring, Silas Vale was awaiting trial.

The newspapers called it the Red Mesa Land Scandal.

They printed Corvin’s name.

They printed Kessa’s.

They even printed sensational descriptions of the morning hundreds of Apache riders surrounded a lonely ranch.

Most newspapers got the story wrong.

Some claimed there had been a battle.

Others claimed Corvin had single-handedly prevented one.

One paper described him as the brave rancher who stood against three hundred Apache warriors.

Corvin laughed so hard reading that sentence he nearly spilled coffee across the table.

Kessa, now seated across from him, took the newspaper.

“We should write them.”

“And say what?”

“That you were standing in your yard with your suspenders down.”

Corvin glared at her.

“You promised never to mention that.”

“I promised nothing.”