“Tell me who sent you,” Ethan said quietly, his voice carrying no emotion at all.

“Just tell me, and this stops.

” The man thrashed beneath him, face contorted in pain.

Through the bandanna, Ethan could see wild eyes, young eyes, maybe 25 at most.

The Colonel, the man gasped out.

The colonel knows what you did in 75.

You should have stayed quiet.

What? Colonel Ethan pressed harder, and the man’s scream pitched higher.

What did I do? The man’s hand was moving, fumbling at his belt, and Ethan saw it too late.

a small leather pouch fingers digging inside, pulling out something small and dark.

The man’s eyes met his suddenly calm, almost peaceful, and then he bit down hard on whatever he had pulled from the pouch.

His body convulsed once, twice, and then went completely still.

Foam bubbled at the corners of his mouth, white and toxic poison.

A suicide pill hidden in his belt taken rather than talk.

Ethan stepped back, his stomach churning.

This was not the work of outlaws or land thieves.

This was something else entirely, something organized and ruthless.

He turned toward the rocks where the other two riders had taken cover, but they were already mounting up, thundering away to the west in a cloud of dust.

The wounded man in the shoulder had somehow managed to climb back onto his horse and was fleeing as well, hunched over and swaying, but moving fast.

that left three bodies in the dirt.

The young man at his feet still twitching as the poison finished its work, and two others Ethan had shot during the initial exchange men he now walked toward with his pistol, still drawn, ready for any movement.

The first was dead, a clean shot through the heart.

The second was barely breathing a wet rasping sound bubbling from his chest, where Ethan’s bullet had pierced his lung.

His eyes tracked Ethan’s approach, but there was no fear in them, only a strange resignation.

Ethan knelt beside him, pulling down the bandana to reveal a weathered face, maybe 40 years old, with a thick mustache and a scar across his forehead.

The man tried to speak, but only blood came out dark and thick.

He coughed once, twice, and then his eyes fixed on something beyond Ethan’s shoulder, something only he could see.

And then he was gone.

Ethan searched the bodies quickly and methodically, checking pockets and saddle bags.

He found nothing useful, no papers, no identification, no money.

But on the dead man’s shirt beneath the vest, he found something that made his blood run cold.

A patch sewn into the lining where it would not normally be seen, the insignia of Fort Randall Cavalry Division 7.

Military men or former military men.

Either way, they had come from Randall’s command.

Ethan stood slowly looking down at the three corpses, trying to make sense of what the dying man had said.

The colonel knows what you did in 75.

But what had he done in 1875? He had been a cavalry scout then.

Yes, riding with Randall’s division on Apache patrol.

There had been dozens of missions, dozens of skirmishes and raids, and long days tracking through the desert.

How was he supposed to remember one specific action that would warrant an assassination attempt four years later? Unless the memory came to him unbidden, sharp and clear, as if it had happened yesterday instead of 4 years ago.

A box canyon in the Superstition Mountains late afternoon, the sun slanting gold through the dust.

His patrol had been hunting a small Apache band, maybe 10 or 12 people, who had been raiding supply wagons along the Tucson road.

They had tracked them for three days and finally cornered them in a narrow defile with high walls on three sides.

Ethan had been pointman scouting ahead when he found the cave, a small opening in the canyon wall, partially hidden by brush.

He had approached quietly, pistol-drawn, ready for resistance.

But what he found inside was not warriors preparing for battle.

It was a family.

A woman maybe 30 years old with long black hair and eyes like dark water, and a child, a girl no more than 10, pressed against her mother’s side, trying not to cry.

They had stared at each other in the dimness of the cave predator and prey hunter and hunted.

Ethan had known what he was supposed to do.

Call for the others.

Take them prisoner.

Turn them over to the commanding officer for transport to the reservation.

That was protocol.

That was the law.

But something in the woman’s eyes had stopped him.

Not pleading, not begging, just a quiet dignity, a acceptance of whatever fate he chose for her and her daughter.

She had not asked for mercy because she did not believe mercy existed in his world.

So Ethan had lowered his pistol, stepped back out of the cave, and walked away.

When his commanding officer, a lieutenant, whose name he could not now remember, had asked if he had found anything Ethan had lied.

Nothing, sir.

Just empty rock.

The patrol had moved on, never knowing that two Apache women had been huddled in darkness not 20 ft from where they passed.

One week later, Ethan had heard reports of a massacre.

A small Apache camp burned to the ground, everyone killed, men, women, children.

The official report said they had resisted arrest and military force had been necessary.

Ethan had wondered in the dark privacy of his own thoughts if the woman and the girl from the cave had been in that camp.

If his mercy had only delayed their death by 7 days.

He had never told anyone about the cave, not his fellow scouts, not his commanders, not even Clara when he had left the cavalry and married her six months later.

It had been his secret, a small act of defiance in a war that seemed designed to erase any possibility of humanity.

But someone had known.

Someone had been watching.

And now, four years later, that someone wanted him dead for it.

Ethan looked up at the darkening sky, then down at the three bodies cooling in the dust.

He could not leave them here for the coyotes and buzzards.

Whatever they had been, they had been men once.

So he spent the next hour digging shallow graves in the hard earth using a flat rock as a makeshift shovel, his hands blistering and bleeding by the time he finished.

He said no words over them.

He simply covered them with dirt and stones, then retrieved what he could of his scattered supplies.

His horse had wandered back, nervous, but unharmed, and Ethan loaded the bags and climbed into the saddle.

His shoulder achd where he had hit the ground, and his hands throbbed from digging, but these were small pains compared to the weight settling over his chest.

The weight of knowing that his past had finally caught up with him, that the life he had tried to build in isolation and silence was about to be shattered by forces he did not yet understand.

He rode the last three miles to his cabin in full darkness, guided only by starlight, and the familiar contours of land he knew by heart.

When he finally saw the outline of his home against the night sky, small and lonely, and exactly as he had left it that morning, he felt no relief, only a grim certainty that nothing would ever be the same again.

The cabin was dark and cold.

Ethan did not bother lighting a lamp.

He simply walked to the small table beside his bed, opened the drawer, and pulled out a bottle of whiskey he kept there for nights when the ghosts were too loud to ignore.

He poured three fingers into a tin cup, then stood there holding it, staring at the amber liquid in the faint moonlight coming through the window.

Clara would have told him not to drink.

She always had, in her gentle way, that was somehow more effective than any harsh command.

Drinking does not solve anything, Ethan.

It just makes you forget for a while, and forgetting is not the same as healing.

He poured the whiskey into the wash basin, watching it splash and drain away.

Not tonight, Clara.

Tonight I need to think clearly.

He lit a lamp finally, and in its flickering light, he examined the patch he had taken from the dead man’s clothing.

Fort Randall, Cavalry Division 7.

He knew that Fort had served there briefly in 1874 and 1875 before transferring to a scouting unit.

The commanding officer then had been a colonel named Thaddius Randall, a career military man with a reputation for ruthless efficiency and absolute loyalty to orders.

Ethan had not liked him, but he had respected him in the way soldiers respect competent leaders who keep them alive.

Was Randall the colonel the dying man had mentioned? And if so, why would he want Ethan dead now, four years after he had left military service? What could Ethan possibly know or have done that would warrant assassination? The answer was not going to come tonight, not sitting alone in his cabin trying to piece together fragments of memory.

Ethan knew what he needed to do.

Tomorrow he would ride into Prescott, the nearest town, and ask questions carefully, quietly, but persistently.

Someone there would know something about Fort Randall’s recent activities.

Someone always knew.

But first, he needed sleep, or at least he needed to try.

He lay down on his bed, fully clothed, pistol, on the table within easy reach, and closed his eyes.

Sleep came eventually, but it was thin and restless, populated by dreams of a cave in the mountains, and dark eyes watching him from the shadows, judging him for choices made and consequences unforeseen.

When dawn came pale and cold, Ethan rose and prepared for the ride to town.

He loaded extra ammunition, strapped a knife to his belt, and took the long rifle from above the fireplace.

He did not know what he would find in Prescott, but he would be ready for it.

The sun was climbing higher, burning away the morning chill by the time Ethan reached the outskirts of town.

Prescat was not large, maybe 500 people, but it was prosperous enough with a main street lined with businesses and a courthouse that served the entire territory.

Ethan had come here perhaps once a month for supplies, always keeping to himself, never staying longer than necessary.

He knew the shopkeepers by sight, if not by name, and they knew him as the quiet rancher who paid in cash and did not cause trouble.

Today would be different.

Today he needed information.

He tied his horse outside the Silver Dollar Saloon, a establishment that opened early to serve the miners coming off the night shift, and pushed through the doors into the dim interior.

The smell hit him immediately.

Stale beer and tobacco smoke and unwashed bodies, familiar and vaguely nauseating.

A dozen men sat scattered at tables, drinking and playing cards, their faces hagggered with exhaustion, or excess, or both.

The bartender was a thick set man named Horus with a bald head and forearms like tree trunks.

He looked up as Ethan approached the bar, recognition flickering in his eyes.

Carver whiskey information, Ethan said quietly about Fort Randall.

Horus’s expression changed, became guarded.

He glanced around the room, then leaned closer, lowering his voice.

You do not want to be asking about the Colonel Mister.

That man runs this territory, and he does not take kindly to folks poking into his business.

“I am not asking out of curiosity,” Ethan said.

“Four men tried to kill me yesterday.

They wore Randall’s insignia.

” Horus’s eyes widened slightly.

Then he straightened up, putting distance between them.

“I do not know anything about that, and if I did, I would not tell you.

My advice, ride out of Prescott and keep riding.

Go to California.

go to Mexico.

Just go somewhere far from here.

” Ethan studied the man’s face, saw genuine fear there, and knew he would get nothing more from him.

He nodded once and turned to leave.

But as he reached the door, Horus called out to him, voice barely audible over the noise of the saloon.

“There is something happening today.

You might want to see.

Trading post.

They are selling people.

” Ethan paused, hand on the door, then looked back.

Horus had already turned away, busying himself with wiping down the bar, refusing to meet his eyes.

The trading post was three blocks down from the saloon, a ramshackle collection of buildings and corral where merchants sold everything from dry goods to livestock.

As Ethan approached, he could hear the sound of a crowd voices raised in excitement or mockery or both.

He pushed his way through the gathering, maybe 30 or 40 men, all facing toward a raised platform in the center of the yard.

On that platform stood a man Ethan recognized.

Lyall Tucker, a traitor with a reputation for dealing in anything profitable and nothing legal.

He was a thick man running to fat with a red face perpetually damp with sweat and small eyes that darted constantly, always calculating angles and profits.

Today he was holding a rope and at the end of that rope was a woman.

She was Apache.

That much was obvious from her features and the way she held herself despite the circumstances.

Maybe 26 or 27 years old, dressed in a torn and filthy dress that might once have been blue, but was now the color of old earth.

Her wrists were bound with rough cord that had rubbed the skin raw and bleeding.

Her face was marked with bruises, fresh ones along her jaw and older ones yellowing on her cheekbone.

But her eyes, dark and fierce, showed no submission at all.

$5, Tucker was shouting, yanking on the rope to make her stumble forward.

That is all she is worth.

$5 for an Apache woman who can cook clean hall water or whatever else a man might need.

Someone in the crowd laughed ugly and knowing.

She looks half dead already.

Tucker’s face purpled with anger.

Then I will lower the price.

$2.

$2 and she is yours.

Final offer.

The woman stumbled again, fell to her knees on the platform.

But she did not stay down.

She pushed herself back to her feet, swaying slightly, and then did something that shocked the entire crowd into silence.

She spat directly into Lyall Tucker’s face.

The traitor went very still for a moment, then slowly wiped the spittle from his cheek.

His smile was terrible.

She is a wild cat, this one.

Someone by her quick before I have to break her myself.

Ethan stood at the back of the crowd.

Every muscle in his body tense, telling himself this was not his business.

He had come to town for information not to involve himself in the ugly commerce that had flourished in the territory since the Apache Wars had begun.

This woman was a stranger.

Her fate was not his responsibility.

But then she turned her head, scanning the crowd with those fierce, dark eyes, and for just a moment her gaze locked with his.

And in that instant Ethan saw something that made his breath catch in his chest.

Not fear, not pleading, but a desperate, furious dignity that reminded him of someone else.

Another woman in another time, huddled in a cave with her daughter, waiting to see if mercy was even possible in a world built on violence.

Before he could think, before he could talk himself out of it, Ethan pushed forward through the crowd.

Men stepped aside, sensing something dangerous in his approach in the set of his shoulders and the look on his face.

He reached the platform and without a word pulled two silver dollars from his pocket and threw them at Tucker’s feet.

Tucker bent down, scooped up the coins, tested them with his teeth.

A slow grin spread across his face.

Well, well, Ethan Carver.

Long time.

You buying her for what I think you are buying her for.

Cut the rope, Ethan said quietly.

Tucker’s grin widened.

Sure thing.

But you know the rules.

You buy her, she is yours.

You cannot return her if she does not work out.

Just cut the rope.

Tucker pulled a knife from his belt and severed the rope, binding the woman’s wrists.

She fell forward, caught herself on the edge of the platform, and slowly straightened up.

She was looking at Ethan now with an expression he could not read.

Suspicion, calculation, and beneath it all, a weariness so deep it seemed carved into her bones.

Ethan turned and walked away from the platform without another word.

After a moment, he heard footsteps behind him, light unsteady, but following.

He did not look back.

He simply walked to his horse, untied it, and swung up into the saddle.

Then, finally, he looked down at the woman standing beside him.

“Can you ride?” She nodded once, a sharp jerk of her chin.

Ethan extended his hand.

She stared at it for a long moment, then reached up and let him pull her up behind him.

Her weight settled onto the horse, her hands gripping the back of his saddle rather than his waist.

Even now, even after being sold like livestock, she would not allow herself to depend on him more than absolutely necessary.

They rode out of Prescott in silence, the crowd parting to let them through, faces blank or mocking or curious, but saying nothing.

No one challenged them.

No one tried to stop them.

Ethan was known as a man who kept to himself, but who was dangerous when crossed, and that reputation bought them safe passage through the town and out onto the desert road.

The silence between them stretched for miles, broken only by the steady rhythm of hoof beatats and the cry of a hawk circling overhead.

Ethan did not try to make conversation.

He sensed that words would be unwelcome right now, that the woman behind him needed time to process what had just happened to decide whether she had been rescued or simply transferred from one captor to another.

It was not until they were within sight of his cabin, the small structure nestled against the hillside, with smoke rising from the chimney he had left bank that morning, that she finally spoke.

“What is your name?” Her voice was clear, her English almost unacented, and that surprised him.

Ethan, he said, “Ethan Carver.

” There was a pause.

And then, “Why did you buy me Ethan Carver?” “Because no one should be sold like cattle.

What do you want from me?” He pulled the horse to a stop, turned slightly in the saddle so he could see her face.

“Nothing.

You are free to go wherever you want.

I will give you supplies, a horse, if you can ride, or you can stay here for a while if you need time to figure out where to go.

But you are not my prisoner.

You are not my property.

You are free.

” She studied his face for a long moment, searching for deception, for the lie she clearly expected to find.

When she did not find it, her expression did not soften, but something changed in her eyes.

A flicker of confusion maybe, or the beginning of something that might eventually become trust if given enough time.

“My name is Kiona,” she said finally.

Kiona Ethan repeated, testing the sound of it.

“All right, Kiona.

Welcome to my home, such as it is.

” He dismounted and helped her down, noticing how she winced when her feet hit the ground, how she held her side as if ribs might be cracked beneath the bruises.

She was in pain, maybe serious pain, but she held herself upright through sheer will.

“Come inside,” Ethan said.

“I have medical supplies.

Let me look at your injuries.

I do not need your help.

You might not want it, but you need it.

Those ribs could be broken.

If they are, and you do not get them wrapped, one could puncture a lung.

Then you will die probably in a few days painfully.

So you can accept my help, or you can be stubborn.

Your choice.

Continue reading….
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