Chapter 1
CHAPTER 1 — HE POINTED HIS RIFLE AT THREE SOLDIERS FOR A WOMAN WHO HADN’T TOLD HIM HER NAME
Carcer had less than three seconds to decide whether a stranger was worth dying for.
Three soldiers stood twenty feet away.
Three rifles were pointed at his chest.
And behind him stood a young Apache woman whose name he still did not know.
“Hand her over!”
The officer’s voice carried across the desert outpost.
Carcer did not move.
The late-afternoon sun burned orange against the red-rock canyon. Wind pushed dust between the wooden buildings and rattled the loose boards beneath his boots.
The woman stood directly behind him.
Her breathing was controlled.
Too controlled.
Carcer had seen frightened people before.
This woman was frightened.
But she was working very hard not to let anyone see it.
The officer took another step.
“Last chance, Carcer.”
Carcer slowly lifted his rifle.
The soldiers immediately tightened their grips.
“Don’t.”
The whisper came from behind him.
Carcer didn’t turn.
“What?”
The woman grabbed his arm.
“You don’t know who I am.”
“No.”
Carcer kept his rifle trained forward.
“But I know what they were doing when I found you.”
Silence.
That was the part the soldiers apparently did not want discussed.
Three hours earlier, Carcer had been riding back toward the outpost when he noticed something strange near a dry wash.
A horse without a rider.
Its saddle was torn.
One rein dragged through the dust.
Carcer followed the tracks.
That was when he found her.
The young woman was on her knees behind a sandstone formation, wrists tied with rawhide.
Two armed men stood nearby.
A third was searching through her belongings.
Carcer had no intention of becoming involved.
Not at first.
Out here, a man survived by learning which problems belonged to him.
This was not his problem.
Then one of the men pulled a pendant from the woman’s neck.
The woman reacted immediately.
Not when they tied her.
Not when they threatened her.
But when they touched that pendant.
“Give it back.”
One of the men laughed.
“What’s so important about it?”
She stared at him.
“Give it back.”
Something in her voice made Carcer stop.
The pendant was small.
Bone-colored.
Hand-carved.
Old.
The soldier holding it looked toward the others.
Then Carcer heard words that changed everything.
“Lieutenant said nobody can know who she is.”
Carcer remained behind the rocks.
Nobody can know who she is.
Not what she had done.
Not where she had come from.
Who she was.
That was different.
The woman suddenly drove her shoulder into one soldier and ran.
A rifle cracked.
The bullet struck the rock beside her.
Carcer reacted before he had time to think.
He fired into the dirt in front of the soldiers.
“Enough!”
All three men spun around.
Carcer stepped into view.
For several seconds, nobody spoke.
The soldiers clearly had not expected a witness.
Neither had the woman.
“Walk away, cowboy,” one soldier said.
Carcer looked at the woman’s bound wrists.
Then at the stolen pendant.
“Untie her.”
The soldier smiled.
“That isn’t your concern.”
Carcer raised his rifle slightly.
“It became my concern when you fired at an unarmed woman.”
That decision brought him here.
Back to the outpost.
Surrounded.
Outnumbered.
And possibly seconds from being shot.
Now the same officer who had ordered the woman captured stood directly in front of him.
“Hand her over.”
Carcer’s jaw tightened.
“No.”
The woman behind him grabbed his sleeve again.
This time harder.
“Carcer.”
He finally glanced back.
She opened her hand.
The pendant rested against her palm.
Carcer had recovered it during their escape.
He had thought it was jewelry.
Now he noticed the markings carved into it.
The woman looked down at it.
“My father gave me this before they burned our village.”
Carcer frowned.
“Who’s your father?”
She looked toward the western ridge.
But she didn’t answer.
The officer did.
“Enough!”
Carcer turned.
The officer had drawn his revolver.
“Last warning, Carcer.”
Carcer slowly pulled back the hammer of his rifle.
Click.
The sound seemed impossibly loud.
Then something answered from the canyon.
A cry.
Long.
Distant.
Human.
One soldier turned.
“What was that?”
Another cry came from the ridge.
Then another.
The Apache woman closed her eyes for half a second.
Not in fear.
In recognition.
Carcer noticed.
“You know that sound.”
She looked at him.
“Yes.”
Carcer slowly turned toward the ridge.
At first he saw only red stone.
Then a horse appeared against the sunset.
A rider sat motionless in the saddle.
Another appeared beside him.
Then another.
Five.
Ten.
Twenty.
More emerged from behind the rocks.
The soldiers stopped aiming at Carcer.
Now their rifles slowly turned toward the ridge.
The officer’s face changed.
Carcer had lived in the territory long enough to understand what he was seeing.
This wasn’t a hunting party.
It wasn’t a handful of scouts.
Dozens of mounted Apache warriors were positioned above the outpost.
Waiting.
Watching.
And none of them had arrived by accident.
Then the riders separated.
A single horse moved forward.
The man sitting on it was older than the others.
Broad-shouldered.
Motionless.
A deep scar crossed the left side of his face.
Carcer stared.
He had heard descriptions of that scar in saloons, trading posts and army camps.
He knew the name before anyone said it.
“Nahtan…”
The woman beside Carcer lowered her eyes.
Carcer looked at her.
Then at the pendant.
Then back at the chief.
And suddenly all the pieces began fitting together.
The soldiers had not captured some random Apache woman.
They had captured Nahtan’s daughter.
But one question remained.
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If Nahtan had enough riders to surround the outpost...
why hadn’t he attacked?
