“I’ve seen signs,” I said, choosing my words with agonizing care. “But they’re gone now.”
The bearded leader squinted fiercely, glaring down at me from his saddle. “Gone where?”
“North, I think,” I lied smoothly. “I heard a massive herd of horses moving out that way about twenty minutes ago. Before the sun got too high.”
It wasn’t a complete fabrication. The warriors had indeed pulled back into the hills. But north was a desperate guess designed to pull them away from the valley, and I knew it.
The young rider shifted his weight in his saddle, his finger resting perilously close to the trigger of his rifle. “You got a whole lot of nerve living out here completely alone. This is deep Apache territory.”
“It’s my land,” I countered, keeping my chin level. “Bought and paid for.”
“The Apache don’t care about your paper deeds and fancy titles,” the bearded man sneered. He swung his heavy frame down from his horse, his boots hitting the dirt with a heavy thud. He began walking slowly toward me. “You are incredibly lucky they haven’t skinned you alive already.”
“Maybe I’m just not worth the trouble of killing,” I replied, forcing my heart rate to slow.
The heavy man let out a harsh, barking laugh that held absolutely no humor. “We’re part of a citizen volunteer militia. We’ve been hunting a splinter group that raided a vulnerable settlement two weeks south of here. They burned three family homesteads right to the foundation. Killed an entire family in their beds.” He turned his head and spat a thick wad of tobacco into the dirt near my boots. “We aim to make them pay for that.”
My stomach tied itself into a sickening knot. “Are you absolutely sure it was the Apache?”
“Tracks don’t lie, mister,” the twitchy young rider snapped, his voice cracking with outrage. “A massive war party came through the canyon. We followed their direct trail right to your front door.”
The bearded leader stopped a few feet from me, intensely studying the lines of my face. “You seem awful calm for a man who just had a horde of hostiles camped on his doorstep.”
“Blind panic doesn’t solve anything,” I said simply.
“You hiding something?” The young rider’s knuckles went completely white around the stock of his rifle.
“I’m just trying to stay alive out here,” I said, meeting the boy’s feverish eyes. “Same as anyone else.”
The bearded man scoffed and aggressively shouldered past me, walking straight toward the front door of my cabin. “Mind if we take a look around your property? Get some fresh water for these horses?”
I didn’t have the luxury of a choice, and arguing would only confirm their rising suspicions. “Help yourself.”
The weary men began dismounting, spreading out across the yard like a swarm of angry locusts. Several of them grabbed metal buckets and began hauling water for the exhausted horses. Others immediately began walking the outer perimeter of the cabin, eyes glued to the dirt, searching for tracks, for discarded items, for any excuse to unleash their anger.
The young rider refused to dismount. He stayed high in his saddle, his rifle casually pointed in my general direction, watching me with naked, open distrust.
“You got decent supplies inside there?” the bearded leader shouted over his shoulder, nodding toward the open door of my home.
“Enough to get by,” I answered.
“We could use some rations. We’ve been riding hard for three days straight. We’ll pay you a fair wage for it.”
I nodded slowly, my muscles coiled tight. “I’ll see what I have in the pantry.”
I turned and walked toward the cabin, the heavy footsteps of the bearded man following closely behind me. Just as I reached the wooden porch steps, my eyes caught a tiny, almost imperceptible flicker of movement high on the western ridge. It was just a shifting shadow. A shape that could have been a trick of the light on the rocks, or it could have been a fully armed warrior watching from the cover of the brush.
The Apache hadn’t left the valley. They had just pulled back high enough to avoid a direct confrontation. They were still up there. They were still watching every move I made. And if this angry militia found them hiding in the rocks, this peaceful valley was going to run thick with blood.
The bearded man barged past me and stepped into the dim interior of my cabin. I followed him inside, my mind desperately working through the horrific possibilities. I could just tell him the absolute truth. I could explain that the Apache surrounding my house weren’t murderous raiders. That they had been camped here for nearly a week without harming a hair on my head or stealing a single piece of property.
But would these grieving, enraged men ever believe that? Or would they instantly assume I had been compromised? That I had turned into a native sympathizer who needed to be put down?
“You got any coffee beans?” the bearded man demanded, aggressively rummaging through my wooden shelves, knocking a tin cup to the floor.
“Some,” I said, keeping my distance near the doorway.
“Good. We’ll take whatever you can physically spare.” He stopped his rummaging and turned around slowly, his large frame blocking out the light from the small window. He stared at me directly, his eyes flat and dangerous. “And then, mister, you are going to tell us exactly where those Apache went.”
It wasn’t a polite request. It was a terrifying, absolute order.
I looked into the man’s hard, unforgiving eyes and knew my moment of reckoning had arrived. I could confidently point north and send them chasing ghosts into the endless desert. I could point west and purposefully lead them straight into a devastating ambush that would see them all slaughtered. Or I could tell them the honest truth, and risk being dragged outside and hung from my own corral gate as a traitor.
Before I could open my mouth to speak, a voice screamed from the yard outside.
“Found fresh tracks!” a man yelled, the triumph in his voice chilling me to the bone. “Lots of them! And they ain’t far!”
The bearded man’s aggressive expression completely shifted. His hand dropped instantly to the smooth wooden grip of his revolver. “How long have they been gone?” he growled.
I met his furious gaze, my heart hammering against my ribs. “Not long enough.”