The injured warrior grinned.
The frontiersman looked at her.
“He's getting better.”
“Unfortunately.”
Her brother laughed.
The chief approached.
The humor disappeared.
They told him what they had discovered.
The chief listened.
When they described the planned burning of the ranch shack, his expression became severe.
“They want our young men angry.”
“Yes,” the frontiersman said.
“They may succeed.”
The daughter looked toward a group of warriors already gathered nearby.
One had lost the dog to a trap.
Another was related to the woman nearly injured.
The chief knew what his daughter was thinking.
“So we do nothing?” she asked.
“No.”
“What then?”
“We do not fight the enemy's war.”
The chief looked at the frontiersman.
“You said a lawman helps you.”
“Former lawman.”
“Former?”
“He's flexible.”
The chief did not look reassured.
The frontiersman explained the plan to secure written proof.
When he finished, the chief remained silent.
Then he asked, “And if white law protects white men?”
The frontiersman had no easy answer.
“Then we find another way.”
The daughter studied him.
“Another way that does not involve leaving?”
He understood the accusation.
He accepted it.
“Yes.”
That evening the chief summoned him.
They sat beside a fire away from the others.
For a while the older man said nothing.
Then he asked, “Why did you refuse?”
The frontiersman knew what he meant.
“Your daughter?”
The chief nodded.
“I told you.”
“You said she is not a debt.”
“She isn't.”
“Many men would have accepted.”
“Then many men are fools.”
The chief almost smiled.
“You think my daughter undesirable?”
The frontiersman looked toward the opposite side of camp.
The daughter was helping an older woman repair a blanket.
Firelight moved across her face.
He looked away quickly.
“No.”
The chief noticed.
“That is not the problem.”
“No.”
“What is?”
The frontiersman stared into the fire.
“Choice.”
The chief waited.
The stranger continued.
“My father chose everything for my mother. Where she lived. What money she touched. Who she spoke to. When she ate.”
The chief's expression changed.
“When I was fifteen, she left.”
“What happened?”
“She walked twelve miles to her sister's house and never returned.”
The chief nodded slowly.
The frontiersman continued.
“So when a man tells me a woman will become my wife because he decided it, I hear my father's voice.”
The chief was silent.
Then he said, “You misunderstand what I did.”
The frontiersman looked at him.
“I imagine your daughter would say the same thing.”
The chief actually smiled.
“It was not a custom.”
“I was beginning to suspect that.”
“I wanted to see who you were.”
The frontiersman stared.