“You paid two dollars for me, cowboy.”
He immediately stiffened.
“No.”
She saw the anger.
Good.
“I know.”
She lowered her voice.
“But that is what they will say.”
“I don’t care what they say.”
“You should.”
“Why?”
“Because men who think kindness must be ownership will never understand why you did it.”
The cowboy stared at her.
“Do you?”
The woman looked toward his shirt pocket where the false debt slip rested.
Then:
“I crossed nearly three hundred miles hoping I would.”
The cowboy went still.
The town noise seemed to move farther away.
A wagon rattled somewhere behind them.
A horse snorted.
Men spoke outside the saloon.
But between the two of them, silence.
He asked:
“What did you say?”
The woman looked toward the distant street.
Then back.
“I came here looking for you.”
The cowboy laughed once.
Not because he found it funny.
Because nothing about his day required another problem.
“You don’t know me.”
“No.”
“Then why were you looking?”
The woman reached toward the old saddlebag.
His hand moved instinctively toward his belt.
Not his gun.
Just readiness.
She noticed.
Stopped.
“May I?”
He nodded.
She opened the saddlebag and removed a folded piece of oilcloth.
Inside was an envelope.
Old.
Sealed once, though the seal had already been broken years ago.
She held it out.
The cowboy did not take it.
He recognized the handwriting.
His mother’s.
He felt the blood drain from his face.
The woman watched him carefully.
He whispered:
“Where did you get that?”
“From my father.”
“Who got it from?”
“Your mother.”
“When?”
“Twelve years ago.”
The cowboy looked at her.
“Twelve?”
“Yes.”
“That’s impossible.”
“No.”
“My mother never said anything.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“Because she told my father not to bring this unless someone challenged your northern water claim.”
The cowboy’s entire body tightened.
He took the envelope.
His mother’s handwriting was faded but unmistakable.
One word across the front.
Not his name.
A phrase.
For the day they come for the spring.
He stopped breathing for a moment.
The Apache woman looked toward the men outside the trading post.
“Can we leave?”
The cowboy barely heard her.
“What?”
“They know I have something.”
“Who?”
“The men who delayed me.”
The cowboy looked toward the freight office.
The agent was watching through the window.
Too carefully.
The woman continued:
“If I am right, they expected me to miss tomorrow morning.”
The cowboy folded the envelope back into the oilcloth.