By the summer of 1874, Daniel Mercer had learned that a man could keep breathing long after he had stopped believing he was alive.
The desert taught him that.
So did hunger.
So did loneliness.
Mostly, though, the wooden crosses back in Texas had taught him.
There were three of them standing beneath an old cottonwood tree outside what remained of the Mercer ranch. His father's cross leaned slightly toward the east. His mother's stood beside it. His younger brother's was the smallest.
Daniel had carved every name himself.
Afterward, he had sold what little survived the fire, saddled a brown gelding named Amos, and ridden west without deciding where he was going.
That had been nearly three years ago.
Since then, towns had come and gone.
So had jobs.
Daniel had driven cattle in Kansas, repaired fences in New Mexico Territory, slept beneath wagons in Colorado, and once spent an entire winter cutting timber for a man who disappeared before paying him.
He stopped asking where he belonged.a
Belonging was for people who still had something waiting when the sun went down.
Daniel had a horse, an old Winchester, a revolver with a worn walnut grip, twenty-two cartridges, two shirts, a blanket, and eleven dollars and forty cents.
And on a blazing afternoon in late August, he was almost out of water.
The sun hung white over the desert.
Heat trembled above the rocks.
Amos stumbled twice before Daniel finally climbed down and began walking beside him.
"Easy," Daniel murmured.
The horse's nostrils were crusted with dust.
Daniel lifted the canteen.
He shook it.
Nothing.
He considered giving Amos the final swallow thirty minutes earlier.
Now he wished he had.
The horizon seemed endless.
Jagged mountains rose in the distance, violet beneath the haze. Dry brush scratched at Daniel's trousers. His lips had split. Each breath tasted like sand.
Then he saw smoke.
At first he thought his eyes were playing tricks.
One thin gray ribbon rose beyond a ridge to the north.
Daniel stopped.
Amos stopped with him.
Smoke meant people.
People meant water.
People also meant trouble.
He studied the ridge for nearly a minute.
Then he laughed without humor.
"Suppose dying of thirst is trouble enough."
He climbed into the saddle.
They followed the smoke.
The land changed as they approached.
Horse tracks crossed the hard earth.
There were signs of recent movement through the brush.
Daniel's instincts sharpened.
His hand drifted closer to the rifle resting beneath his leg.
When he crested the ridge, he understood immediately that he had entered a place where a careless movement could get him killed.
Below him stood an Apache camp.
Women moved between fires and shelters.
Children stopped playing.
Several warriors turned toward the ridge.
Then more did.
Daniel counted rifles.
He stopped counting.
His throat tightened.
He had grown up hearing every kind of frontier story men told around saloon tables. Some were warnings. Some were lies. Most had grown larger every time they were repeated.
Daniel trusted what he could see.
And what he saw was a grieving community staring at a heavily armed stranger.
He slowly lifted both hands away from his weapons.
"Water," he called.
Nobody answered.
One warrior stepped forward.
Another moved behind Daniel's horse.
Daniel kept still.
"I don't want trouble."
A young man spoke sharply in Apache.
Daniel understood none of it.
He pointed toward his empty canteen.
"Water."
A child appeared from behind a woman.
The woman pulled him back.
Daniel noticed something else.
No laughter.
No cooking celebration.
No relaxed conversation.
Something had happened here.
A rider approached from the center of the camp.
He was older than most of the men surrounding Daniel. His gray-streaked hair fell past his shoulders. His face carried deep lines made by sun, age, and responsibility.
The others moved aside for him.
Daniel understood before anyone spoke.
The chief.
The older man studied Daniel.
Not his rifle.
Not his horse.
His face.
Daniel had the strange sensation that the man was looking for something inside him.
Finally, the chief spoke in rough English.
"You are alone."
Daniel nodded.
"Yes."
"Why?"
It was not the question Daniel expected.
He swallowed.
"Been alone a long time."
The chief's eyes narrowed slightly.
Then he pointed toward Daniel's canteen.
A teenage boy carried over a clay vessel filled with water.
Daniel nearly grabbed it.
Instead, he forced himself to drink slowly.
The first mouthful hurt.
The second felt like life returning.
He poured some into his palm for Amos.
Then more.
Only after the horse drank did Daniel look toward the chief again.
"Thank you."
The man nodded.
"Where do you ride?"
Daniel glanced toward the empty horizon.
"Wherever there's work."
"And home?"
Daniel almost smiled.
"Don't have one."
Something changed in the chief's expression.
Recognition, perhaps.
Pain knew pain.
Daniel looked past him.
A woman near one of the shelters was crying.
Another held her.
Several warriors had bandaged arms.
One man walked with a limp.
Daniel lowered the canteen.
"What happened?"
Silence.
Then the chief said, "My daughter."
Daniel waited.
"Taken."
The word fell heavily.
"By who?"
"Men who raid camps. Steal horses. Guns. Women."
Daniel's jaw tightened.
"How long ago?"
"Four days."
Daniel looked toward the bandaged warriors.
"You went after them."
"We did."
"And?"
The chief's voice hardened.
"Some returned."
Daniel understood.
Some had not.
The older man's gaze remained fixed on him.
"My daughter is called Tala."
Daniel said nothing.
"She is twenty-five years."
A breeze moved through the camp.
The fire smoke shifted.
"She lives," the chief said.
Daniel looked sharply at him.
"You know that?"
"Tracks tell us."
Daniel stared toward the mountains.
"How many men took her?"
"Six. Maybe seven."
Daniel breathed out.
The chief watched him carefully.
"You know guns."
"Enough."
"You track?"
"Enough."
"Then bring her home."
Daniel thought he had misunderstood.
He looked at the men surrounding them.
"You've got warriors."
"Those who rode are wounded. Others protect families."
Daniel shook his head.
"You don't know me."
"No."
"You don't know if I'll run the minute I'm over that ridge."
"No."
"You don't know if I'm good enough to fight six armed men."
"No."
Daniel stared at him.
"Then why ask me?"
For the first time, the chief's control cracked.
His eyes moved toward the crying woman.
"My wife has not slept since Tala was taken."
He looked back.
"I am her father."
Three words.
Nothing more.
Daniel felt something open inside him that he had tried for years to bury.
His own father standing at the ranch gate.
His mother calling him inside.
His brother chasing him through the corn.
All gone.
He looked down.
"I ain't a hero."
The chief answered quietly.
"I did not ask for a hero."
Daniel's throat tightened.
"What are you asking for?"
"A man who knows what it is to lose family."
Daniel slowly lifted his eyes.
The chief had seen him clearly.
Too clearly.
Daniel stepped away.
For several minutes he walked beside Amos, pretending to check the horse's saddle.
His mind told him to leave.
Ride north.
Find work.
Stay alive.
He owed these people nothing.
He owed Tala nothing.
He had twenty-two rifle cartridges, six revolver rounds, one tired horse, and no plan.
Behind him, footsteps approached.
The chief stopped several feet away.
"If you return her alive," he said, "you will be welcome here."
Daniel turned.
The chief continued.
"If she accepts you after you return, you will have a place among us."
Daniel frowned.
"Accepts me?"
The older man did not explain.
"Her choice."
Daniel almost laughed.
"I don't understand."
"You do not need to understand tonight."
The wind stirred the dust.
Daniel looked across the camp.
Children.
Women.
Wounded men.
A father doing everything he could not to show fear.
Then Daniel noticed a small object hanging from the chief's hand.
A beaded leather bracelet.
"For Tala?" Daniel asked.
The chief nodded.
Daniel took it.
The leather was warm from the man's palm.
That was the moment the decision became real.
Daniel slipped the bracelet into his pocket.
"I leave before sunrise."
The chief's eyes closed briefly.
Not relief.
Something deeper.
"Thank you."
Daniel shook his head.
"Don't thank me until she's standing here."
That night Daniel slept little.
He cleaned his rifle.
Counted ammunition twice.
Filled two canteens.
A woman brought dried meat.
A young warrior named Keme showed him the direction of the raiders' trail.
Keme wanted to ride with him.
His left arm was bandaged.
Daniel refused.
"You'll slow me down."
Anger flashed across the young man's face.
"She is my cousin."
"Then stay alive long enough to see her come home."
Keme looked ready to argue.
The chief stopped him.
Before dawn, Daniel saddled Amos.
The camp gathered silently.
Nobody cheered.
Nobody made speeches.
The chief approached.
"Bring Tala home."
Daniel adjusted his rifle.
"I'll try."
The older man's gaze hardened.
"Do more than try."
Daniel almost smiled.
There was the father.
"I'll bring her."
He turned Amos toward the desert.
Then a woman's voice called behind him.
Daniel looked back.
Tala's mother stood near the fire.
She pressed both hands against her heart.
No words.
Daniel nodded.
Then he rode.
By sunrise the camp had disappeared behind him.
By noon, so had every sensible reason to keep going.
Yet Daniel followed the trail deeper into outlaw country.
Broken branches.
Hoofprints.
Ash.
A piece of cloth snagged on mesquite.
Every mile carried him farther from safety.
At sunset he made a small fire beneath rocks.
He ate dried meat.
He took out Tala's bracelet.
A stranger's bracelet.
A stranger's daughter.
A stranger's grief.
Daniel stared at it.
"Why am I doing this?"
The desert offered no answer.
But somewhere beyond those mountains, a woman he had never met was waiting to learn whether the world had forgotten her.
Daniel knew what being forgotten felt like.
He placed the bracelet back into his pocket.
Then he checked his rifle.
At dawn he rode again.
And by the third evening, Daniel Mercer found the canyon.
He heard men laughing below.
He crawled toward the ridge.
Looked down.
And saw Tala tied beside a dying fire.
Six armed men surrounded her.
Daniel counted his cartridges.
Then counted the men again.
For the first time since leaving the Apache camp, fear moved cold through his body.
Because finding her had been difficult.
Getting her out alive looked impossible.
And one of the raiders was already walking toward her.
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