“Are you ready?”
Several seconds passed.
She nodded.
Her hands lifted.
The camp became completely silent.
Wind moved through the cottonwoods.
The veil rose slowly.
Maverick saw her chin.
Her lips.
Her cheeks.
A faint pale scar crossed from beneath her left ear toward the edge of her jaw.
Then the fabric lifted completely.
Maverick froze.
Ayasha was not ugly.
Not remotely.
Her face was striking—strong rather than delicate, with high cheekbones, dark eyes, and the faint scar along one side that disappeared into her hair.
But beauty was not what stopped Maverick’s breath.
It was her eyes.
One was dark brown.
The other carried a narrow ring of gray-blue around the iris.
Maverick had seen eyes like that only once.
In a small painted portrait his father had kept hidden inside a wooden box.
A portrait Maverick had found after the man disappeared.
The woman in that picture had possessed the same unusual eyes.
The same high cheekbones.
And beneath the portrait, written in his father’s hand, had been one name.
Elena.
Maverick took one involuntary step backward.
Ayasha saw it.
Pain flashed across her face.
She mistook his shock.
“Now you understand,” she whispered.
Maverick barely heard her.
“Where did you get those eyes?”
Her expression changed.
“What?”
Lobo Negro went completely still.
Maverick looked between them.
“My father owned a portrait.”
No one moved.
“A woman named Elena.”
Ayasha’s face drained of color.
Lobo Negro’s hand tightened around the staff he carried.
Maverick’s heartbeat thundered.
“Who was she?”
The old chief said nothing.
Ayasha turned toward him.
“Father?”
For the first time since Maverick had arrived, Lobo Negro looked afraid.
The wedding continued.
But the silence around it had changed.
Maverick and Ayasha exchanged vows in both Apache and English. Lobo Negro tied their hands together with woven cord. The camp shared food afterward.
People laughed.
Children raced along the water.
Maverick barely tasted anything.
Ayasha sat beside him.
Neither spoke for nearly an hour.
Finally she leaned toward him.
“You looked disappointed when my veil lifted.”
Maverick turned.
“No.”
“You stepped away.”
“Because you reminded me of someone.”
“A dead woman?”
“I don’t know whether she was dead.”
Ayasha’s eyes sharpened.
“What does that mean?”
“My father disappeared twenty years ago. His things were sent to my mother two years later. No body. No explanation.”
“And the portrait?”
“Inside his belongings.”
“Who was your father?”
“Nathan Cole.”
Ayasha dropped the cup in her hand.
It struck the ground.
Water spilled across the dust.
Conversation around them stopped.
Lobo Negro rose from across the fire.
Ayasha stared at Maverick.
“Nathan Cole?”
“Yes.”
She stood abruptly.
“Come.”
Maverick followed her away from the celebration, beneath cottonwood trees, toward a small shelter near the river.
Inside waited a wooden chest.
Ayasha opened it.
From beneath folded cloth she removed a brass compass.
Maverick stopped breathing.
It was nearly identical to his own.
He pulled his compass from his pocket.
They placed them side by side.
The same maker.
The same scratched star on the lid.
The same dent near the hinge.
Only the engraved initials differed.
Maverick’s read N.C.
Ayasha’s read E.A.
“Elena Alvarez,” Ayasha whispered.
Maverick looked at her.
“Who was she?”
Ayasha swallowed.
“My mother.”
The world seemed to tilt.
Maverick sat heavily.
“You’re saying my father knew your mother.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“I hoped you could tell me.”
Lobo Negro entered behind them.
Neither had heard him approach.
The chief closed the shelter flap.
Ayasha turned sharply.
“You knew.”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“Enough.”
Her voice rose.
“You told me Nathan Cole was dead.”
“I believed he was.”
“You brought his son here.”
“I did.”
“Why?”
Lobo Negro looked toward Maverick.
“Because the past has begun moving again.”
Maverick stood.
“I’m tired of riddles.”
“So am I,” Ayasha said.
The chief looked older than before.
He lowered himself beside the chest.
“Twenty-four years ago, your mother, Elena Alvarez, came into this valley with her father.”
Ayasha listened without blinking.
“The Alvarez family held an old Mexican grant covering much of the riverlands west of the mesas. After the territory changed hands, men began contesting those grants. Documents vanished. Boundaries moved. Judges were bought.”
Maverick’s jaw tightened.
He knew those stories.
Land changed owners quickly when wealthy men controlled the courthouse.
“Elena’s father wanted to protect the valley from a cattle company moving north,” Lobo continued. “He hired a surveyor.”
Maverick already knew the name.
“Nathan Cole.”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“A man named Silas Vale happened.”
Maverick felt a chill despite the heat.
He knew that name too.
Everyone who had worked cattle between Tucson and Santa Fe knew Silas Vale.
Vale owned ranches, water rights, freight companies, judges, deputies, and enough hired guns to start a war.
Maverick had worked for one of his outfits once.
For eleven days.
Then quit after seeing a foreman burn a poor family’s cabin over disputed grazing rights.
Lobo Negro continued.
“Vale wanted the river. Elena’s father refused to sell.”
“And my father?”
“Nathan discovered that Vale had filed forged survey maps placing this valley outside the Alvarez grant.”
Maverick stared.
“He tried to expose it?”
“Yes.”
“What happened to Elena’s father?”
“Murdered.”
Ayasha closed her eyes.
She had clearly heard some version before.
“Then they came for my mother.”
Lobo Negro nodded.
“The house burned. Elena escaped carrying you.”
Ayasha’s fingers tightened around the compass.
“She brought me here.”
“Yes.”
“And Nathan?”
The chief looked toward Maverick.