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POOR COWBOY SAVED A 22-YEAR-OLD APACHE GIRL — THEN THE WHOLE TOWN TURNED AGAINST HIM

Chapter 13

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"Which man... threw snake on porch?"The question hung in the air, cold, brutal, and terrifying.Goyath had seen the dead rattlesnake thrown into the brush behind the barn as his scouts circled the town. He knew what it meant.Up the street, behind the wooden watering trough, Briggs shrank back into the shadows, his face turning the color of wet chalk. Nobody spoke. Nobody moved.Goyath turned his head back to look down at Jake Turner."This town... hate you," the chief said, his English crude but painfully accurate. "Because my sister. You come with us. Ride to mountains. Be safe."Jake looked up at the painted war chief. Then he looked at Naelli, who was watching him with wide, hopeful eyes.It was a way out. An easy, honorable escape from a town that had abandoned him, from neighbors who hated him, and from a life of hard, lonely work on a poor homestead. He could ride into the high Dragoon Mountains, leave Silver Creek to rot in its own bitterness, and never look back.Jake looked past the chief's horse toward his small homestead three miles out on the flats—the seventy acres of dry dirt his father had cleared, the small frame cabin he had built with his own hands, the two stray calves he had spent three days searching for in the wash.Then he looked at the terrified faces of the townspeople peeking through the shutters—men and women he had known his whole life, people who were foolish, afraid, and full of prejudice, but who were still his people.Jake took a slow, deep breath and shook his head."No," Jake said softly. "I can't do that, Chief."Goyath’s eyebrows raised slightly in surprise. "Why stay? They throw you out.""Because it’s my home," Jake said, his voice calm, solid, and filled with an unbreakable strength. "A man doesn't run away from his home just because his neighbors get scared and act foolish. If I leave now, the hate wins. And I'm not letting men like Briggs win."Goyath stared at Jake for five long seconds. The silence was so complete that the wind rustling through the cottonwood leaves sounded like heavy rain.Slowly, a look of deep, profound respect filled the Apache chief’s painted face. He recognized that spirit—the stubborn, unyielding love for one's own dirt that made a warrior stand his ground against impossible odds.Goyath reached down, took a heavy silver pendant hanging from a leather thong around his neck—a beautiful piece of hand-hammered silver set with a single, deep blue turquoise stone—and tossed it through the air.Jake caught it cleanly with his left hand."A-ho-te," Goyath said, his deep voice resonant and clear. "You keep silver. My people... never touch your fence. Never touch your cows. Never touch your house."The chief turned his appaloosa horse around, looking down at his sister one last time."Naelli," Goyath said softly. "Come."
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POOR COWBOY SAVED A 22-YEAR-OLD APACHE GIRL — THEN THE WHOLE TOWN TURNED AGAINST HIM

15 Part