“Sorry is not an answer.”
“No. But it’s the only honest thing I have.”
She turned from him and walked to the water’s edge. Jack did not follow. He wanted to explain that he had never known her name, that he had not forgotten her deliberately, that he had been a child with no power over the adults around him. But those explanations would have served his comfort, not hers. He waited until she turned back.
“My mother used to say that a person could belong to more than one place without being divided,” he said.
“If we share a past, it doesn’t erase the family you chose or the family that chose you.”
Isabel’s gaze searched his face.
“You speak as if you believe that.”
“I need to believe it.”
She tied the scarf around her head, covering part of her hair but leaving her face visible.
“We will not solve this today. There are more urgent matters.”
He nodded.
“The company.”
“And the warrant. And Daniel.” She spoke his brother’s name carefully, as if placing it on a table between them.
“I will not marry you because of a pendant. Nor because my father believes it may strengthen an alliance. If I marry you, it will be because I trust the man you are now.”
“That’s the only reason I’d accept.”
They returned to the settlement, where Chief Samuel had summoned the elders and several families to discuss the danger. A messenger had arrived before sunrise with news from Red Hollow: Judge Voss had scheduled a hearing in five days to determine whether the valley could be seized for “public development.” Meridian planned to present a map showing the spring outside the community’s recognized boundary. If the judge accepted the map, armed deputies could clear the settlement before the people had time to appeal.
The chief placed a copy of the map on the table.
“This line is false,” he said.
On the eastern trail, Mateo and Jack stopped at a narrow pass where an old juniper had grown sideways out of the rock. Mateo said the tree marked the place where his grandfather once sheltered during a winter storm. Jack could see no water and no comfortable ground for a camp. Mateo showed him a shallow recess protected from the wind and a stone basin that caught rain when the weather turned. The place had been invisible until someone who knew it pointed it out. Jack began to understand how little a printed map could tell him about a country.
They ate dried meat and watched a hawk circle the valley. Mateo asked whether Jack truly meant to marry Isabel. Jack replied that he had agreed only to speak with her and that she had made no promise. Mateo nodded. He said Isabel had spent years listening to outsiders explain what would be best for her. Some admired her education while refusing to let her speak. Others treated the veil as proof of a secret they were entitled to uncover. She had learned to answer their curiosity with silence, but silence had cost her opportunities to defend the people she loved.
Jack asked whether Mateo approved of the proposal. Mateo considered the question before saying that his approval was not the important one. What mattered was whether Isabel could disagree with Jack without fearing he would withdraw his help. Jack did not answer immediately. On the ranch he had often mistaken obedience for loyalty. Daniel had challenged him about that more than once, and Jack had dismissed the complaint as a younger brother's impatience. Now the memory stung. He promised nothing aloud, but he resolved to pay closer attention the next time someone told him he was wrong.
At the pass they found a strip of blue cloth caught on a thorn. Mateo examined it and said the material resembled the lining of Meridian's riders' coats. A fresh horseshoe print lay beneath the tree, pointing toward the mission. The men had chosen a concealed route rather than the main road. Jack knelt to study the print and noticed that the shoe had been repaired with an uneven nail. He remembered the silver-banded rifle and wondered whether the same rider had been following them since Red Hollow.
They took the longer trail along the eastern shelf, moving slowly where the stone crumbled underfoot. At one point Jack's horse stumbled and sent pebbles rattling into the ravine. Mateo caught the bridle before the animal could panic. Jack thanked him. Mateo shrugged and said the horse had done nothing to deserve a foolish rider. They shared a laugh, brief but genuine. By the time the burned mission came into view, their caution had become something closer to trust. Neither believed the other would be enough to survive the coming days alone.