“Then we’ll search.”
“You will not enter homes without the consent of the people who live in them.”
The deputy’s hand dropped toward his revolver. Jack stepped forward, not drawing his own weapon, but making it clear that he would not move aside.
“The warrant says surrender a man who isn’t here. It doesn’t say you can threaten children.”
The deputy studied him.
“You’re Mercer’s brother.”
“I am.”
“Then you’ll come with us.”
Jack heard a murmur ripple through the crowd. He could fight the deputy and perhaps escape, but that would leave the valley exposed. Chief Samuel’s gaze met his. The chief was offering him no easy way out, only the dignity of choosing his own risk.
Jack turned to the chief.
“If I agree to your proposal, will your daughter have a say in it?”
“She will have the final say.”
“Then I’ll meet her and hear what she wants. If she agrees freely, I’ll stand with you.”
The deputy laughed.
“You’d marry a woman you haven’t even seen?”
“I said I’d meet her. I didn’t say I’d sign away my judgment.”
Chief Samuel gave a single, approving nod.
“Then we have a beginning.”
He signaled to Naya. She disappeared into the lodge and returned carrying a folded length of deep blue cloth. Behind her came a young woman in a dark dress, her face concealed beneath a light veil. She moved with measured calm, but Jack noticed that she held her hands tightly together as if keeping herself from trembling. The crowd fell silent. Chief Samuel turned to the stranger and spoke in a voice meant for every witness.
The first evening Jack spent among the valley's families, he discovered that hospitality could be more demanding than suspicion. A grandmother brought him stew and refused to accept payment. Two boys asked whether he could mend a broken saddle buckle. An elder wanted to know which rivers still flowed in New Mexico and whether the drought had ruined the grass as badly as the newspapers claimed. Jack answered carefully. He had expected to be questioned about guns and Meridian. Instead, people asked about his work, his failures, and the places he had left behind.
A young father named Luis sat beside him while the children played in the dust. Luis had been born near the northern terraces and had never traveled farther than Tucson. He spoke about the spring as though describing a relative whose moods everyone had learned to respect. In the dry months, families took turns opening the irrigation gates. When floods came, they repaired channels together. Arguments occurred, sometimes bitter ones, but no household could claim the water belonged only to itself. Jack listened and thought of his ranch, where he had spent two years fighting a drought as though determination alone might bring rain. He had never asked a neighboring family whether they could share a well. Pride had seemed less humiliating than dependence, even as the cattle grew thin.
Luis asked why Jack had come. Jack told him about Daniel. The young man listened without interrupting, then said that his own sister had disappeared after taking work at a distant boardinghouse. She had returned, but only after a year in which the family had not known whether she was alive. Waiting, Luis said, was a labor that left no visible marks on the hands. Jack looked across the fire toward the children and understood that his search was not unusual here. Many people knew what it meant to have a loved one swallowed by an institution that refused to answer questions.
Later, Naya joined them with a bundle of repaired harness straps. She had heard Jack speaking about the failed ranch. She asked whether he intended to return once he found Daniel. He said he did not know. She replied that uncertainty was better than a promise made for the pleasure of hearing oneself sound noble. Then she offered him a strip of leather and told him to help with the harness. They worked by lantern light while she explained how the valley organized its watches. Every family contributed what it could. A person who could not ride might cook. Someone unable to lift heavy stones might keep records or carry messages. Defense, she said, was not the work of a few armed men who expected everyone else to thank them.