In her hands, she carried a woven split-oak basket covered with a damp flour-sack cloth, and a clay jug slung over her shoulder by a leather cord.
For several minutes, neither of them moved. The wind stirred the tops of the unfallen pines, sending a shower of golden pollen down through the sunbeams.
Maverick wiped his dripping forehead with the back of his forearm. "You don't need to stand out there in the scrub like you're stalking an elk," he called out. His voice was neutral, free of mock gentleness or patronizing warmth. "If you brought water, I could use it. If you brought advice on how to drop a pine without breaking my neck, I’ll take that too."
Hesper didn't answer, but she stepped out from the brush and walked up the rocky slope with the silent, fluid balance of a deer. She set the basket and the clay jug down on a flat granite boulder five paces from his log, then took two steps back.
Maverick approached the boulder, uncorked the jug, and sniffed it. It was cold water, sweet and sharp, flavored with crushed juniper berries and dried mint. He tipped the jug back and drank until half of it was gone, water spilling down his chin and wetting his dust-caked undershirt.
"That's good," he gasped, setting the jug down with a sigh. "Cold as well water in November."
He lifted the cloth from the basket. Inside were six flat corn cakes, baked hard and speckled with ash, along with several thick strips of dried venison that had been pounded thin with wild chili and berries until it was tender enough to chew without breaking teeth.
Maverick picked up a corn cake, broke it in half, and held out one piece toward her. "Have some."
"I have eaten," came her voice from behind the dark leather. It was muffled slightly by the buckskin, but the clear, musical resonance remained.
"Then eat again," Maverick said, holding the piece steady in the air between them. "I don't eat in front of people who stand around hungry. It sours my stomach."
Hesper looked at his outstretched hand for so long that Maverick thought his arm would cramp. Finally, she stepped forward, took the corn cake with quick, cautious fingers, and tucked it beneath the lower hem of her veil. He heard the faint, crisp crunch as she bit into it.
Maverick sat down on the felled trunk, chewing his meat and looking out over the clearing where he had marked his foundation.
"Your father says the eastern pass is where trouble will come from," Maverick remarked between bites. "He said he put me here because I’m an anvil."
Hesper swallowed her mouthful before answering. "My father is an old wolf. When he puts an anvil in a gap, it is because he expects a hammer to strike it."
"You talk like you don't agree with him."
"My father looks at maps and see lines of soldiers," she said, her voice dropping into a register of quiet bitterness. "He looks at you and sees a white face with an American name that can be shouted at an Indian agent. He does not see that you are only one man. When the ranchers from the Sulphur Springs valley come with their Winchesters, they will not ask to see your paper from Tucson. They will shoot you through the doorway while your beans are still boiling on the hearth."
Maverick paused with the dried venison halfway to his mouth. He looked at her through the eye-slits of the dark leather.
"They might," Maverick agreed. "A lot of men have tried to shoot me through doorways over the years. Some of them came pretty close. But I’m still here, and I haven't seen a rancher yet who doesn't bleed when you put lead into him."
"You are arrogant," she whispered.
"No, Hesper. Just tired of running out of places to stand." Maverick stood up, brushed the crumbs from his leather trousers, and picked up the double-bitted axe. "If I die here, at least I’ll die on dirt that’s got my name on the deed. That’s more than my father ever had, and it’s more than I had four days ago."
He swung the axe into the side of the fallen pine, sending a great yellow wedge of wood flying across the grass.
Hesper watched him for another minute, her hands clasped tightly before her. Then, without a word, she picked up the empty clay jug, walked back down the slope toward the river, and vanished into the high grass.
For two weeks, the valley fell into an uneasy, laborious peace.
Every morning at dawn, Maverick hitched Bramble to the felled pine logs, skidding them down the slope one by one to the flat bench above the river. He dug four corner trenches three feet into the gravel, hauled heavy limestone boulders up from the riverbed to lay a dry-stone foundation, and began notching the eight-inch logs with square saddle notches that locked together with tight, weather-proof precision.