A stone clattered.
The sound was small, no louder than the crack of a dry twig, but Sarah snapped awake instantly, her senses flaring with primal terror.
The sun was high now, pouring blinding golden light into the canyon, illuminating every grain of red dust and every spear of willow reed.
Hoofbeats.
They were not the frantic, thundering gallop of Carpenter’s men. They were slow, rhythmic, and perfectly measured. Deliberate.
Sarah pressed herself flat against the sun-warmed stone behind her, her breath freezing in her throat. She looked toward the canyon entrance.
Three horses stood between her and the only path out.
They were small, lean, wiry ponies with wild manes and paint-daubed flanks, their coats covered in dry dust. Upon their backs sat three Apache men.
They wore high deerskin moccasins that reached above the knee, cotton breechcloths, and loose linen shirts taken from army stores or Mexican traders. Across their laps lay Winchester rifles and Springfield carbines, held with the casual familiarity of men who lived and died with iron in their hands.
Sarah’s heart stopped.
The Apache of the Arizona border were legendary for their ferocity. The newspapers in Tucson and the teamsters in Silver Creek spoke of them as demons who tortured captives, burned ranches, and left nothing but ashes in their wake.
The rider in the center nudged his pony forward.
He was young—perhaps nineteen or twenty—with broad, copper cheekbones, high-arched brows, and obsidian eyes that seemed to take in every detail of the canyon in a single glance. A red flannel band was tied across his forehead, holding back thick, raven hair that fell to his shoulders. A brass cartridge belt hung across his chest.
He dismounted in one fluid, silent motion.
The warrior drew no weapon. He simply walked toward the spring, his dark eyes fixed entirely upon Sarah.
Sarah could not stand. Her legs were completely paralyzed with terror. She pulled her calico skirts tightly over her legs, placed both hands protectively across the enormous swell of her pregnant belly, and looked up at him. The silver watch was still clutched tightly in her right hand, its metal chain dangling through her fingers.
As the young warrior stopped five paces away, on the other side of the shallow trickle of water, Sarah found her voice.
It was barely a whisper, thin and ragged with dust, but it echoed clearly off the canyon walls.
"Please," she begged, tears spilling hot and fast down her cheeks. "Please don't hurt me. I'm carrying my husband's child."
The young warrior stopped so abruptly that a small cloud of red dust rose around the cuffs of his moccasins.
His expression remained carved from dark stone, but his black eyes flickered. His gaze dropped from her tear-streaked face to her swollen belly, where her knuckles were white with tension.
Then, his eyes caught the gleam of the silver pocket watch clutched in her trembling fist.
He stared at the watch. His brow furrowed slightly, a strange, intense concentration tightening his features.
For a long, agonizing minute, the only sound in the canyon was the soft murmur of the trickling spring and the distant cry of a desert hawk.
The young Apache took one slow step across the water, knelt on one knee in the red dust before her, and raised his hand.
The canyon was utterly silent save for the faint, steady trickle of the spring and the harsh, ragged rasp of Sarah’s own breathing.
The young Apache warrior remained kneeling on one knee upon the red soil, barely four feet away from her. The two men behind him sat motionless on their wiry mounts, silhouettes of bronze and muscle framed against the burning glare of the morning sky. Their rifles rested horizontally across the leather pommels of their saddles, fingers resting near the triggers, their expressions impassive as carved cedar.
Sarah pressed her shoulders harder against the rough limestone cliff, feeling the sharp edges of the stone digging through her sweat-soaked calico dress. She could not pull herself any further back. Her right hand remained curled tightly around the casing of Thomas’s silver pocket watch, the knuckles bloodless and white, the silver chain dangling through her dirt-caked fingers.
The warrior did not reach for his knife, nor did he raise the short Springfield carbine slung across his back. Instead, he lifted his right hand with deliberate slowness, palm open and fingers spread, in a universal gesture meant to steady a panicked horse.
"White woman," he said.
The words were English, but heavily accented, shaped by the hard gutturals of the Athabaskan tongue and delivered in a low, measured baritone that resonated softly against the canyon rock.
Sarah’s breath hitched. She opened her mouth to speak, but her throat felt coated in crushed lime. She could only manage a faint, desperate nod, her hands tightening defensively across the curve of her unborn child.