Chapter 3
We rode north until the sun stood high and cruel above us.
No one spoke much.
The Apache moved through the land like they belonged to every stone and shadow. I had lived in that valley eight years and still felt like a guest compared to them.
Aiyana rode beside me.
Not close enough for comfort.
Close enough to stop me if I ran.
I did not blame her.
Her brother was missing.
My name was tied to it.
Trust had no place between us yet.
By noon, we reached the dry creek bed west of my property. Tracks cut through the sand there. Some were old. Some fresh.
Aiyana slid from her horse and crouched.
I stayed mounted until the old warrior looked at me.
“Get down.”
I obeyed.
Aiyana pointed to a print near a patch of brittle grass.
“Shod horse.”
I knelt.
The horseshoes were wide, heavy, and badly set.
I knew that work.
Silas never paid a decent blacksmith. He said good craft was for men who did not know how to force results.
“That is my brother’s shoeing,” I said.
The old warrior’s face did not change.
“You are certain?”
“Yes.”
Aiyana looked at me.
“How?”
“He cuts corners. Even with iron.”
That earned no smile.
We followed the tracks through a narrow wash and into broken hills.
As we rode, my mind dragged me backward.
Silas was my father’s favorite until he became too much like him.
Our father, Abram Torne, raised us with a belt in one hand and scripture in the other. He taught Silas that mercy made a man poor. He taught me that silence kept me alive.
When my mother died, Silas stopped pretending he had a heart.
I was sixteen.
He was nineteen.
He told me tears were for women and weak men.
Then he took my mother’s silver comb from her bedside and sold it for whiskey.
That was the first time I hit him.
It was also the first time he promised to kill me someday.
Aiyana’s voice broke into my memory.
“Your face changed.”
I looked at her.
“What?”
“When you thought of him.”
I tightened the reins.
“He is not a good man.”
“Is he a killer?”
I did not want to answer.
That was answer enough.
She looked ahead.
“My brother’s name is Nalin.”
I repeated it carefully.
“Nalin.”
“He is not a warrior yet,” she said. “But he wants to be. He rides too fast. He talks too much. He thinks courage means never listening.”
There was pain under her words.
Older-sibling pain.
I knew that shape, even from the other side of it.
“How old is he?”
“Twelve.”
My throat tightened.
A boy.
Just a boy.
“We will find him,” I said.
Aiyana’s eyes flashed.
“Do not give me empty comfort.”
“It wasn’t empty.”
“You cannot promise.”
“No,” I said. “But I can ride.”
She looked away.
By late afternoon, we found blood on a rock.
Not much.
Enough.
Aiyana touched it with two fingers.
Her breathing changed.
The old warrior dismounted.
“Nalin?”
She shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
I saw something half-buried beneath a thorn bush.
A strip of blue cloth.
I picked it up slowly.
My stomach dropped.
It was from a shirt.
Not Apache.
Silas had worn blue work shirts since we were boys because he said dirt showed less on them.
Aiyana saw my face.
“What?”
“It is his.”
The old warrior stepped toward me.
“Your brother?”
“Yes.”
“Then he bled.”
“Maybe.”
Or someone with him did.
The tracks split near sunset.
One trail went east toward open country.
The other climbed into the rocks.
Aiyana studied both.
“The boy was taken east.”
The old warrior shook his head.
“Too open.”
She pointed.
“Look at the drag mark. Someone small stumbled here.”
He crouched.
I saw it then.
A short scrape in the dust.
A child’s foot.
My chest tightened.
“Nalin,” Aiyana whispered.
The old warrior closed his eyes for one second.
When he opened them, the father was gone.
The leader remained.
“We follow east.”
A young warrior objected in Apache. I did not understand the words, but I understood the anger.
The old warrior answered sharply.
Silence fell.
Aiyana looked at me.
“My father says if your brother harms Nalin, your blood will answer.”
I met her eyes.
“If Silas harmed that boy, I will stand beside you when he answers.”
She studied me.
“Against your own brother?”
I thought of my mother’s comb.
My father’s belt.
My brother’s promise.
“Blood does not excuse evil.”
For the first time, Aiyana looked at me as if I had said something worth keeping.
We rode until darkness swallowed the trail.
Then a scout returned.
He spoke quickly.
Aiyana went still.
“What is it?” I asked.
She looked at me.
“They found smoke.”
“Where?”
She pointed east.
“Old mission ruins.”
My heart sank.
I knew that place.
May you like
Silas knew it too.
And if he had chosen those ruins, he had chosen them because stone walls were easy to defend.
