She tied Jezebel to the hitching post outside Henderson’s Merkantile, the bell above the door, announcing her arrival, with a cheerful jingle that was jarringly at odds with her mood. The store was cool and dark, smelling of coffee beans, leather, and dried apples.
Florence Henderson, a portly woman with a kind face and sharp, curious eyes, looked up from behind the counter.
“Cora, child, it’s been a while,” she said, her voice warm. “You look peaked. Everything all right out your way.”
Cora nodded, not trusting her voice. “Just need some flower, salt, coffee, and cartridges. 4570 for the rifle.”
As Florence gathered the items, a man who had been lingering by the barrels of pickles and crackers turned toward her. He was Sterling Croft, a man who was quickly buying up land all over the county. He was handsome in a slick, predatory way, with a neatly trimmed mustache and clothes that were too fine for a dusty town like Redemption Gulch.
He owned the large ranch that bordered Kora’s property to the north.
“Miss Abanathy,” Croft said, tipping his hat. His smile didn’t reach his cold, calculating eyes. “A pleasure to see you in town. I trust your spring is still running clear.”
“It is,” Kora said curtly.
Croft had made several offers to buy her land—offers she had flatly refused. He wanted the water, and he was not used to being told no.
“Good, good,” he said, stroking his mustache. “A valuable resource like that. A young woman all alone. You must be careful. These are dangerous times. The Apache are restless, I hear.”
The opening was there. Kora hesitated, torn between her ingrained self-reliance and the desperate need to tell someone. The pressure had been building for days, and it burst out of her in a rush.
“I have a problem, Mr. Croft. There are seven of them. Apache camped on my land.”
Florence Henderson gasped, her hand flying to her mouth. Croft’s eyes narrowed a flicker of genuine interest in them now.
“On your land? Are they threatening you? Raiding?”
“No,” Kora admitted, feeling the foolishness of her own words. “They’re just there, their leader. He asked me to marry him.”
The statement fell into the store’s sudden silence like a stone in a well. Florence stared at her as if she’d grown a second head. Croft, after a moment of stunned disbelief, let out a short, sharp laugh.
“Marry him?” he chuckled, shaking his head. “Well, I’ll be. The heat must be getting to them. Or maybe to you, Miss Abernathy.”
“It’s the truth.” Kora insisted, her cheeks flushing with anger and embarrassment. “They’ve been there for 4 days. They won’t leave.”
“Then you need the law,” Florence said her voice a nervous whisper. “Sheriff Cain, he’ll run them off.”
Feeling a new, if fragile, sense of purpose, Kora paid for her supplies, loaded them onto Jezebel, and marched across the street to the sheriff’s office.
Sheriff Bartholomew Cain was a man past his prime with a drooping mustache and a belly that strained the buttons of his shirt. He was polishing a shotgun and he looked up with weary disinterest as Kora entered his small cluttered office. She told her story again, her voice flat and factual, leaving out none of the bizarre details.
Cain listened, leaning back in his chair, his expression unchanging. When she was finished, he set the shotgun down and sighed a long, tired sound.
“Miss Abernathy,” he began his voice condescendingly patient. “Let me get this straight. Seven Churikah warriors who by all accounts should be down in Mexico with Geronimo’s band are camped on your land. They haven’t stolen anything. They haven’t harmed you. They haven’t so much as fired a shot. They’re just sitting there. And their chief, who speaks perfect English, has proposed marriage. Is that about the size of it?”
“Yes,” Kora said through gritted teeth.
Cain picked up a piece of paper from his desk and studied it. “Says here, Sterling Croft filed another complaint last week. Said, ‘You’ve been damning up the creek that feeds from your spring, cutting off his water flow.'”
“That’s a lie,” Kora shot back. “My spring doesn’t feed any creek on his property. He just wants my land.”
“Maybe,” Cain said, tossing the paper aside. “But here’s my point. I have actual problems. Drunks fighting in the saloon, prospectors claim jumping each other, folks like Croft filing official complaints. What you’ve got is a story, a fantastical one at that.”
