Chapter 1

The sky above the arroyo has turned a deep red by the time I realize how late it is. I’ve spent most of the latter part of the afternoon fixing a broken fence out in the lower pasture, taking my turn pounding the post into the ground while Paco rides around the cattle to keep them back. When I remove my hat and wipe my forehead with one grimy sleeve, Chavez gives me his broken-toothed grin. “You look like mierda, pibe,” he says in that sing-song accent of his.

I’ve learned enough Spanish since coming west to know when I’m being put down. “Your madre,” I say, which makes him snigger. The vaqueroshave told me my accent’s atrocious. When I reply, “que te jodan,” that only makes them laugh harder.

After we put the planks back into the new fence post, Paco rides over and Chavez tells him something in Spanish I don’t catch. I hear the word pibe, so I know they’re talking about me. Pibe, it means boy, and is meant to be derogatory. I’m almost thirty without a hair on my face, and when they’re joking around with me, they say my skin looks like a baby’s bottom. But I’m a hard worker, putting in more than my fair share of the work around the ranch, and they believe me when I tell them I have Cherokee blood in me. That’s why my cheeks and jaw are still smooth this late in the day, when Chavez’s jowls are already dark with stubble, and even Paco has a little bit of fuzz above his upper lip. Once he asked how often I shave. I told him once a month whether I needed it or not. That earned me more laughter, but at least it shut him up.

Now I vault easily into the saddle of my mare, tugging on the reins to get her attention. Chavez gives the fence one final kick—he’s our foreman, and if the thing breaks again, he’ll be the one Boss Daddy blames. But the post holds, and Paco hands over the reins of his horse while he climbs up. Then the three of us turn our backs to the setting sun and head for the ranch house. Halfway there, the peal of the supper bell rings out across the land.

Paco and Chavez spur their steeds on further, but I’m in no rush. I don’t eat with the other ranch hands. I don’t bunk down with them, either. I have a room in town that has its own bed and a door that locks, and I can get fresh warm water for a bath once a week as part of my rent. I take my meals at the saloon, where I’ve become a regular fixture every evening for the past year. It was the first place I stopped at when I stepped off the train at Junction, and the food’s not half bad.

Trouble is, it’s not half good, either. But it’s cheap, and edible. Can’t ask for much more this far west.

By the time I reach the stables, Paco and Chavez are nowhere to be seen. Their horses are still saddled—in their haste to eat, they left the poor steeds to fend for themselves. So after I unsaddle my mare and brush her down, I give her a bucket of feed and take care of the other two. Stubs’ slop will be waiting for me no matter how late I get there, and no one else is expecting me tonight. More importantly, Boss Daddy will know those two vaqueroswere too lazy to put away their horses, and he’ll know I did it for them. Which will keep me in his good graces. Given who he is in this part of the county, that’s exactly where I want to stay.

Since he owns almost all the land around these here parts—the ranch, the town and everything in it, even the railroad spur at Junction—in his good graces is a damn good place to be.

Once I’m finished with the horses, I head around to the pump beside the bunkhouse. I push my sleeves up to my elbows and prime the pump, then wash off my hands and forearms in the cold water. It feels wonderful on my hot, dusty skin, so I take off my hat and dip my head beneath the rushing spray. Cool tendrils trickle down the back of my neck and furrow under the collar of my shirt. I feel the icy chill harden my nipples beneath the rough cloth. As the pump runs dry, I shake the excess water out of my hair, then pull up my shirt a bit to rub my face with the relatively clean undershirt beneath.

It’s when I have my shirt up, my stomach exposed, that I realize I’m not alone.