Chapter 6: THE ROAD HOME
Jesse looked across the land toward the spring.
“What are you going to do with all of this?”
Caden considered the question.
Three months earlier, he would have had no answer.
Ten years earlier, he might have sold the land as soon as someone offered enough money.
Now the answer felt unexpectedly clear.
“Keep enough for a house.”
Jesse blinked.
“And the rest?”
Caden looked over the valley where twenty-three restored properties stretched beneath the evening light.
“We create a cooperative.”
Mara smiled.
“Shared water?”
“Shared water.”
“The roads?”
“Shared too.”
Jesse laughed.
“Gault may die simply from hearing about it.”
“He'll need to survive prison first.”
They started toward the horses.
The setting sun spread impossible colors over Arizona—red, copper, violet, and gold.
At the crest of the rise, Caden stopped.
Ten years earlier, he had lost Jesse and decided caring for anyone was dangerous.
Three months earlier, hired men had killed his horse because powerful people believed a drifter without family was the easiest kind of man to erase.
They had been wrong.
Caden looked toward Jesse.
Toward Mara.
Toward the valley.
Toward the country his mother had once protected alongside Mara's grandfather, before either family knew how much the future would one day demand from their descendants.
At last he understood the deepest mistake Aldrick Gault had made.
The same mistake Caden himself had made for years.
A man's importance was not measured by whether powerful people knew his name.
It was measured by whether somebody would turn around and ride back for him.
Mara mounted Sombra.
She looked down toward him.
“Coming, cowboy?”
Caden smiled.
The words brought Arroyo Seco back instantly.
Blood in the white dust.
Rifles hidden above the canyon.
A stranger beside a painted mare.
Get on my horse, cowboy.
He placed one boot into the stirrup of his new horse.
“Where are we going?”
Mara looked toward the lights beginning to appear across the valley.
“Home.”
Once, the word would have frightened him.
Instead, Caden swung into the saddle.
Jesse began talking before they had ridden even ten yards.
Something about irrigation schedules.
Or federal regulations.
Possibly supper.
Caden barely listened.
He smiled into the evening.
Behind them, clear spring water continued to flow from the stone.
It had survived drought.
It had survived lies.
It had survived altered surveys, stolen property, violence, grief, and ten missing years.
Hidden beneath hard earth, it had kept moving patiently toward daylight.
Something disappearing beneath the surface does not mean it has ceased to exist.
Caden looked once toward Jesse.
Once toward Mara.
Then forward.
For the first time in ten years, he was not riding away from the place where his life had fallen apart.
He was riding toward the place where it could finally begin again.
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