“They Stole My Clothes Cowboy, Please Help Me!,” Said the Apache Woman Bathing in the Lake!

Chapter 4

The ride to the Jensen ranch took two hours.

Cole left Nia at the cabin with the rifle and a strict instruction: if she heard gunfire, she was to ride south and not look back. She had argued—her jaw set in that stubborn way he was beginning to recognize—but he had shaken his head.

“This is not your fight.”

“Your wife is dead because of them,” she said. “And I am still alive because of you. It is my fight.”

“Not yet.” He swung into the saddle. “If I don’t come back, then it’s your fight. And you’ll know what to do.”

He saw the protest forming on her lips, but she swallowed it. Instead, she reached out and touched the horse’s neck, a gesture that was almost gentle.

“You come back,” she said. It was not a request.

Cole nodded once and rode out.

The trail to the Jensen spread wound through cottonwood groves and across dry creek beds, the landscape opening and closing like a fist. Cole knew every bend, every ridge. He had ridden this land for fifteen years—longer than Marcus Jensen had owned it.

The Jensen ranch sat at the end of a long dirt road, flanked by cottonwoods and the kind of manicured fences that spoke of money and generations. The main house was two stories, whitewashed, with a porch that wrapped around three sides. Cole rode straight up the middle, dust rising behind him, and did not slow until he reached the front gate.

Marcus Jensen was waiting on the porch.

He was older than Cole remembered—grayer, heavier around the middle—but his eyes held the same flat, assessing look they always had. He was holding a cup of coffee, not a weapon, which told Cole everything he needed to know about how this man operated. Marcus Jensen never did his own dirty work.

“Merrick.” Marcus’s voice was almost friendly. “Heard you’ve been keeping company.”

Cole stayed in the saddle. “Your son came to my place. Threatened a woman under my roof.”

Marcus took a slow sip of coffee. Steam curled around his face. “Boys will be boys.”

“Your wife died of spring fever, they say.” Cole let the words sit in the air between them. “Funny how the symptoms line up with a certain kind of poison. The kind that’s hard to trace. The kind that takes weeks to finish what it starts.”

Marcus’s hand stopped halfway to his mouth. The coffee cup hung in the air, suspended between them.

“You got something to say, Merrick, you say it.”

“Your son knows what happened to Sarah. He told the woman at my cabin. Told her to tell me.”

The silence stretched. A bird called somewhere in the cottonwoods. The horse shifted beneath Cole, sensing the tension in his legs.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes, you do.”

Marcus set the cup down on the porch rail with deliberate care. The ceramic clinked against the wood.

“Clay’s a drunk,” he said. “He says a lot of things when he’s been drinking. Mostly nonsense.”

“He said he remembers her.”

The words hung in the air like a blade.

Marcus Jensen looked at Cole—really looked at him—and for the first time, Cole saw something shift behind those flat eyes. Not guilt. Not fear. Something colder.

*Calculation.*

“Ride home, Merrick.” Marcus’s voice had dropped, losing its false warmth. “Before you say something you can’t take back.”

“I’m not here to take anything back.” Cole gathered the reins. “I’m here to tell you: the Jensens don’t come near my land. Not you, not your son, not your hired hands. If I see any of you south of the ridge, I won’t come to talk.”

He turned the horse and rode out without looking back.

Behind him, Marcus Jensen stood on the porch until the dust settled. Then he went inside and closed the door with a sound like a lock turning.

—

Three days passed.

Cole worked the fence. Hauled water. Checked the stock. The routine was the same as it had always been, but the weight behind each movement was different. Every time he looked at the horizon, he saw Marcus Jensen’s face. Every time he closed his eyes, he heard Clay’s voice: *Tell Merrick I remember his wife.*

Nia worked beside him, silent and watchful, her eyes always scanning the tree line. She had a way of reading the land now—the way birds moved, the way the horses turned their ears. She learned fast, the way survivors did.

At night, she slept on the cot, and Cole slept on the floor with the rifle within reach. Neither of them spoke about what had been said at the Jensen ranch. Neither of them needed to.

On the fourth night, a rider came.

Not Clay. Not Marcus. A man Cole did not recognize, wearing a deputy’s badge and a hat that sat too low on his forehead. He stopped at the edge of the yard and called out:

“Merrick. Sheriff wants to see you in the morning.”

Cole stepped onto the porch. “What about?”

The deputy shrugged. “Said to tell you it’s about the Jensen boy.”

His horse shifted beneath him, and in the lantern light, Cole saw something flicker across the deputy’s face. Not concern.

*Reluctance.*

“He dead?” Cole asked.

The deputy did not answer. He just turned his horse and rode back into the darkness, the sound of hooves fading until there was nothing left but the wind.