The desert blazed under a brutal sun, the air trembling over the sand like a living furnace. Half-buried in that heat lay Da, an Apache woman left to die. Ants crawled across her skin, dust clung to her lashes, and every breath felt like it might be her last. But her mind held one name with unbroken clarity—the man who ordered her buried alive: Silas Pike. A land baron with power stretching across counties, Pike believed he controlled everything, including the secrets whispered beneath his own floorboards. Da heard the wrong voices at the wrong time, and instead of silence, Pike chose a shallow grave.
Across the shimmering horizon came a lone rider. Bryant, a worn bounty hunter with more regrets than victories, spotted something unnatural sticking out of the earth. He approached slowly—too many traps hid under Arizona sand. But when he brushed the dirt aside, Da’s eyes opened, fierce even in weakness. She whispered one word: water. He gave her enough to keep her alive, enough for the fire in her chest to return.
“Who did this?” he asked. Her cracked lips formed the name he already dreaded: Silas Pike.
Bryant didn’t hesitate. He pulled her from the sand, carried her to his horse, and covered her with his blanket. “You’re not dying out here,” he said, more to himself than to her.
They rode until nightfall. Da slept in flashes, haunted by memories she refused to let swallow her. Bryant tended the fire and kept watch—Pike’s reach was long, and he knew the man rarely left unfinished business. At dawn they headed south. Da warned him Pike’s men would come for them, and she was right. Riders appeared on the horizon, searching. Bryant hid them in a narrow ravine until the danger passed.
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