Tala looked toward the mountain, and for a moment Hoby saw the child she'd been—the one who could speak to horses and find water in a drought and read the weather in the flight of birds.
"Been ten years," Hoby said, his voice rougher than he intended.
"I'm not staying," Tala said quietly. "After this is done, I have to go back. My people need me." -HobyBuchanon- Native American Indian Girl Returns
"I wrote you letters," Hoby said quietly. "Every month for two years. They all came back 'Addressee Unknown.'"
"I know." Hoby put his hat back on. "But you came back first. That's enough for now." Tala looked toward the mountain, and for a
"You should have," Tala agreed. "But I'm not here for apologies, Hoby Buchanon. I'm here because I need your help."
"The reservation is dying," she said. "The water's poisoned. The elders are sick. And the company that owns the land upstream—they're owned by the same man who owns the bank that holds the deed to your ranch." "After this is done, I have to go back
Hoby tightened his gun belt and mounted his own horse. "Then let's give him something to be afraid of."
Hoby glanced at the old bunkhouse, where the tack hung dusty and unused. At the empty corrals. At the house where his boys had grown up and moved away, where his wife had died of a broken heart—or so the neighbors said—three years after Tala left.