-hobybuchanon- Native American Indian Girl Returns -
"You said you'd come back for me," she said. Her voice held no accusation, only a fact, like the shape of a scar.
Tala reached into the folds of her blanket and pulled out a small bundle of yellowed envelopes, the ink faded but still legible. "They gave them to me the day I left. The matron thought they'd make me sad. She was right. But not the way she meant."
He looked back at the young woman who had walked a thousand miles to find him. -HobyBuchanon- Native American Indian Girl Returns
"The spring isn't just water, Hoby. It's the headwater of everything. Three rivers, four aquifers, and every creek that feeds this valley. Tillman thinks he's buying the land. But the land was never his to buy. Or mine. Or yours." She turned back to him. "The spring belongs to the water itself. And the water remembers who tried to poison it."
"You should have," Tala agreed. "But I'm not here for apologies, Hoby Buchanon. I'm here because I need your help." "You said you'd come back for me," she said
Hoby's throat tightened. "I should have fought harder."
"The chestnut's yours," he said. "Her name is Rain. She's stubborn, opinionated, and smarter than most people I know. You'll get along fine." "They gave them to me the day I left
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.
Hoby studied her face. He'd known her as a child, this strange, fierce, beautiful girl who had appeared out of a snowstorm and taught his sons how to track deer and read the stars. He'd watched the state tear her away. He'd spent ten years living with the hollow she'd left behind.
"I'm not staying," Tala said quietly. "After this is done, I have to go back. My people need me."
She stepped closer, and Hoby saw for the first time the weariness in her eyes, the weight of something more than just the road.
