She was small, wrapped in a faded army blanket despite the August heat. Her hair, black as a starling's wing, hung in two long braids threaded with leather and turquoise. She didn't turn when Hoby's boots hit the dirt. She didn't need to.
Hoby took off his hat, ran a hand through his silvering hair. "I did come back. Three days after they took you. The place was locked up. They said you'd been sent to the reservation school in Oklahoma. Said no forwarding address."
"How did you find your way here?"
"You should have," Tala agreed. "But I'm not here for apologies, Hoby Buchanon. I'm here because I need your help." -HobyBuchanon- Native American Indian Girl Returns
Tala smiled then—the first real smile he'd seen on her. It was like the sun breaking through storm clouds.
He looked back at the young woman who had walked a thousand miles to find him.
Hoby tightened his gun belt and mounted his own horse. "Then let's give him something to be afraid of." She was small, wrapped in a faded army
Tala laid her hand on the mare's neck. Rain blew out a soft breath and lowered her head, something she did for no one except Hoby.
"They changed my name. Said 'Tala' was too hard to pronounce. Called me 'Margaret.'" She almost smiled. "I ran away seven times. The eighth time, I stayed gone."
Hoby remembered that blizzard. Remembered finding a half-frozen Indian child curled against a warm spring, her dark eyes calm as if she'd known all along someone would come. He'd taken her in, raised her alongside his own sons for four years, until the state had decided a white rancher wasn't fit to raise a Native American girl. She didn't need to
"Been ten years," Hoby said, his voice rougher than he intended.
"You said you'd come back for me," she said. Her voice held no accusation, only a fact, like the shape of a scar.
"What about it?"
