Then they rode into the canyon as night fell, following a path only Ayah could see. The caves were exactly where she'd said, tucked into the canyon wall, hidden behind a curtain of rock that made them almost invisible. The largest one was big enough to stand in, deep enough to stay cool, with a spring trickling from a crack in the stone. "It's not much," Ayah said.
"It's ours," Rhett replied. They made camp that night, building a small fire near the cave entrance. Ayah took out the seeds she'd saved and lined them up carefully on a flat rock. "We'll plant them tomorrow," she said.
"There's good soil near the spring. Not much, but enough." Rhett watched her handle the seeds with such care, such reverence, and felt something loosen in his chest. Something that had been clenched tight for four years.
"I'm sorry about your land," Ayah said, not looking at him. "Stop apologizing." "I'm not." "You should be. You gave up everything for me."
"No. I gave up a deed to some land that was never really mine. You know what I got in return?" He waited until she looked at him. "A reason to stop running. A reason to stay."
"That's worth more than 100 acres." Ayah's eyes shimmered, but she didn't cry. She just nodded. "Okay."
"Okay." They sat in silence, watching the fire burn down, listening to the canyon breathe around them. Somewhere in the distance, a coyote howled. Another answered.
The night was vast and dark and full of uncertainty. But for the first time in longer than Rhett could remember, uncertainty didn't feel like fear. It felt like possibility. The first week in the canyon felt like learning to breathe underwater.
Everything was different. The sounds. The light. The way time moved when you weren't measuring it against chores that needed doing on land you owned.
Rhett woke each morning to the echo of water dripping somewhere deep in the cave. Ayah was already awake beside him, watching the dawn creep across the canyon walls like it was something she'd never seen before. They fell into a rhythm without discussing it. Rhett hunted.
Rabbits mostly, sometimes a turkey if he got lucky. Ayah foraged, returning with handfuls of plants he didn't recognize but that she turned into meals that actually tasted like something. She planted the seeds near the spring in soil she carried up from the canyon floor, one handful at a time. Building tiny terraces out of rock to hold the earth in place.
"This is going to take forever," Rhett said, watching her stack stones. "Then it takes forever." She didn't look up. "We've got time."
"Do we?" That made her pause. She sat back on her heels, wiping sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand. "You worried Coleman's going to come looking?"
"Aren't you?" "He got his money, and we're not worth the effort of tracking into the canyon." She went back to her work. "Besides, even if he tried, he wouldn't find us. This place doesn't want to be found."
Rhett wasn't so sure about that, but he didn't argue. Instead, he spent his afternoons exploring the canyon, learning its contours, finding the game trails and water sources. The places where the rock walls closed in so tight you had to turn sideways to pass through. He found old markings on some of the cave walls.
Handprints in red ochre. Symbols he couldn't read. When he mentioned them to Ayah, her expression went carefully blank. "My people marked those," she said.