"We make them think this place is cursed." Rhett stared at her. "What?" "My people did it before."
"When settlers came too close to our sacred places, we'd leave signs, make noises in the night, move their things, make them think spirits were angry." A small, grim smile crossed her face. "White men are terrified of ghosts." "You want to haunt them."
"I want to make them too scared to come back." It was ridiculous. It was also the only idea they had. That night, they crept to where the scouts had made camp at the canyon entrance.
The men were asleep, only one keeping watch, and he was doing a terrible job of it, nodding off every few minutes. Rhett and Ayah moved like shadows, taking small things. A boot. A canteen.
A playing card from a deck. They rearranged the camp subtly. Moved saddles. Turned bedrolls.
Hung a knife from a tree branch where it would catch moonlight. Then Ayah did something that made Rhett's skin crawl. She stood at the edge of the firelight and began to sing. Low, wordless, a sound that seemed to come from the rocks themselves.
The melody was ancient, mournful, wrong in a way that bypassed reason and went straight to the back of the brain where primal fear lived. The watchman woke the others. They stumbled around, grabbing weapons, shouting, but there was nothing to shoot at. The singing faded as Ayah backed into the darkness.
By the time the men had torches lit, she and Rhett were long gone. The next morning, the scouts left. Rhett watched them go, arguing with each other, glancing over their shoulders like something was following them. "Did you see their faces?" Ayah asked, grinning.
"That was the most reckless thing you've ever done." "It worked, didn't it?" "This time. Next time they might bring more men. Men who don't scare so easily."
Her grin faded. "Then we'll deal with that when it happens." But it ate at Rhett, the knowledge that they were living on borrowed time. That sooner or later, Coleman would send people who wouldn't be frightened away by ghost stories.
People like himself four years ago. Hard men who'd seen too much to be scared of shadows. Two weeks later, they came. Rhett was hunting when he heard the gunshots.
Three quick cracks echoing through the canyon, close enough to make his heart jump into his throat. He ran back to the cave, expecting the worst, and found Ayah standing outside with a rifle he didn't know she had. "What the hell happened?" "Bounty hunters."
She lowered the rifle, hand shaking slightly. "Three of them. They were climbing up to the cave. I fired warning shots."
"Jesus, Ayah. Warning shots? They're bounty hunters. They don't take warnings."
"I wasn't going to kill someone." "They would have killed you." "You don't know that." "Yes, I do."
Rhett grabbed her shoulders, forcing her to look at him. "These men aren't scouts. They're professionals. They get paid to bring people in, dead or alive, and they don't care which."