"Don't know what you mean." "The cowboy who married the Apache woman. Who stood up to Coleman." She smiled, showing teeth that had seen better decades.
"Word travels fast out here. And not everyone thinks what Coleman does is right." "You got a point?" "My point is, you've got friends you don't know about."
She pushed the supplies toward him. "No charge. And there's a back door if you need to leave quiet-like." Rhett stared at her.
"Why help me?" "Because Coleman came through here six months ago. Took my granddaughter. Said she had Apache blood, which was a lie."
"But who's going to argue with a badge and a gun? Haven't seen her since." The old woman's eyes went hard. "So yeah, I'm helping you. And I hope you make that bastard pay."
Rhett took the supplies, throat tight. "I'm sorry about your granddaughter." "Being sorry doesn't bring her back. But stopping Coleman might stop it happening to someone else's granddaughter."
She waved him toward the back. "Go before someone less friendly sees you." He left through the back door and returned to where Ayah waited. When he told her about the old woman, Ayah's expression went distant.
"There are others," she said quietly. "People like her. People who've lost someone to Coleman and Vickers. We're not alone in this."
"Doesn't mean they can help us." "Maybe not. But it means what we're doing matters to more than just us." She looked at him.
"That makes it worth it, doesn't it?" Rhett thought about the old woman's face. About the granddaughter she'd never see again. About all the names in that ledger.
All the lives reduced to numbers and prices. "Yeah," he said. "It does." They pushed east, avoiding main roads, keeping to game trails and forgotten paths that Ayah seemed to navigate by instinct.
They traded the horses for fresh ones in a town where nobody asked questions as long as you had money. They slept in caves and abandoned line shacks under stars so thick they looked like spilled salt. And slowly, over days that turned into weeks, something shifted between them. The fear didn't go away.
It couldn't. Not while they were fugitives carrying evidence that could destroy powerful men. But it got quieter, pushed into the background by something stronger. They talked during the long rides.
About everything and nothing. About Ayah's mother teaching her to read the weather in the flight of birds. About Caleb's terrible singing voice and worse jokes. About the future they might have if they survived this.
About the children they might raise who would know both their stories and carry both their names. One night, camped in a valley where wildflowers grew thick despite the dry season, Rhett asked the question that had been gnawing at him since the canyon. "How did you do it? The flood?"
"That wasn't natural." Ayah was quiet for a long time, staring into the fire. "My grandmother used to say the land speaks to those who listen. That water knows where it wants to go."