About the last time he'd seen him alive, grinning like a fool, saying, "Don't worry, Rhett. We'll make it." About the gunshot that still echoed in his nightmares. About the grave he dug with his bare hands in hard ground while the sun burned his neck raw.
He thought about Ayah standing on that auction block with her chin up and her eyes forward, refusing to break. He thought about the well they'd dug together, about water rising from dead ground. "Maybe," he said to the empty air, to the canyon, to the ghost of his brother. "Maybe she's right."
The canyon didn't answer. But the wind picked up, rustling through the scrub, and for the first time in four years, it didn't sound like goodbye. It sounded like maybe. Morning came too early and too bright.
Rhett woke to Ayah already moving around outside, gathering things. When he emerged from the barn, she had a pile of items laid out. A rusted hoe, a shovel, several tin cans filled with what looked like seeds. "Where'd those come from?" he asked.
"I've been collecting them." She held up a can. "Corn. Found some growing wild near the creek."
"These?" She indicated another can. "Squash. And these are beans." "You've been planning this."
"I've been hoping for this." She stood, brushing dirt from her hands. "There's a difference." They worked through the morning, breaking ground that hadn't been broken in years, maybe longer.
The soil was hard, stubborn. Rhett's shoulders protested with every swing of the hoe. But Ayah worked beside him, relentless, and somehow that made it easier. Around midday, she stopped and walked to the edge of the property, staring up at the sky.
"What?" Rhett called. "Rain's coming." He looked up. The sky was blue, cloudless.
"You can tell that how?" "I can smell it. Feel it." She closed her eyes. "It's coming. Two days, maybe three."
"If you say so." "I do." They kept working. By sunset, they'd planted half the garden plot.
Rhett's hands were blistered, his back on fire, but he felt something he hadn't felt in a long time. Tired in a good way. Tired like he'd done something that mattered. That night, Ayah made more of the stew, and they ate outside, sitting on the porch steps Rhett had built but never used.
"Tell me about your people," Rhett said. Ayah went still. "Why?" "Because you asked about mine. Seems fair."
She was quiet for so long he thought she wouldn't answer. "We were canyon people. Lived in the high places where the rock meets the sky. Grew food in terraces. Caught water in cisterns carved into stone."
"We'd been there longer than anyone could remember." "What happened?" "What always happens? People came who wanted the land. We were in the way."
Her voice was matter-of-fact, but Rhett heard the weight beneath it. "They came in winter. Burned the food stores. Poisoned the water."