Before today, they may have expected one lonely rancher. Now they knew there was a rifle waiting at the cabin and an Apache woman inside who could put an arrow exactly where she intended. The arithmetic had changed. Still, Ran was not willing to gamble her life on a guess. He stepped inside and sat across from her.
Aina watched him silently, waiting for whatever he intended to say. Ran leaned forward. "How long before you can walk 2 days north?" Aina considered the question seriously. "7 days," she said. Then after a pause, maybe eight.
Ran gave a slow nod. "Then you'll stay until you're ready." Aina studied him. Something moved across her face. Something he could not quite name. Then she answered with a short phrase in Apache.
Ran could not tell whether it meant agreement, gratitude, or something in between. Maybe it meant both. The next eight days were the quietest Ran had known in four years, and somehow they were also the fullest. He knew something inside him had shifted during the past two weeks, but he made no attempt to name it. He did not chase the feeling.
He did not try to force it into words. He simply let it exist and took each day as it came. In the mornings, Ran worked the fence line. When her ankle allowed it, Aina sat on the top rail and watched him. He explained that in Arizona territory, a man who built fence had to think about more than cattle.
There was wind, there was frost that heaved the ground beneath the posts. There was hard, stony soil, and there were pine posts stubborn enough to split before they agreed to sit straight. Aina listened. Then she taught him things in return. She showed him three different plants growing in the draws.
Plants Ran had ridden past a hundred times without ever really seeing them. One helped with fever. One eased pain. One could be used on a wound that refused to close. Ran wrote their names phonetically on the back pages of his account book, spelling them as best he could so he would not forget.
Aina also taught him how to say something in Apache. "Share the fire with me." Ran practiced the phrase again and again. At first, she corrected every attempt. Then one day, she stopped correcting him. On the 10th day, Ran found a bird's nest that the wind had knocked from a pine.
It was still intact, small, tightly made from dry grass, horsehair, and several fine fibers he could not identify. He carried it back to the cabin and placed it on the table. It seemed like one of those things too carefully made to be left in the dirt. Aina picked it up. She examined it with the same complete attention she gave everything.