"Well, now," the lead rider said. He was a man with a broken nose and a beard stained with tobacco juice. "Who might you be?" "Just passing through," Luke said, keeping his voice flat and bored. He let his hand rest casually on his thigh, near the old Colt revolver Nantan had returned to him. "You're a long way from nowhere, friend," the rider said, eyeing Luke's horse.
"Lost a mule." Luke lied smoothly. "Wandered off 2 days ago. You boys see a swaybacked mule with a crooked ear?" The riders laughed. "We ain't seen nothing but rocks and lizards," one of them shouted. The leader didn't laugh.
He squinted at Luke. "You look familiar. I see you in Tucson." "Maybe," Luke said. "I move around." The leader spat a stream of brown juice onto the dust near Roan's hooves. "You got the look of a man who rides the grub line, or maybe maybe you're one of them lovers I hear about, living up here in the rocks?" Luke felt a muscle in his jaw jump.
He forced himself to smile, a cold, thin expression. "I ride for myself," he said, "and I don't care much for company." The leader chuckled. He nudged his horse forward, crowding Luke. "You smell like smoke, friend. Indian smoke?" "I camped in a canyon last night," Luke said, not giving an inch.
"The wind blows where it wants." The riders circled him. They were drunk, dangerous, and looking for a fight. They began to throw insults, testing him. They called him filth. They called him a traitor to his race.
They described in graphic, vile detail what they would do to an Apache woman if they caught one. Luke sat on his horse, taking it. Every word was a lash. Every instinct in his body screamed at him to draw and fire. He could drop three of them before they cleared leather, but the gunshots would alert the camp.
And if any of these men escaped, the secret was out. So, he sat there. He let them mock him. He let them call him a coward. He let them laugh at his worn coat and his silent endurance.
From high up on the ridge, hidden behind a cluster of boulders, Ayanna watched. She had been hunting when she heard the voices. She had her bow drawn, the arrow nocked. She had a clear shot at the leader's chest, but she didn't loose the arrow. She watched Luke.
She saw the way his hand hovered over his gun, trembling with the effort of restraint. She saw the whiteness of his knuckles. She heard the words the white men threw at him, words she understood enough of to know they were poison. She realized with a jolt that shocked her to her core, he was taking this for them. He was swallowing his pride, his honor, and his rage to keep the soldiers away from her father, from the children, from her.
He was letting himself be small so they could be safe. The leader of the cowboys finally got bored. He realized Luke wasn't going to fight. "You ain't worth the bullet," the man sneered. "Come on, boys.