Luke sat in a rocking chair he had built, whittling a piece of cedar. Ayanna sat on the railing, her legs dangling, wearing one of Luke's old flannel shirts over her buckskin skirt. She was laughing softly. "Say it again." she said. "Shush." Luke said, struggling with the Apache word for bear.
"Shush." "No." she giggled. "You sound like a snake. It is deep in the throat. Shush." "I'll stick to bear." Luke grumbled, smiling. "My throat isn't built for your language." Ayanna hopped down from the railing.
She walked over to him and took the knife and wood from his hands. She placed them on the floor. She straddled his lap, wrapping her arms around his neck. She picked up his hat from the table and placed it on her own head. It slid down over her eyes.
She pushed it back, grinning at him. "You are a terrible Apache." she teased. "And you make a terrible cowboy." he countered, adjusting the hat so he could see her eyes. Her smile faded slowly, replaced by a look of intense, quiet emotion. She traced the line of his jaw, the gray that was beginning to show in his beard.
"We made it." she whispered. "The snow is coming, and we are here." Luke wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her close. "We are here." he said. They looked out at the horizon. Far to the south, the lights of a new town were twinkling in the distance.
The railroad was coming. More settlers were coming. The world was changing, shrinking, closing in around them. They knew the peace was fragile. They knew that one day the paper might burn again, and the guns might return.
They spoke sometimes, in low voices, about the children they might have. Children who would walk in two worlds, who would face a prejudice neither of them could fully shield them from. But as the sky blazed into a brilliant, defiant orange over the jagged hills, Luke felt a peace he had never known in all his years of wandering. He looked at the woman in his arms, the woman who had once looked at him with hatred, who had saved him in a storm, who had stood beside him in the fire. He took her hand, interlacing their fingers.
Her skin was dark against his, scarred and strong. The future was a dark road, unmapped and dangerous, but they would walk it together. Ayanna leaned her head on his shoulder. Luke rested his chin on the brim of the hat she wore. In the silence of the high valley, standing at the doorway of their home, the white cowboy and the Apache woman watched the night come on.
They did not light a lamp. They did not need to. Their love, born of tragedy, guilt, courage, and fierce desire, was light enough. It burned quietly, defiantly, against the darkness, refusing to be extinguished.