Quinn shook his head. "And it might get Kuruk killed. You think Hollis will let him waltz into Silver Ridge and undermine everything he's built?"
"The second Kuruk shows his face, someone will put a bullet in it."
"Not if he has protection. Not if people are watching."
"Who's going to protect him? Not the army, and I'm not a marshal anymore."
"I will," I said.
The words hung in the cold air. Takala was staring at me like I'd lost my mind. Maybe I had. Quinn stood up, pacing across the porch.
"Silas, that's suicide. Even if you get Kuruk to agree to this insanity, even if you somehow get him to town without being shot on sight, what then?"
"You stand between him and an angry mob? Between him and the whole damn army?"
"If I have to."
"Why? Why throw your life away for this?"
I looked at Takala. At the woman whose husband I'd killed. Who'd been forced into my house by tribal law.
Who'd slowly, painfully begun to see me as something other than a monster. At the woman who'd left her door open at night. Who'd started saying my name instead of just "you." Who'd smiled, actually smiled, when I told a stupid joke about the chickens yesterday.
"Because someone has to," I said. "And because if I don't, I'll spend the rest of my life knowing I had a chance to do the right thing, and I ran instead."
"I've made that choice too many times already."
Takala stepped closer. "If you do this, you will lose everything. Your ranch. Your life, maybe."
"For what? For people who will not thank you? For a chief who tested you like a curiosity? For me?"
"For all of it. And yes, for you."
She searched my face. Something passed between us. Something I didn't have words for. Not love.
Not yet. But the possibility of it. The first green shoots pushing through scorched earth. "Then I will help," she said.
"I will go to Kuruk. He will listen to me. But Silas, if we do this, there is no going back."
"I know."