"And Takala knows the routes, the ways to move unseen. Together, you could get them across. Seventy people, maybe 80."
"Mostly women and children. Once they are safe, you could stay with them or return. That choice would be yours."
I looked at Takala. "What do you think?"
"I think if we stay here, we die. Hollis will not stop until he kills you. And he will use me to hurt you if he can."
"But in Mexico..." She paused. "In Mexico, we could build something. Not what we lost, but something new."
Kuruk pulled out a leather pouch and handed it to me. Inside were gold coins, more than I'd ever seen in one place. "This is for your ranch," he said.
"I cannot buy it fairly, but I can give you something for what you leave behind. Use it to start over. To take care of my people until they can take care of themselves."
I stared at the gold, at the weight of it in my hands. "If I do this, I can never come back. The army will call me a traitor. A deserter."
"They'll put a price on my head."
"Yes. But you will be alive. And you will be with Takala."
"And you will have done one last good thing before you disappear."
It was the choice I'd known was coming since the day I'd pulled Chaska from the snow. The choice between the life I'd known and the life I could still have. I looked at my ranch one last time as we prepared to leave. The house where Emily and I had planned to grow old.
The barn where Daniel had learned to ride. The small plot behind the house where Ruth had planted a garden that never quite took. And the three crosses on the hill. I climbed up there before we left.
Stood among the graves and said my goodbyes. Not to the people buried there. I'd said those goodbyes a long time ago. But to the life I'd had with them.
To the man I'd been. To everything I'd tried to hold on to for so long. "I'm leaving," I told them. "I'm going to Mexico with Takala and Kuruk's people."
"I'm going to build a new life down there if we make it. I hope that's okay. I hope you'd understand."
The wind was my only answer. But maybe that was enough. We left that night. Seventy-three Apache souls and two refugees moving south under cover of darkness.
It took us 11 days to reach the border. Eleven days of traveling at night, hiding during the day, always watching for army patrols. Twice, we saw soldiers in the distance. Once, we had to hide in a cave for an entire day while a patrol passed within 100 yards.
But we made it. We crossed the Rio Grande on a moonless night, wading through chest-deep water, carrying children on our shoulders and elders on makeshift stretchers. When we finally climbed up the far bank and stood on Mexican soil, a cheer went up from the group. Quickly hushed, but no less heartfelt.
We were free. Not safe. Not yet. But free.
We settled in a small village in Chihuahua, far enough from the border that the American army wouldn't follow. The locals were wary at first, but Kuruk's gold bought us land and time. Gradually, we became part of the community. Takala and I built a small adobe house on the edge of the village.