"Let us help. And when the debt is settled, we'll go." Cole studied her face, then Kaya's, then Lyra's. They weren't lying. They believed every word.
And that somehow made it worse. "Fine," he said finally. "But I'm leaving at dawn, and I'm not slowing down for anyone." Kaya nodded. "We won't slow you down."
"And when I say the debt's settled, it's settled. No arguments." "Agreed." Cole stood, tossed a few coins on the table, and headed for the door. Behind him, he heard Lyra whisper something to Kaya, and Kaya's quiet reply, "He'll understand eventually."
Cole pushed through the doors and stepped into the fading daylight, already regretting every decision that had led him there. The desert didn't forgive mistakes, and he'd just made a big one. Dawn came cold and gray, the kind of morning that made a man question why he bothered getting out of bed. Cole was saddling his horse outside the livery when he heard footsteps behind him. Three sets, moving in sync like they'd practiced it.
He didn't turn around. "Thought maybe you'd changed your minds," he said, cinching the girth tight. "We don't change our minds," Kaya replied. Cole glanced over his shoulder. All three women stood there with bedrolls slung across their backs and worn saddlebags at their feet.
They looked ready. Too ready, like they'd been up half the night preparing. "You got horses?" he asked. Lyra jerked her thumb toward the livery. "Bought three yesterday. Used the last of our coin."
"What'd you buy them with if you're broke?" "We had jewelry," Sani said quietly. "Sold it." Cole turned back to his horse, frowning. Jewelry meant something.
It meant they'd had lives before all this, maybe good ones. And they'd traded those lives away to follow a man they barely knew into a desert that would kill them without hesitation. He should have told them to keep the horses and ride the other direction. Instead, he said, "We're heading north. There's work in Silver Ridge if the rumors are true."
"Cattle drive needs extra hands." "We can handle cattle," Lyra said. "You ever worked a drive before?" "No." "Then you can't handle cattle."
Lyra grinned. "Guess we'll learn." Cole swung into the saddle, settled his weight, and looked down at them. "This isn't going to be easy. The work's brutal, the pay's worse, and most trail bosses won't hire women even if you're twice as good as the men."
"Then we'll be three times as good," Kaya said. Cole shook his head but didn't argue. He nudged his horse forward, and the three women scrambled to mount up and follow. Within minutes, Redemption Flats was shrinking behind them, swallowed by dust and distance. They rode in silence for the first hour.
Cole kept the pace steady but not punishing, watching the horizon for signs of trouble. Out there, trouble didn't announce itself. It just appeared. Bandits, storms, rattlesnakes, or any one of a thousand things that could end a person before they knew what hit them. Lyra rode up beside him, her horse matching his stride.