"That means learning to live with people, not just survive them." She was right, though it grated on him to admit it. He'd spent so long treating the world as hostile that he'd forgotten there were other ways to move through it. Watching Kaya work, seeing how she balanced firmness with respect, made him realize how much he still had to learn. Lyra and Sani, meanwhile, were thriving on the freight runs.
They'd taken to the work with an ease that surprised everyone, including the freight company owner, who'd been skeptical about hiring women until they proved they could handle a team of horses as well as any man. Within a month, they were getting assigned the longer, more lucrative routes, and the money started adding up faster than Cole had expected. But the work kept them apart more than together. Days would pass where Cole barely saw Lyra and Sani except in passing, a quick meal, a brief conversation before one of them had to leave again. It started to feel less like a partnership and more like four people who happened to share the same address.
One night after a particularly long shift at the mine, Cole returned to the boarding house to find all three women waiting for him. They sat around the table in their shared room, and the expression on their faces told him something was wrong. "What happened?" he asked. "Nothing happened," Kaya said. "But we need to talk."
Cole sat down slowly. "About what?" "About this." Lyra gestured at the room, the space between them. "About how we're barely seeing each other."
"About how this doesn't feel like what we agreed to." "We're working. That's what we agreed to." "No," Sani said quietly. "We agreed to build something together."
"Right now, we're just working in the same town." Cole frowned. "What do you want me to do? Quit the mine? We need the money."
Kaya said, "What's the point of saving for a future if we're not living in the present?" "The point is having that future." "At what cost?" Lyra leaned forward. "We didn't follow you for ten years just to become strangers who share a roof."
Cole felt frustration rising in his chest. "So what's the solution? We all take the same jobs, work half as much, and save half as fast?" "Maybe," Kaya said. "Or maybe we find work we can do together. There's got to be something."
"Like what?" "I don't know. But sitting here arguing about it isn't helping." The conversation devolved from there, voices rising, old frustrations surfacing. Lyra accused Cole of caring more about money than people.
Cole shot back that money was how they'd survive long enough to care about anything. Sani tried to mediate, and Kaya eventually stood up and walked out, slamming the door behind her. Silence fell like a hammer. Cole sat there staring at the closed door, feeling the weight of failure settling over him. This was exactly what he'd been afraid of.
The cracks were already showing, and they'd barely been at this for two months. "Well," Lyra said finally. "That went great." "Shut up." "I'm serious. We needed to have that fight."
"Better now than when we're too far gone to fix it." Cole looked at her. "You think this is fixable?" "I think anything's fixable if people want it badly enough." Lyra stood and stretched.
"Go talk to her." Cole hesitated, then stood and followed Kaya's path. He found her outside the boarding house, leaning against the hitching post, staring up at the stars. "I'm not apologizing," she said without looking at him. "I'm not asking you to."
"Good." Cole stood beside her, hands in his pockets. "You're right, though. We're losing something." "I know."
"So what do we do about it?" Kaya finally looked at him. "We make a choice. Either we commit to this, really commit, not just in name, or we admit it's not working and figure out something else." "I don't want to give up."
"Then stop acting like you're going through the motions. This isn't just another job, Cole. This is our lives, all four of us. And if we're going to make it work, we need to be present, not just physically, but in every way that matters." Cole nodded slowly. "You're right."
"I know I am." "You're also impossible." Kaya smiled faintly. "That too." They stood there in silence, the night air cool against their skin.
Then Cole made a decision. "Tomorrow, I'm quitting the mine," he said. Kaya turned to him. "What?" "You heard me."
"I'll quit. We'll find something else, something we can all do together." "Cole, we need that money." "We need each other more. You said it yourself."
Kaya stared at him, and something in her expression softened. "You sure?" "No. But I'm doing it anyway." She reached out, took his hand, and squeezed it once.
"Thank you." They walked back inside together, and when they told Lyra and Sani the plan, both women looked relieved. The tension that had hung over the room like smoke began to dissipate, and by the time they went to bed, things felt almost normal again. The next morning, Cole quit the mine. The foreman cursed him out, called him unreliable, and told him he'd never work in Gravel Springs again.
Cole just nodded and walked away. Finding work they could all do together turned out to be harder than expected. Most jobs didn't need four people, and the ones that did paid too little to justify the effort. They spent a week taking odd jobs, repairing fences, hauling freight, even helping Mrs. Halstead clean out her storage shed before Lyra came up with an idea.
"What about bounty hunting?" she said one evening. Cole looked at her like she'd lost her mind. "Bounty hunting?" "Yeah."
"Think about it. It pays well. We work together and we set our own schedule." "It's also dangerous, illegal half the time, and a good way to get killed." "So is everything else we've done."
Lyra grinned. "Come on. We're good in a fight, we're good at tracking, and we need the money." "She's not wrong," Kaya said slowly. "There's a bounty board at the sheriff's office."