"We?" "Yes, we." "I figured after six weeks of eating dust, you'd want to move on, find something easier." Kaya shook her head. "The debt isn't settled."
Cole's jaw tightened. "You got paid, same as me. That settles it." "No," Sani said quietly. "It doesn't."
Cole looked at each of them in turn, searching for some crack in their resolve, some sign that they were bluffing or exaggerating. He found nothing. "This is insane," Cole said, not for the first time. "We know," Kaya replied.
"I could ride out right now, leave you here." "You could, but you won't." "Why not?" Kaya smiled, and there was something sad in it. "Because you're starting to like having us around."
Cole opened his mouth to argue, then closed it. Because she wasn't wrong. Somewhere between the canyon and Fort Dalton, between gunfights and cattle drives and a hundred small moments he hadn't paid attention to, the women had stopped being strangers. They'd become something else. Not friends, exactly.
Not family. But something close enough that the thought of riding away felt wrong. "Damn it," he muttered. Lyra grinned. "Told you he'd come around."
They left Fort Dalton two days later, heading west toward Coldwater Springs with their saddlebags heavier and their spirits lighter than they'd been in weeks. The landscape shifted as they rode, trading scrubland for rolling grassland dotted with wildflowers that swayed in the wind like they were dancing. It was the kind of country that made a person believe the frontier wasn't all dust and death. Kaya rode beside Cole, her posture relaxed, eyes scanning the horizon. "Can I ask you something?" she said.
"You're going to anyway." "Why'd you help us that day in the canyon?" Cole didn't answer right away. He'd asked himself the same question a hundred times and never come up with a good answer. "Don't know," he said finally.
"Seemed like the right thing to do." "Most people don't do the right thing when it might get them killed." "Most people are smarter than me." Kaya laughed softly. "I don't think that's true."
They rode in silence for a while, the only sound the steady rhythm of hooves on hard-packed earth. Then Kaya spoke again, her voice quieter. "Where I'm from, there's a belief that every life is a thread in a larger weave. When you save someone, you tie your thread to theirs. It's not something you can undo."
"It just is." Cole frowned. "That why you're so stubborn about this debt?" "It's not stubbornness. It's truth."
"Whose truth?" "Mine, Lyra's, Sani's. The truth of the people who raised us and taught us what it means to live with honor." Cole glanced at her. "And what happens when the debt's paid? Your thread just unties?"
Kaya shook her head. "No, it stays. But the weight of it changes. Right now we owe you everything. When the debt is settled, we'll owe you nothing."
"But the thread remains." "Sounds complicated." "Life is complicated." Cole couldn't argue with that. They reached Coldwater Springs late on the third day, the town sprawling along the banks of a wide, slow-moving river that gave the place its name.
It was bigger than Silver Ridge, more permanent, with brick buildings and paved streets that suggested people actually planned to stay. There was a hotel, a bank, a general store, and at least three saloons that Cole could see from the edge of town. "Fancy," Lyra said, looking around. "Don't get used to it," Cole replied. "We're just passing through."
They found Garrett's friend, a man named Hoskins, at the freight office near the river docks. He was a short, barrel-chested man with a thick beard and a voice like gravel being poured into a bucket. He looked the four of them over with sharp, assessing eyes and didn't waste time on pleasantries. "Garrett sent you?" he asked. "That's right," Cole said.
"You any good?" "Good enough." Hoskins grunted. "I need guards for a run to Canyon Bend. Three wagons, valuable cargo, high risk of bandits."
"Pays $50 each if you make it there and back without losing the goods." "What's the cargo?" "None of your business. You in or out?" Cole looked at the women.
Kaya nodded. Sani's expression didn't change. Lyra shrugged. "We're in," Cole said.
"Good. We leave tomorrow at first light. Don't be late." The run to Canyon Bend took a week, and it was every bit as tense as Hoskins had promised. The trail wound through rocky terrain perfect for ambushes, and twice they spotted riders shadowing them from a distance.
Each time, Cole and the others made a show of checking their weapons, and each time the riders melted back into the hills without making a move. On the fifth day, their luck ran out. It happened at a narrow pass where the trail squeezed between two sheer rock walls, the kind of place where even an idiot could see trouble coming. Cole had been riding point, eyes scanning the ridges above, when he saw the glint of sunlight on metal. "Ambush!" he shouted just as the first shot rang out.
The bullet punched into the side of the lead wagon, splintering wood. The driver cursed, hauling on the reins as the horses reared. Cole spurred his mount forward, pulling his rifle free, and fired twice at the ridge where he'd seen the glint. More shots answered, kicking up dirt around the wagons. Kaya was already off her horse, using the second wagon for cover, her own rifle up and steady.
Lyra had circled around to the rear, watching their backs, while Sani stayed mounted, trying to calm the panicked horses. "How many?" Kaya shouted. "At least six." Cole fired again, saw a figure stumble back on the ridge. "Maybe more."
The bandits had them pinned. Cole could see the strategy: keep them trapped in the pass, pick them off one by one, then take the wagons at their leisure. It was smart, too smart for the usual frontier rabble. "We need to move!" Hoskins yelled from the third wagon. "Sitting here gets us killed!"