The fire crackled between them. Cole looked away, jaw tight, and said nothing. Kaya stood, brushed off her pants, and moved to check on the horses. Lyra stretched out on her bedroll, hands behind her head, staring up at the darkening sky. "You know what I miss most?" Lyra said to no one in particular.
"What?" Kaya called back. "Music. Real music. Not just the wind or coyotes howling. I miss hearing someone play a guitar or sing something that wasn't a funeral dirge."
"You sing?" Cole asked, surprising himself. Lyra turned her head to look at him. "Used to. Before everything went to hell." "What happened?"
Lyra's smile faded. "Same thing that happens to everyone out here. We lost what mattered, and we kept moving." Cole understood that better than he wanted to admit. He poked at the fire with a stick, sending sparks spiraling into the night. "Get some sleep," he said.
"Long day tomorrow." Lyra didn't argue. She rolled onto her side, pulled her blanket up, and within minutes was breathing deep and steady. Sani settled in beside her, and Kaya returned from checking the horses, sitting down near the fire's edge. "You taking first watch?" she asked.
"Yeah." "Wake me in a few hours. I'll take second." Cole nodded. Kaya lay down, closed her eyes, and within moments seemed to be asleep.
Cole sat alone, rifle across his lap, listening to the night settle in around them. The desert was never truly quiet. There were always sounds, distant and strange, reminders that the world didn't sleep just because people did. He thought about what Sani had said. About loneliness.
About understanding. She was wrong. He didn't understand them, didn't understand why three women would bind themselves to a stranger over something as flimsy as a life debt. It didn't make sense. People didn't work that way.
They took what they needed and moved on. And anyone who said otherwise was lying or stupid. But the women had sold their jewelry, had spent their last coin on horses just to follow him into uncertainty. That wasn't lying. That wasn't stupid.
That was something else entirely, and Cole didn't know what to do with it. He stared into the fire until his eyes burned, then looked away, scanning the darkness for movement that never came. When Kaya woke him hours later, he didn't remember falling asleep. They reached Silver Ridge by late afternoon the next day, the town sprawling along the base of a rust-colored mesa like it had been dropped there by accident. It was bigger than Redemption Flats, more buildings, more people, more noise.
But it had the same worn-down look that frontier towns always did. Everything was temporary, built fast and cheap, ready to be abandoned when the silver ran out or the water dried up. Cole led them to a stable on the edge of town, paid for the horses to be fed and watered, and told the women to wait while he asked around about work. "We're coming with you," Kaya said. "No, you're not."
"Yes, we are." Cole sighed. "You're going to make this harder than it needs to be." "Probably," Lyra said cheerfully. They found the trail boss in a saloon near the center of town, a broad-shouldered man named Garrett with a sun-scorched face and hands like slabs of meat.
He was drinking whiskey at a corner table, surrounded by maps and ledgers, and he didn't look up when Cole approached. "You Garrett?" Cole asked. "Who's asking?" "Cole Mercer. Heard you're hiring for a cattle drive."
Garrett finally looked up, his eyes flicking from Cole to the three women standing behind him. His expression didn't change, but something in his posture shifted. A subtle tensing, like he was bracing for trouble. "I'm hiring drovers," Garrett said slowly. "Experienced drovers."
"I've worked cattle before," Cole said. "So have they." Garrett's eyebrows rose. "They?" "These three. They're good hands."