Then Cole. Then the garden again. Hmm, said Etta Crane from Etta. That was extensive. She came back 48 hours later.
The boy was running ahead of the wagon, running. The gray gone from his face. Opinions at volume about a lizard he'd seen on the road. Etta walked to where Kaya was working and stood there until Kaya looked up. Thank you, Etta said.
Kaya met her eyes. That level amber gaze. I don't know your name. Etta said, I should know your name. A pause.
Kaya, she said. Kaya. Etta repeated it correctly on the first try, which Cole suspected was not an accident. I'm Etta Crane. 3 miles north.
A pause. And anyone in this county who speaks an ill word about you in my presence is going to have a conversation they weren't planning on having. Said the way you state a fact about weather, not a promise. A thing that was simply going to happen. Something happened at the corner of Kaya's mouth.
Not quite a smile. The precise muscular precursor to one. Cole was paying attention. He was paying an embarrassing amount of attention. Etta got on her wagon, drove away.
The boy hung off the back waving. Kaya watched them go, went back to work. Week five. The night it happened started like every other night, dinner, the table. The ranch settling, wood cooling, animals shifting.
Cole banked the fire. Considered whether he was tired enough to sleep yet, which he usually was by eight, which he'd stopped being embarrassed about. After he noticed Kaya was also apparently asleep by eight. Tonight he fell asleep faster than usual, which meant he was deeper under when the sound came, a creak. Not the ordinary kind.
Houses make sounds, temperature and old wood. This was different, intentional. The specific creak of something applying weight in a chosen location. Cole was sitting up before he knew why, hand to the Colt on the table beside the sofa. Grip, weight, good.
He listened. The house breathed. A horse shifted in the stable. An owl outside. Wind then.
The scrape of the front door latch, slow, deliberate. The technique of someone who'd done this before. Cole was on his feet. One look at the bedroom door, closed, dark. The strip of light that was there when Kaya had her lamp on, which it wasn't.
She's asleep. Two steps to her door, one quiet knock. Kaya, someone's outside. No answer. He opened the door, dark.
The bed empty. Not slept in and left made. Untouched. Cole stood in the doorway of his empty bedroom and felt the specific lurch of a man whose understanding of a situation has just been revised downward. Where is she?
Where? A sound from the front of the house. The door now open. Cole pressed to the hall wall, Colt up. Three men came in, not quietly, not anymore.