Cole went back to the cattle. And the evening came on gold and easy. And the ranch sat under the Arizona sky looking like a place where something had been settled. At night the torches came, started like every other night. Which is always how those nights start.
Dinner. The table. Kaya had made something with dried venison and three things from the garden that smelled like the best thing Cole had eaten since since the last thing she'd made. Because his threshold had been recalibrated over 3 months to a point that made his previous cooking look like a man who had given up. He'd told her this once.
She'd said, "You used the wrong pot." Criticism and tutorial in five words, which he was beginning to understand was her preferred instructional format. After dinner, the porch. His side, her side. The wide Arizona dark coming in from the east.
He was thinking about nothing. The good kind of nothing. When a day has been full enough that the mind finally gets to stop. Then Kaya said, "There." One word.
Cole looked east. Far enough that the lights were small, but multiple. Moving. The warm orange of fire in the dark that meant torches, not lanterns, which meant something specific about intention. He counted 12.
15. Moving in formation. Together. Deliberate. Coming at the pace of people who know exactly where they're going.
He was on his feet before he'd decided to stand. Kaya was already standing. Which meant she'd seen them before she said anything. which meant she'd taken a moment to assess. Which meant she'd assessed and decided to tell him. Which was itself information about what she thought this was.
He went inside. Got the rifle. When he came back out, she had the knife. Of course. It was always there.
He'd stopped noticing it the way you stop noticing a part of someone that simply belongs. They stood at the edge of the porch and waited. And at some point during the waiting, he couldn't identify exactly when, and there was no way to reconstruct who had moved first. His hand had found hers, or hers had found his. His hand, her hand, her palm rough and warm.
His larger, rougher in different places from different work. Neither of them mentioned it. The torches kept coming. 15 riders, walking pace now. The pace of arrival.
Then the firelight got close enough. Apache. The specific silhouettes. The way they sat their horses, lower, easier, part of the animal rather than on top of it at the front. Gray Elk, Colefelt, Kaya's hand tighten.
Once. Brief. An involuntary word, then she let go. He let go. They stood side by side on the porch of his ranch, watching her father ride across the flat toward them in the torchlight.
Is this a problem? Cole's brain doing its rapid inventory. Did they come to take her back? Did something happen at the camp? Did they decide the arrangement?