A face that had been open once before something made it careful. Standing at the edge of the gathered group with the posture of someone who has positioned himself to observe rather than participate. Cole had expected anger, suspicion, the look a brother gives a stranger taking his sister. What he saw instead, what he saw clearly enough that he would remember it for months, was relief. The deep, exhausted relief of someone who has been carrying a worry for a long time, and has just provisionally set it down.
It should have been reassuring, except Cole looked at Kaya, then at River Wolf, then at the way the camp was watching, carefully, at a distance, in the way communities watch things they have complicated feelings about. And he understood, with a cold clarity, they didn't find someone for her. They found someone to take her off their hands. Whatever Kaya was, whatever had made every man walk away, the camp knew exactly what it was, and they were grateful. Grateful to the point of visible relief that she was leaving with the white rancher who didn't know any better.
What did I just agree to? The ceremony ended. Kaya walked, didn't wait, didn't look back, directly to the horse prepared for her. Mounted in one fluid motion that spoke of a thousand repetitions, Settled into the saddle, looked at the eastern horizon, nodded Cole. He stood holding the cord and his conclusions and two questions he didn't have answers to.
Who is she and what am I doing? And thought, this is going to be a thing. The first hour of riding was so quiet. Cole started cataloging sounds just to have something to do. Wind.
Biscuit's hooves on packed dirt. The creak of Kaya's saddle, better quality than his, he noticed. Better maintained. Which told him something he hadn't sorted out yet. A hawk somewhere above, not interested in either of them.
"Kaya." He said. She didn't look at him. "I know this isn't what you wanted. It wasn't what I expected either."
A pause. "Maybe we could just talk. Get some sense of nothing. Not the uncomfortable silence of someone holding back. The silence of someone for whom his words were weather, present.
Irrelevant. All right. Is there anything you want to know about where we're going?" The hawk called. A lizard crossed the trail.
The afternoon burned. "Can you at least let me know you can hear me?" She turned her head and looked at him. Just looked. Level.
Patient. Like a person waiting for a question worth answering. Cole opened his mouth. Closed it because he realized, suddenly, with a clarity that embarrassed him, that everything he'd said hadn't been a question worth answering. It had been noise.
The particular noise lonely people make to fill space where connection should be. She'd known that. She'd been waiting for him to know it, too. He shut up. They rode.