He would not let that happen. Tyen watched him. She listened to his words, his panic filling the small room they had built together. He was a soldier and his instinct was to move, to run, to find a defensible possetion. She did not move.
She was perfectly, terribly still. When he had finished, when he stood breathing heavily, a rifle in one hand and a bag in the other, she finally spoke. She walked past him to the cabin door. She looked out. She looked at the small field of green corn, an impossible splash of life in the dry country.
She looked at the new timbers on the roof. She looked at the corral that held his horse and the two chickens she fed every morning. She touched the wooden doorframe, the wood smooth beneath her hand. Then she turned to face him. Her eyes were not filled with fear.
They were hard, as hard as the desert rock. "No," she said. Tyen, you don't understand. They will take you. "No," she repeated, her voice low and absolute.
I will not be stolen again. She stepped toward him. She put her hand on the rifle he held and gently, firmly pushed the barrel toward the floor. She looked him in the eye, her gaze unwavering. "This," she said, her other hand coming to rest on her belly, "is our place now."
Her words, "This is our place now," hung in the air. A declaration that was braver than any bullet. Daniel's panic, the frantic urge to run, cooled. She was right. Running meant they would always be running.
Running meant the world was stronger than they were. Here on this land, he was the hunter. He was the soldier. He was not the prey. "All right," he said, his voice quiet, his mind shifting from flight to a fight.
We stay, but we do it my way. The next two days were spent in a grim, silent preparation. He did not fortify the cabin, that was a death trap. Instead, he prepared the land. He took his spare rifle, the heavy sharps, and a box of cartridges, and stashed them in a rocky crevice high up the ridge, a place that gave him a clear view of the cabin and the single trail leading to it.
He spent an afternoon clearing brush, creating two clear firing lanes. He and Tyen spoke little. The intimacy of the past weeks was replaced by a taut military focus. He showed her how to reload his pistol, his hands guiding hers until the movements were sure. If they come, he said, his voice flat.
"You do not stay in the cabin." You take this pistol. You run. You run for the high rocks, for the place I showed you. You hide.
You do not come out. No matter what you hear. Do you understand? She nodded, her eyes dark. "You will fight them."