My family had a ranch once. Raiders burned it 11 years back. Man with a brand like a broken snake did the burning. I heard that same brand hit your people's camp three nights ago. I'm not here to finish what he started.
I'm here to end it. Silence stretched long enough that he started to wonder if he'd said the wrong thing. Then the shape on the ridge shifted. Lowered the bow, though not all the way. Prove it, she said.
Name the mark. circle, broken line through the middle, like something cut in half and never healed. Right. Another pause, longer this time. That's the mark, she said quietly, almost to herself. She came down off the ridge slow, bow still in hand, though the arrow was gone from the string.
Fire light found her face a piece at a time. dark eyes that didn't blink much, a scar along her jaw, old and pale, the kind that told a story she clearly wasn't offering tonight. She moved like someone who'd spent a lifetime being underestimated and had stopped waiting for anyone to catch up. "Ayanna," she said, just the one word, like a name was a weapon she wasn't ready to hand him fully loaded. "You're from the camp that lost the horses. I am the camp that lost the horses. something hard in her voice now.
My people, my tribe, not some story you heard in a saloon before you decided to play hero. I'm not playing anything. Then why are you alone? Ezra didn't have a good answer for that. So he told the true one instead.
Because nobody in that town was willing to come. I asked. They laughed. He shrugged, though the memory still stung. So it's just me.
That's not bravery. That stupidity wearing bravery's coat maybe doesn't change what I'm doing about it. She studied him a long moment. Fire light moved across her face and for the first time he saw something under the weariness. Exhaustion.
The particular exhaustion of someone carrying a weight nobody else had offered to help lift. "You shouldn't be out here," he said, alone at night this close to Crane's men. Her laugh was short. No humor in it at all. That's rich coming from you.
I mean, it it's dangerous. Do you think I don't know that? Do you think I rode three days from camp for fun? Her voice sharpened quick as the arrow she'd already put an inch from his skull. The council said, "Wait, said the men would handle it." Said, "A woman has no business hunting raiders." "So you left anyway?" "I left anyway." She said it like a challenge, like she expected him to argue.
He didn't. Good, he said instead. That seemed to catch her offguard more than the arrow had caught him. Good. Waiting gets people killed.
Waiting is what my whole town did this morning. While your people freeze, he held her gaze. You didn't wait. That's not stupidity. That's the opposite.
Something shifted behind her eyes. Not trust. Exactly. Not yet. But the door to it cracked open half an inch.
You talk like a man who's tired of watching people wait. She said I am. Why? Because I waited once. He almost said, "Because I hid behind a water trough and waited for someone else to save my father and nobody came and he died anyway.
And I have never once forgiven the boy I was for waiting." He didn't say any of that. Not yet. Some things you don't hand a stranger on the first night. Even a stranger who's just tried to put an arrow through you. Long story, he said instead.
For another fire, she almost smiled at that. Almost. Then her head snapped toward the ridge, body going still as stone. Someone's coming, she said, voice dropping to barely a breath. Ezra's hand found the revolver again.
He rose slow, scanning the dark. A figure appeared at the top of the wash, tall, broad through the shoulders. moving with a hunter's silence that made Ezra's skin prickle because he hadn't heard a single footstep before the man simply was there. Ayana, the newcomers voice carried an edge sharp enough to cut. Apache unmistakably and furious in a way that had clearly been building for 3 days of hard riding. You left without a word.
3 days I have tracked you. 3 days I did not know if you were alive or already. He stopped, eyes landing on Ezra on the revolver still loose in Ezra's hand. The man's own hand moved to the knife at his belt. Fast.
Chaitton. Ayanna said sharply. Stop. Who is this? He says he's hunting the same men we are.
He says. Chaitton's eyes never left Ezra. Black eyes burning steady. White men say many things. I'm not asking you to trust me.
Ezra said, "I'm telling you why I'm here. Do with it what you want." Why should we believe a stranger who rides toward Crane's territory the same week he strikes? Because I've spent 11 years wanting exactly what you want right now. Ezra's voice didn't rise. Didn't need to.
That mark on the leather your scouts found. I've seen it before. Burned my family's barn down with it 11 years back. Killed my father with it. So, no, I'm not some fool looking for adventure.
I'm looking for the same man you are, for reasons that go back a lot further than three nights. Chaitton's hands stayed on the knife, but his eyes had changed. Something calculating now instead of only hostile. You believe him? He said to his sister.
Not quite a question. I believe he's telling the truth about the mark, Ayanna said slowly. whether he's telling the truth about everything else that I don't know yet. Then we don't know either. No, she agreed. We don't.
Chaitton finally released the knife, crossed his arms instead, studying Ezra like a puzzle he hadn't decided was worth solving. You are alone, he said. I am against 10 men, maybe more. I know the odds and still you rode. Somebody had to.