You can spook the horses. You cannot defeat them, but you can make them bleed enough to turn back. " Nalin nodded slowly. She looked at Luke with a strange expression, part suspicion, part grudging respect. "You give us the knife to cut your own people. " "Carver, they are not my people," Luke said quietly. "Not anymore. " He stood up, wiping the dust from his hands.
He felt the weight of Ayanna's gaze on him. He met her eyes. There was gratitude there. Yes, he saw it, but beneath the gratitude was a deep, darkening dread. Ayanna looked away first.
She was terrified, not just of the soldiers, but of what was happening inside her own chest. Every time Luke showed them how to survive, every time he drew a map, or fixed a rifle, or taught them to read the cavalry bugle calls, he wove himself tighter into their lives. She found herself looking for him in the mornings. She found herself wondering if he had eaten. It was a weakness, and in the borderlands, weakness got you killed.
The next morning, the sky was a sheet of hammered tin, bright and merciless. Nalin ordered a scouting party to ride south to confirm the rumors. She chose Ayanna to lead it, and she ordered Luke to go with them. "He stays on a lead rope," Nalin instructed. "If he tries to signal the soldiers, you put a bullet in his spine. " They rode out in a group of four, Ayanna, Luke, and two younger women who were skilled with the bow.
Luke rode the black stallion, his hands bound loosely to the saddle horn. His horse's lead line held by Ayanna. The landscape they traversed was a graveyard of geology. Great slabs of red rock thrust up from the earth, twisted by ancient fires. The arroyos were deep scars cut by violent floods that only happened once a decade.
The sagebrush was brittle, snapping like dry bones when the horses brushed past. Heat shimmered off the rocks in waves, making the distant mountains dance and dissolve. High above, three vultures circled in a slow, lazy spiral, waiting for the sun to finish what the drought had started. They rode in silence for hours, the only sound the crunch of hooves and the creak of leather. Luke scanned the horizon, his old instincts flaring.
He smelled the wind, tasting for dust, for smoke, for the acrid scent of nervous horses. By mid-afternoon, they found what they were looking for. Ayanna raised her hand, halting the group. She pointed to the ground. "Tracks. " Luke leaned forward.
"Shod horses, deep impressions. They were moving fast. " He looked at the pattern. "A patrol," he said softly. "12 men, moving north. " They followed the trail cautiously, keeping to the high ground, using the shadows of the rocks for cover. 3 miles further on, they came upon the remains of an encampment.
It had been a temporary bivouac. The ashes of the fire were cold, but not old, perhaps 2 days. Ayanna dismounted and walked through the site. She found a discarded tin of tobacco, a broken spur strap, and the ruts of a light wagon. Then she stopped near a cluster of mesquite bushes.
The earth had been disturbed, a shallow mound hastily covered with rocks. Ayanna walked toward it. Luke watched her, his heart heavy. He knew what was under those rocks. She knelt and moved a stone.