We could use your eyes. " "I am done with that," Luke said, tightening the cinch strap. "You are done when the job is done," Miller said, striking a match on his boot heel. "And the job is not done until every one of them is on the reservation or under the ground. " Luke mounted his horse and rode out of town without looking back. He felt the stain of his silence clinging to him like the dust on his coat. He had not defended the woman.
He had not argued with Jubal. He had not told the sergeant that a war against starving remnants was no war at all. He was a man who wanted only to be left alone, but the silence of the desert was beginning to sound like an accusation. Miles away, in a place where the maps of white men showed only blank space, the land rose into a fortress of red rock. The entrance to the canyon was a narrow fissure, invisible until one was standing directly before it.
Inside, the walls soared upward, cutting a jagged slice of blue sky far above. This was the sanctuary of the forgotten. The camp was a collection of wikiups made from brush and scavenged canvas, huddled against the canyon walls to escape the midday sun. Strips of jerked meat hung from wooden racks, drying in the dry heat. The ground was hard-packed, swept clean by women who maintained order even at the edge of oblivion.
Ayana knelt by a small fire, turning a piece of hide over a smoking pile of sage. She was a woman of striking, severe beauty. Her hair two long braids of obsidian that fell over shoulders squared by burden. Her eyes were dark and watchful, holding a grief so old it had hardened into iron. Nalin, the matriarch of their small band, limped over to her.
Nalin's leg had been shattered by a soldier's rifle butt two years ago, and it had healed crooked, but her mind was as sharp as the skinning knife at her belt. "The water skins are low, Ayana," Nalin said, her voice like grinding stones, "and the meat will not last another moon. " Ayana did not look up from her work. "We have hunters out. We have old men and boys out. " Nalin corrected gently. "The warriors are gone, daughter, dead or in chains at San Carlos.
We cannot stay here. The winter will come and the canyon will turn into an icebox. "We are not going to the reservation. " Ayanna said, her voice snapping with sudden ferocity. She looked up, her eyes blazing. "I will not take my sister's children to a place where they die of coughing sickness and eat flour filled with weevils.
We may not have a choice. " Naylan said. "Sunny's boy is sick again. The cough is deep in his chest. " "Let him cough in freedom, then. " Ayanna said, though her voice wavered. She looked across the camp to where Sunny, a young woman with hollow cheeks, was rocking a bundle wrapped in rabbit fur. Ayanna rose and walked over to them.
The child, a boy of four winters, was pale, his breath rattling in his small chest. Sunny looked up, fear plain in her wide eyes. "He is hot. " "Ayanna. " Sunny whispered. Ayanna placed a hand on the boy's forehead. It burned.
She felt a surge of helpless rage, rage at the soldiers, rage at the land that yielded nothing, rage at the men who had invaded their world and left them with nothing but dust. "I will find sage and willow bark. " Ayanna promised. "Keep him warm. " That night, the women gathered around the central fire. The fuel was scarce, mostly dried mesquite roots, and the flames were low. There were 12 adult women, four old men who could no longer fight, and seven children.
This was what remained of a band that had once numbered in the hundreds. They spoke in low tones, passing a single pipe. They spoke of the old days, not as a comfort, but as a way to keep the history from vanishing into the wind. "Do you remember the treaty at Fort Defiance? " An older woman named Chee asked. "They gave us blankets, blankets with the smallpox. " Ayanna spat, staring into the embers.
"They promised us the river valley. " Naylan added. "Then they found gold in the sand, and the promise turned to lead. " Ayanna pulled her knees to her chest. She remembered the morning the soldiers came to her village. It had been dawn, the sky the color of a bruised plum. She remembered the sound of the bugle, cheerful and bright, followed by the thunder of hooves.