The departure was not a flight. It was a funeral procession for a way of life. They took only what they could carry. The heavy grinding stones were left behind. The extra hides, the heavy lodge poles, the trinkets, all abandoned.
Before they left, they gathered at Nalin's grave. It was a fresh mound of stones near the spring. Ayanna knelt, placing a small pouch of corn pollen on the rocks. We leave you here to guard the water. Mother, Ayanna whispered.
We will carry your name to the new place. Luke stood back, feeling like an intruder in this sacred moment of grief. But then Ayanna turned and beckoned to him. Come, she said. Luke walked to the grave.
She accepted you, Ayanna said. You should say goodbye. Luke looked down at the stones. He remembered the old woman's fierce eyes, her sharp tongue, and the final mercy she had granted him. Goodbye, Nalin, Luke said softly.
Thank you for the life. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small folding knife, one of the few things the women had let him keep after the battle. He placed it on the stones. For the journey, he said. They walked out of the canyon at dusk, leaving the fires burning to trick any scouts who might be watching.
They did not look back. The rocky walls, which had been a prison for Luke and a fortress for the women, faded into the purple shadows of the twilight. They were homeless now, adrift in a sea of sagebrush and silence. The journey was a crucible. The land they crossed was beautiful and cruel.
It was a landscape of vast, empty basins and jagged mountain ranges that tore at the sky. The heat during the day was a physical weight, a hammer that beat against their skulls. The cold at night was a knife that slipped through their thin blankets. They moved like shadows. They slept during the day, hiding in dry washes or under the overhangs of cliffs, huddled together for warmth and camouflage.
They walked at night, navigating by the stars and the shape of the ridges. Luke rode point, scouting ahead on the black stallion. Ayanna rode the rear guard. They communicated with hand signals and bird calls, a silent language they had forged in the fire of the canyon. On the fourth day, the water ran out.
They were crossing a stretch of alkali flats, a white, blinding expanse of salt and dust. The canteens were dry. The horses hung their heads, their tongues swollen. The children stopped crying because they no longer had the moisture for tears. We have to stop, Sunny rasped, her lips cracked and bleeding.
The little ones cannot walk. Luke looked at the horizon. There was a faint line of green willows 10 miles to the south. There is a soak there, Luke said. I remember it from a campaign five years ago.