The space between them vanished. "Do not talk of dying," she whispered fiercely. "Talk of living. " She leaned in and kissed him. It was not a gentle kiss. It was desperate.
It tasted of salt and grief and an overwhelming, terrifying hunger. It was the collision of two people who had lost everything but each other. Luke wrapped his good arm around her, pulling her against him. He felt the heat of her body through the rough buckskin. He felt her heart hammering against his chest.
They lay back in the dry grass, hidden by the darkness and the willows. There was no romance of soft beds or candlelight. There was only the hard ground, the cold wind, and the fierce, tender union of two survivors claiming a moment of joy in a world that wanted them dead. In the morning, they did not speak of it. They did not need to.
The way Ayanna looked at him, with a fierce, protective possession, said everything. They were no longer just allies. They were kin. The desert exacted its toll. It demanded payment for their passage.
A week later, Chi, the elder who had complained the loudest but walked the hardest, simply stopped. She sat down on a rock, looked at the setting sun, and closed her eyes. Her heart, tired of the fear and the miles, gave out. They buried her under a pile of stones in a dry arroyo. They sang the death song in whispers, terrified that the wind would carry the sound to the ranchers they knew were tracking them.
Two days after that, a rattlesnake, seeking warmth in the cooling sand, struck the younger sister of the widow to Sani. The bite was on the ankle. The poison moved fast. By midnight, her leg was black. By dawn, she was gone.
They left her there. There was no time for a deep grave. The patrol they had been dodging, a group of vigilantes from a mining town, was less than 5 miles behind them. "We have to move," Luke urged. His voice harsh with necessity.
"If we stop to mourn, we all join her. " Ayanna forced the grieving sister to her feet. They walked on, leaving another piece of their hearts in the dust. The final test was the river. It was not the Rio Grande, but a swollen tributary, fed by sudden storms in the north. The water was brown and angry, churning with debris.
It was wide, and the current was fast. "We have to cross," Luke shouted over the roar of the water. "The trackers are behind us. The river will hide our trail. " They formed a chain, holding hands, the stronger women on the outside, the children and the sick in the middle. They stepped into the icy water.
The current pulled at them, trying to drag them down. Halfway across, the water rose to their chests. Sani, holding her son above her head, slipped on a slick rock. She went down. The current took her instantly.