"They trust you," she said finally. "That is rare." They trust you. I'm just the guy you brought along. You are more than that.
You're the man who chose to stand when it would have been easier to run. That matters. Ethan looked at her. "You really believe we can win this?" I believe we have no choice but to try.
He nodded. "Then let's make sure it counts." Ayla reached out and took his hand. Her grip was strong, calloused, warm. And in that moment, sitting beside the creek under a sky full of stars, Ethan Cross felt something he hadn't felt in 5 years.
Hope. They moved before dawn, shadows slipping through the canyon like smoke. Ethan rode beside Nashoba, their horses picking their way carefully over loose rock and hard-packed earth. Behind them, 15 Apache warriors spread out in a wide formation, silent and invisible in the pre-dawn darkness. Ayla rode near the rear with two younger warriors, her rifle across her saddle, her face set and calm.
The plan was simple in theory, brutal in execution. Vance's militia would be coming north through Dead Man's Pass, the only route wide enough for horses and wagons. The pass was a natural kill zone. High walls on both sides, narrow throat in the middle, no room to maneuver. The Apache would take the high ground.
Ethan would draw Vance in, and when the militia was committed, trapped in the bottleneck, they'd hit them from above with everything they had. Simple, except for the part where Ethan had to stand alone in the middle of the pass, and wait for 20 armed men to ride straight at him. "You are certain about this?" Nashoba asked, his voice low. "No," Ethan said.
"But I'm doing it anyway." "That is either brave or foolish. Probably both." Nashoba almost smiled. "I am beginning to understand why Ayla chose you."
They reached the pass just as the first gray light touched the eastern sky. The walls rose steep and jagged on either side, maybe 60 feet high, studded with boulders and scrub pine. "Good cover. Good firing positions." Ethan studied the terrain with a soldier's eye, marking sight lines and angles, calculating how long it would take for the militia to realize they were under fire and where they try to run when they did.
There was nowhere to run. That was the point. Nashoba's warriors disappeared into the rocks like ghosts, taking positions on both sides of the pass. Ethan watched them go, impressed despite himself. The Apache moved through terrain like water, finding paths where none seemed to exist, vanishing into shadows that shouldn't have been deep enough to hide a man.
Within minutes, the high ground was theirs. Ethan dismounted in the center of the pass, exactly where Nashoba had told him to stand, the narrowest point, the place where Vance would have to stop or ride him down. He checked his rifle one more time, then his revolvers. Everything was loaded, clean, ready. Now came the hard part.
Waiting. The sun crept higher, turning the sky from gray to pink to hard, bright blue. The temperature climbed fast. Ethan stood in the middle of the pass, exposed and alone, the heat pressing down on him like a hand. Sweat soaked through his shirt.
His mouth was dry. He didn't move. An hour passed, then another. Ethan's legs started to ache. He shifted his weight, rolled his shoulders, kept his breathing steady.