He didn't know. But he knew he had to try. Winter deepened. The snow came more frequently, blanketing the high country and making travel nearly impossible. The camp hunkered down, focusing on survival, rationing food, keeping fires small and smokeless, staying warm and dry and alive.
Ethan threw himself into preparing. He and the other men hunted every day the weather allowed, bringing back deer and rabbit and whatever else they could find. He helped repair shelters, strengthen them against the wind and cold. He split firewood until his hands bled, then wrapped them and kept splitting. At night, he sat with Ayla and talked about the future.
About names and traditions and what kind of life they wanted for their child. The conversations were equal parts hopeful and terrifying. "If it is a girl," Ayla said one night, "I want to name her after my mother, Ama." "And if it's a boy?" I was thinking Ethan.
He shook his head. No. That name's got too much blood on it. Pick something clean, something that doesn't carry ghosts. Then you pick.
Ethan thought about it. "How about Daniel?" That was my brother's name. He died when we were kids, before the war, before any of the bad things. It's a good name.
Daniel. Ayla said it slowly, tasting it. I like it. Good. Then it's settled.
Ama or Daniel. You make it sound simple. It is simple. Everything else is complicated, but this part's simple. She smiled, resting her head on his shoulder.
I hope you are right. In late December, a scouting party returned with grim news. A new military outpost was being built 30 miles southeast of their position. Not a temporary camp, but a permanent fort with walls and barracks and a full garrison. The territorial government was serious about pacifying the region, and that meant hunting down every Apache band they could find.
The council met that night. The mood was dark. We cannot stay here, one of the elders said. The soldiers will find us. It is only a matter of time.
Where do we go? Another asked. North. The weather will kill us. South?
We run into the fort. East or west, we leave our sacred lands. Sacred lands do not matter if we are dead, Nashoba said bluntly. We move north into the deep mountains. It will be hard.
We will lose people, but we will survive. For how long? The woman elder demanded. Another season? Another year?