Don't be. You didn't do it. I am sorry you had to choose between vengeance and peace. No one should have to make that choice. Ethan looked at her, and for the first time in 5 years, he felt something crack open inside him.
Not forgiveness, not healing, just space. A little bit of room to breathe. "Tomorrow," he said, "we work on explosives." Ayla raised an eyebrow. Explosives?
If Vance comes with 20 men, we're not winning a straight fight. So we don't fight straight, we fight dirty. She smiled, sharp and fierce. Good. Um On the 30th day, Vance's men came.
Not Vance himself, just a scout, a young soldier on a fast horse watching the ranch from the ridge. Ethan saw him through the spyglass and knew exactly what it meant. They were out of time. He spent the next 3 days preparing, digging trenches, setting traps, moving supplies into the cellar beneath the house. He sent Ayla into town under cover of darkness to buy black powder and fuses from a smuggler named Ortiz, a half-mad Mexican who asked no questions and took no sides.
When she returned, Ethan showed her how to pack the charges, how to bury them, how to rig them to blow with a single pull of a wire. "This is your plan?" Ayla asked, staring at the explosives. "Blow them up?" "Part of it."
"What is the other part?" "Don't die." She laughed, a real laugh, bright and unexpected. It startled him. "What?" he asked.
"You are a very strange man, Ethan Cross." "Yeah, I get that a lot." On the 35th day, the horizon filled with dust. 20 riders, maybe more, armed with repeating rifles and grim determination. Ethan stood on the porch, watching them come.
Ayla stood beside him, a rifle in her hands. "Last chance to run," Ethan said. "No," Ayla said simply. "It is not." Ethan looked at her, this woman who had walked into his life with nothing but courage and desperation, and somehow changed everything.
"All right, then," he said. "Let's give them hell." The riders were coming. And Ethan Cross was done running. The dust cloud grew thicker as the riders approached, their silhouettes bleeding through the heat shimmer like ghosts materializing from bad memories.
Ethan counted them through the spyglass. 23 men, all armed, all wearing the gray and brown uniforms of Vance's militia. They moved in formation, disciplined and deliberate, spreading out as they neared the property line. Vance rode at the center, straight-backed and calm, like he was heading to Sunday dinner instead of a killing. "They're more than you said," Ayla observed from beside the window.
"I was being optimistic." Ethan lowered the spyglass and checked his rifle for the third time. The Winchester was loaded, the action smooth. Six more rifles leaned against the wall, each one cleaned and ready. "You remember the plan?"
"I remember." "Say it back to me." Ayla's jaw tightened, but she didn't argue. "When they get within range of the first charge, I pull the wire. The explosion will scatter them.
You fire from the window, I fire from the door. When they regroup and push forward, we fall back to the cellar through the kitchen. We seal the hatch and wait." "And if they breach the cellar?" "We use the tunnel.