Vance, he said, that coward's finally found his conscience." He poured himself another drink and muttered, "We'll see how long it lasts." The following evening, Robert and Kanti reached the edge of Big Bend territory. The sky bruised purple and red. From the cliffs above, the Rio Grande glimmered like molten glass. Beyond it, hidden among the boulders, smoke rose from a cluster of shacks, Dinsly's new stronghold. Kanti watched in silence, her jaw tight.
"He's down there." Robert nodded. "And half a dozen men with him." She unslung her bow. "Then we end it tonight." He caught her wrist. "No, not like this." Her eyes flared.
"You'd let him live?" "I'd let you live." He said, voice rough. "Killing him won't free you from him. It never does." She pulled away, trembling. "He killed my father, sold my mother, my brother." "I know." Robert said, "And I helped him once. But if you spill his blood, you'll carry his shadow.
I've carried it long enough." She looked at him then, truly looked, seeing not the man who'd once served Dinsly, but the one who'd chosen to face him now. The firelight caught the silver bracelet on her wrist. Her hand lowered. "Then we finish this your way." Robert exhaled slowly, like a man finally stepping out of his own grave. That night, the storm gathered over the desert.
Lightning flickered beyond the ridges, thunder rolling like drums of war. As they crept down toward the river camp, the wind tore at their coats, carrying sand and the smell of rain. Somewhere below, Dinsly's men were laughing over a fire, unaware that the ghosts of their past were walking straight toward them. The storm broke over Big Bend just before midnight.
Rain fell in slanted sheets, hissing against rock and river alike. Through the blur of lightning, Robert and Kanti moved like shadows down the slope toward Dinsly's camp. A half-collapsed shack stood at the river's edge, lamp light leaking through its cracks. Inside, voices rose above the storm, Dinsly's rasping laugh among them.
Robert crouched behind a boulder, water dripping from his hat. "We go quiet," he whispered. "We need the ledger, his records. It'll show every name, every sale." Kanti nodded, but her jaw was set hard.
Her bow was ready, eyes gleaming with the reflection of lightning. They slipped closer. Two guards sat near the door, rifles across their laps. Robert crept behind them, striking one with the butt of his gun, while Kanti's arrow cut through the rain, silencing the other.
They dragged the bodies aside. Inside, Dinsly poured whiskey into a tin cup, muttering about fools chasing ghosts. He didn't hear the door creak until Robert stepped in. The older man looked up, eyes narrowing.
"Well, hell. Robert Vance. Thought you'd burned up with your conscience." Robert's voice was steady, "low. You should have stayed dead to me." Dinsly laughed.
"And miss this? You always were the soft one. Couldn't stomach orders. Couldn't stomach blood." He lifted the revolver from the table, spinning the cylinder.
"Guess you came to fix that." Kanti emerged from the shadows, bow drawn. The sight of her made Dinsly freeze for half a breath, then smirk. "The little savage lives. I remember your father screaming." Her arrow trembled, point steady at his chest.
Robert moved closer, voice sharp, "Don't." She didn't lower the bow. "He burned them alive." Dinsly sneered, "And you think one arrow makes you clean?" The room seemed to pulse with thunder. Then, from outside, a gunshot cracked. Dinsly flinched his own man, panicked, had fired through the doorway.
Chaos erupted. Another man burst in, shouting. A second shot rang out. Robert lunged, shoving Kanti aside as a bullet ripped through the wall.
The lamp toppled, flames spilling across the floor. Dinsly turned to run, but one of his men, frightened, Greedy, raised his gun. "The gold's mine, old man." The shot hit Dinsly square in the chest. He fell backward, crashing into the burning table.
The others fled into the storm. Kanti stood over the dying man. For a long moment, she said nothing. Then she dropped her bow.
The arrow clattered beside the body. "I won't let you take more of me." She whispered. Robert watched the flames curl around the edges of the shack. He found the ledger, a small, water-stained book beside Dinsly's hand.
On one page, in a faded scrawl, he saw a name, Maria, taken to Santa Fe. Echembaba Bashir. He turned to Kanti. "Your mother." She looked at the words, her expression unreadable in the flickering firelight.
"She's alive." "Maybe," he said, "or maybe this is the only proof she ever lived." Kanti took the book gently, as though it were made of glass. "Then we follow this trail." Robert nodded. "We will." Lightning split the sky. He reached out, taking her wrist to pull her from the collapsing shack.
For a moment, their hands met, his scarred, hers steady, and they ran into the rain together as the roof caved in behind them. They didn't stop until the storm had spent itself. The Rio Grande roared below, swollen and silver under the breaking dawn. They sat beneath an overhang, soaked and shaking, the ledger resting between them.
Robert's voice came rough with exhaustion. "You could have killed him." "I know." "Why didn't you?" She looked out at the river, the water catching the first light of morning. "Because hate is easy, and I'm done being easy to understand." He exhaled, long and slow. "You're stronger than I ever was." Kanti turned toward him, her face calm, almost soft.
"No. You just finally stopped running for the first time." He smiled small, uncertain, but real. As the sun rose, the rain thinned to a mist. The world smelled clean again.
They loaded their gear in silence. Before mounting her horse, Kanti paused. "What will you do now?" she asked. "Keep riding north." he said.
"You?" She looked toward the mountains. "Find what's left of my mother." He nodded. "Then that's the same road." They rode out side by side, the wind at their backs, the smell of wet earth following them, a scent of endings and of something just beginning. The road north wound through weeks of silence and sky.