He walked toward the hut.
Hale stepped back onto the porch with Grey Feather and Rain Song behind him. The yard had gathered a quiet audience: soldiers pausing with ropes in their hands, teamsters half-turned on wagon seats, the lookout leaning from the gate tower. Kane stopped ten paces away, fair hair lit like a struck match.
"Captain," Kane said, bright and hard. "The teams are ready. We lose the light soon. Give the word."
Hale held up the forged order. "This paper says we run south." He held up the pouch. "This pouch says the man who should have carried truth is dead in Crow Bone Wash, and the man who rode through our gate practiced a colonel's name until his hand learned the lie."
A murmur moved through the men. Briggs set down a crate with a thud that sounded like a gavel.
Kane laughed once, short. "You would take the word of—" He caught himself, but the unfinished contempt hung in the air like smoke. He tried again. "You would overturn an official order on the say-so of scouts who have every reason to keep this fort weak?"
Grey Feather did not raise his voice. "The dead courier's finger still shows the shape of a ring. The ring is initialed W. Perhaps the lieutenant will empty his pockets for the men."
Kane's hand twitched toward his coat, then froze. Hale saw it. So did half the yard.
"Give me that paper," Kane said, stepping forward. "If you mean to accuse an officer, you do it through channels, not theater."
"Not yet," Hale answered. He kept the order at his side, out of easy reach. His other hand rested open, empty, visible. "Those wagons were packed before the order arrived. Briggs will swear to the hour. That is not channels. That is arithmetic."
Kane's eyes narrowed. The golden light put a sheen of sweat on his upper lip. "Keep your hand where I can see it," he said, and his own right hand dropped near the holster on his hip.
The fort held its breath. Somewhere a horse stamped. Somewhere a kettle lid rattled and went still. Hale felt the old war-calm settle over him—the place in the mind where fear became a tool instead of a master.