You were 17. Doesn't matter how old I was. It matters. Her voice had softened, though the iron underneath hadn't gone anywhere. You were a boy watching his father die.
That's not cowardice, Ezra. That's just what fear does to a body that's never had to survive something like that before. Feels the same either way. 11 years later, it still feels exactly the same. I know.
She said it simply. No comfort dressed up as wisdom. just two words that meant plainly, I understand this specific shape of pain because I have lived inside it too. They sat there along while after that not speaking the fire between them doing the only talking either of them had energy left for. And something had shifted. Ezra realized something quiet and unspoken but entirely real.
Two people who'd spent a lifetime carrying the same grief alone. finding out almost by accident that the weight got lighter the instant somebody else agreed to help hold it. For what it's worth, he said eventually Crane's the reason for mine. I don't know yet if he's the reason for yours, but it's the same shape of man either way and the same season, and I've stopped believing that's a coincidence worth ignoring. Then we finish this together, Ayanna said. Not because either of us need saving, because neither of us should have to finish it alone.
Deal. She almost smiled again. This time she let it stay. Dawn came gray and cold. Mist pooling low in the canyon bottoms before the sun burned it away.
They broke camp fast, ate little, said less. The kind of morning where everyone's mind is already three moves ahead of their body. By midday, they picked up the main trail again. The real herd, all 200 head, driven hard through narrower and narrower canyon passages toward whatever camp Crane called home. Chaitton read the ground like scripture, calling out details Ezra would never have caught on his own.
They've slowed, Chaitton said, crouched over a stretch of churned earth. The horses are tiring, which means Crane knows he cannot push much further before the camp itself. Which means we're close. How close? close enough that from here we do not ride. We walk and we do not speak above a whisper.
They left the horses in a shielded box canyon a mile back along with enough water and feed to last a few days if it came to that and continued on foot. The land rose steadily, red rock stacking higher on either side until the trail narrowed into something closer to a corridor than a canyon. Chaitton went first, reading sign. Ayanna second, bow strung and ready. Ezra last.
Revolver loose in its holster. Every sense strung tight enough to hum. They reached a ridge overlooking Crane's camp. As the sun began its long slide toward evening, the valley below opened wide and green, fed by a hidden spring. That explained why raiders would choose this exact fold of mountain to disappear into.