And a chief who already lost one child to violence is a chief prime to believe the worst of anyone standing near that grief a second time. Yanaba's hands curled slowly into fists. Kosoha would not Kosoha loves his people, Taji said, not unkindly. Loving a people sometimes means acting before all the facts arrive to slow a father down. You know this as well as I do, sister.
A fire popped behind them, sending a spray of sparks up into the dark. And for a moment, none of the three said anything further, each one turning the same cold understanding over in their own private way. The lie was spreading faster than the truth could catch it. And truth, Whit understood now with a certain that settled hard and final in his chest, was going to need more than patience alone to win this particular race. It was going to need to survive whatever came next first.
The next two days passed in the particular, focused quiet of people readying for a storm they knew was coming, but couldn't yet name the hour of. Whit reinforced the cabin's north wall, where the wood had gone thin with age. Yanaba fashioned extra arrows, tested the balance of a second axe she'd found rusting in the toolshed, and brought back sharp enough to shave with. Between chores, they mapped the yard's blind spots together, crouched over a rough sketch scratched into the dirt with a stick, planning fallback positions the way soldiers plan a defense they hope never to need. One evening, restless in a way work alone couldn't settle, Whit found himself out past the barn with the Winchester.
Firing at a row of bottles lined along the old corral fence, not for practice exactly, though he told himself that was the reason for the noise, for something to do with 2 years of buried anger that had finally found a name and a face to aim itself at, and hadn't yet found anywhere honest to spend itself. Yanaba watched from the porch a while before joining him, saying nothing, simply stand- standing close enough that her presence alone did some of the work his bullets couldn't manage alone. "You are not aiming at bottles," she said eventually. "No." He fired again. Missed clean, hands not quite steady enough tonight for accuracy.
Reckon I'm not. Bragg is not standing on that fence rail. Wish to God he were." He lowered the rifle, chest heaving more than the effort should have earned. "2 years, Yanaba. 2 years I let myself believe it was just bad luck, just a road and a startled team and nothing anybody could have stopped.
Easier that way. Didn't have to be angry at anybody. Didn't have to do anything about it except grieve quiet and keep the ranch running. And now, now I know better. And knowing better means I owe her more than quiet grief, owe her something closer to justice, if I can find a way to drag it out of that man before he buries it as deep as he buried her." Yanaba stepped closer, took the rifle gently from his hands, and set it aside against the fence post.
"Then aim your anger there, she said, "when the day finally comes to spend it, not at bottles in the dark, wearing your hands out before you need them steadiest." He looked at her, something in his chest easing despite the anger still sitting hot beneath his ribs. "You always this wise, or is tonight a special occasion?" "I have buried enough anger of my own to recognize when a man is only borrowing trouble from tomorrow to avoid sitting with tonight's grief, honestly." Her hand found his, steady grounding. "Come and sit beside. The bottles will still be there tomorrow if you find you need them again." He let her lead him back toward the cabin, the night settling quiet around them, and understood not for the first time these past weeks, but maybe for the first time fully that healing, whatever shape it eventually took, was going to require more patience from him than vengeance ever would. Two nights after Taji told them of the widow, under cover of a moon thin enough to hide most sins, he led them to her.
The widow's name was Nizoni, and she lived alone in a small brush shelter a half mile from the river camp. Her husband three winters dead, her only son too young yet to speak for her before a council that valued a warrior's testimony over a mother's. She startled hard when Yanaba ducked through the low doorway, hand flying to a knife at her belt before recognition steadied her. "You should not have come," Nizoni whispered, glancing past them into the dark like the night itself might be listening. If Askala learns, he will not learn from us," Yanaba said, crouching low voice gentled into something Wit hadn't heard from her before, careful coaxing, the voice of a woman who understood exactly how much courage this meeting was already costing.