Ina said, we simply do not learn it until fear leaves us no other choice. The preparations continued in the days that followed, the two of them refining the same rough plan they'd already sketched into the dirt days before. If fire come, Whit said, tracing the cabin's north side. Walls weakest here. Water barrels close enough to reach fast.
If riders come from the tree line, Ina added, marking an X near the old smokehouse. I take this ground. Higher. Better angle. And if both come at once.
She looked up at him. Something steady and unshakable in her eyes despite the grim work at hand. Then we do what we have done every time since the rope. Whit Calder, we survive it together and we ask the questions afterward. He found oddly that he believed her completely.
What came next arrived four nights later and it arrived with fire already lit. Whit woke to the smell of smoke before he woke to the sound of it. Some old instinct from the war called cutting through sleep faster than conscious thought, faster than conscious thought ever could. He was on his feet, rifle in hand, before his eyes had fully adjusted to the dark. Ina, I smell I smell it, too.
She was already at the window, axe in hand, body coiled tight with the particular stillness she wore right before violence found her. More riders than before. And voices I do not recognize among Voss's men. Whit looked out into the yard and felt his stomach drop clean through the floor. Because Voss had brought reinforcements this time.
Not just townsmen with more bravado than sense. Mounted figures at the tree line, too. Several of them. Moving with a discipline Wolf Creek's usual mob never carried. Ascala's men.
They've joined forces. Whit said the realization landing cold and certain. Bragg's boys and Ascalah's both. Tonight's not a warning. No.
Yanaba's voice had gone flat, hard. Every trace of the woman who had sat close to him by the fire two nights back replaced now by something forged entirely for survival. Tonight is meant to finish what the rope started. A torch arched through the dark shattering against the cabin's north wall in a spray of flame that caught fast against dry wood. Fire's spreading, Whit shouted already moving.