Thomas dropped his hammer and looked down. Ayana was standing frozen, her head turned toward the east ridge—the narrow notch in the red hills where the trail from town dropped down into the valley.
Thomas turned his eyes toward the notch.
Five riders were coming down the slope.
They were moving at a slow, deliberate trot, their horses kicking up small plumes of yellow dust that hung in the still air behind them. They were not dressed like town folk or local cattlemen. They wore long, trail-stained coats, wide-brimmed grey hats, and heavy double-bandoliers of rifle cartridges crossed over their chests.
"They found me," Ayana whispered. Her voice was not loud, but in the quiet of the yard, it hit Thomas like a blow to the chest.
Thomas didn't ask questions. He slid down the steep pitch of the barn roof, caught the top timber of the wall, and dropped six feet to the dirt, landing with a heavy thud. He strode straight into the cabin, pulled his heavy .45-70 Springfield down from its wooden pegs, and levered a thick, brass cartridge into the breech with a sharp, metallic clack.
He walked back out onto the porch, his face set like iron.
"Who are they?" he asked, his eyes never leaving the five horsemen, who were now three hundred yards out, crossing the dry bed of the creek.
"Men who hunt survivors," Ayana said. She had stepped back against the log wall of the cabin, her hand pressed flat against the rough bark. Her face was pale under her brown skin, her eyes wide with a deep, ancient terror that went far beyond the fear of death. "Men who catch those who ran from the reservation. They get silver from the fort for every one they bring back."
Thomas checked the rear sight of his rifle. He had four extra cartridges in his pants pocket. Five men. Five bullets in the horsemen, one in the breech. The math was bad, very bad.
He turned to Ayana. "Get around the back," he said, his voice dropping into a low, quick command. "Take the bay. He’s saddled in the pen. Take the trail through the back canyon—it leads up into the high timber. They won't see you if you leave now."
Ayana didn't move. Her jaw tightened, her eyes flashing with that sudden, fierce anger Thomas had seen on the auction block.
"I knew it," she said, her voice dripping with bitterness.
Thomas stopped, his thumb resting on the rifle hammer. "Knew what?"
"You bought me," she said, stepping away from the wall, her chest heaving. "You were kind when there was no trouble. Now danger comes, and you send me away to save your house."
"No!" Thomas snapped, his voice cracking through the quiet yard like a rifle shot. He stepped close to her—closer than he had ever stood since the day he bought her—and caught her by the shoulder. His fingers were tight on her coarse dress, his grey eyes burning into hers.
"Listen to me, you foolish girl," he rasped, his breath hot against her skin. "I'm telling you to take my horse and ride because those five men are coming to put ropes back on your wrists! They will drag you back to a cage or sell you to another Silas Finch! Take the bay and go!"
Ayana stared at him, her dark eyes wide, stunned by the raw, furious authority in his voice. She looked at his hand on her shoulder—a hand that was holding her not to possess her, but to push her toward safety.
"And you?" she whispered.
Thomas let go of her shoulder and turned back to face the yard. "I'll tell them you kept riding west. That you stole a horse three days ago and I haven't seen you since."
"They won't believe you," she said.
"Probably not."
"They may kill you."
Thomas drew back the heavy iron hammer of his rifle until it clicked into full cock. "Probably."
Ayana looked at his back—at the broad, slightly sloped shoulders under the faded canvas coat, at the grey hair at the nape of his neck, at the hard, uncompromising line of his jaw. Her eyes filled with something heavy and complex—a mixture of rage, awe, and a profound, agonizing confusion.
"Why?" she asked, her voice hardly more than a whisper against the wind. "Why die for an Indian woman you do not know?"
Thomas looked at the five riders. They were two hundred yards away now, their horses walking slowly through the tall grass, their hands resting on their saddle horns.
He thought of Martha, dying alone in the dark while he held her cold hand. He thought of his brother Caleb, lying in a trench five hundred miles away while strangers threw dirt over his face. He thought of the six years he had spent sitting in this silent house, eating cold food, waiting for his life to finish itself out while he pretended he was still a man.
"Because," Thomas said softly, his voice clear and untrembling, "somewhere in these four weeks, I realized something. I didn't buy you because you needed saving, Ayana. I bought you because watching those bastards treat a human being like a sick mule reminded me that there are still things worth standing against in this world. And if I let them take you back, then I might as well lie down under that cottonwood tree right now."
He turned his head slightly, looking at her out of the corner of his eye.
"You made this place feel alive again," he said gently. "You brought sound back into a house that was dead. But that doesn't mean you owe me your life." He pointed with his chin toward the barn. "Go."
Ayana stood motionless in the dust. The wind caught her hair, blowing it across her face. She looked at the approaching riders, then at the barn where the bay was pinned, then at Thomas.
She took a slow, deep breath. Her shoulders sank, then rose, set in a solid, unbreakable line.
"No," she said.
"Ayana—"
"I ran before," she said, her voice dropping an octave, becoming as heavy and cold as iron. "When the soldiers came to our camp on the river, I ran. When they took my mother, I ran. When they brought me to the town with the oak block, I ran in my mind." She looked at the five men riding into his field. "No more running."
Thomas looked at her for three long seconds. He saw no fear in her eyes now—only a quiet, terrible resolve that matched his own.
"All right then," Thomas said softly. He reached into his coat pocket, pulled out his spare revolver—a six-shot Colt Army .44—and handed it to her. "You know how to use one of these?"
Ayana took the heavy steel gun. Her small hand wrapped around the walnut grip with practiced ease. She pulled the hammer back until it clicked.
"You point it at the heart," she said flatly. "And you pull."
"That's about the size of it," Thomas said. He stepped down off the porch into the grey dirt of the yard. "Then we stand together."
The five men pulled up their horses fifty feet from the porch, forming a shallow semicircle that cut off the cabin from the trail.
The leader rode a heavy-chested iron-grey gelding. He was a man with a face like dry leather, dominated by a thick, greasy black mustache and a wide, grey felt hat pinned up on one side with an army badge. A heavy Cavalry pistol hung in an unbuttoned holster on his hip, and a Sharps carbine rested across his saddle bow.