"Thank you, ma’am," he said softly.
Ayana did not answer, but her eyes held a steady, measuring light that made him acutely conscious of the dirt caked into his skin.
Chief Whitehawk settled himself cross-legged upon a massive buffalo robe opposite the fire. He took a long, carved stone pipe from a pouch, filled it with wild mountain tobacco mixed with aromatic dried leaves, and lit it using a glowing ember from the hearth. He drew three slow, deep breaths, sending white clouds toward the smoke-hole, before fixing his dark, unblinking gaze upon the cowboy.
"You think this is a game of chance," Whitehawk began, his English rolling like thunder through the quiet lodge. "You think you chased a frightened beast into a box canyon and stumbled upon a foolish girl who took a fancy to your dust."
"I don't think your daughter is foolish, sir," Ethan replied carefully, sitting with his legs crossed on the bare ground. "Far from it. But I know what I am. I’m an ordinary cowhand who works for sixteen dollars a month and trail rations. A chief’s daughter doesn't point her finger at a ragged stranger unless there’s a reason—or unless she's trying to avoid choosing one of the men outside."
A low grunt escaped the chief’s chest. "She did not need to avoid them. She could have told all of them to leave her sight, and not a warrior among them could have disputed her word. In my camp, Ayana’s spirit belongs only to herself."
"Then why me?" Ethan asked, looking between the father and the daughter. "Why would she pick a man whose people have done nothing but bring soldiers, sickness, and fences to your territory?"
Ayana spoke then, her voice quiet yet carrying an undeniable weight of certainty. "Because the stones spoke of you before your boots ever touched our canyon."
Ethan stared at her, his brow knitting into a perplexed frown. "The stones?"
Whitehawk reached behind his seat, pulling forward a cylindrical tube fashioned from stiff, dried rawhide, sealed with pitch and bound with rawhide sinew. With slow, reverent fingers, the old chief cut the sinew binding and drew out a rolled piece of ancient buckskin. The leather was aged to a dark, smoky yellow, its edges worn soft and frayed by the hands of countless generations.
The chief spread the buckskin across the flat earth between them, using four smooth river stones to pin down the curled corners.
Ethan leaned forward, squinting in the flickering firelight. It was a map, but unlike any paper chart Ethan had seen in territorial land offices or army outposts. There were no grid lines, no township boundaries, and no surveyor marks. Instead, the landscape was depicted through stylized symbols carved and painted in natural mineral pigments of red ochre, charcoal, and pale copper-green.
He recognized the shapes instantly. In the center was the massive, fractured mesa of the Devil’s Ribs. Radiating outward were the winding lines of seasonal washes, hidden springs marked by circles of black dots, and the high defensive pinnacles of the sandstone cliffs.
"This map," Whitehawk said, placing a scarred finger upon the center of the leather, "was carried by my grandfather’s grandfather when our people still hunted across the great plains to the north. It shows the secret waters of this sanctuary. It shows the veins of soft red stone from which our people carve our sacred pipes. And it carries the prophecy of our final sunrise."
Ethan’s eyes traced the painted lines. Along the lower margin of the buckskin, drawn in dark charcoal, were figures: long-horned cattle, men on horseback wearing broad-brimmed hats, and lines of men carrying iron spades. And just above the cleft marking the entrance to this very canyon was the crude, unmistakable rendering of a solitary rider leading an unburdened horse, standing beneath the shade of a massive, broad-leafed tree.
A chill ran down Ethan’s spine, despite the warmth of the cedar hearth.
"Three winters ago," Ayana said, her voice dropping into a gentle cadence, "the visions began. In my dreams, I saw the valley choked with yellow dust and the smell of sulfur. I saw men with gray eyes who tore open the belly of the red rocks seeking the white metal that drives your people mad. And I saw that our camp would not be saved by the lance or the bow. A war with the blue-coat soldiers would only end in our blood covering these rocks, our children carried away to stone cages in the east."