The shot cracked against the canyon walls, and Ethan felt it before he heard it properly β a hot, tearing line across his left shoulder. He staggered, and caught himself, and saw blood blooming through his shirt, but his arm still moved, and his legs still held him, and he knew at once that the bullet had only grazed him, tearing flesh and missing bone. Pain came a heartbeat later, and he set his teeth against it and stayed standing, because if he fell, the band would rise, and the morning would be lost.
Hold! the chief shouted. "No retaliation! No one fires! Stand!"
And then, from the high path, Dzeni came down like a storm.
Ethan had not seen him leave the rim, but suddenly Dzeni was there, running down the slope, his eyes fixed on Wade alone. Wade tried to work his lever for a second shot, but Dzeni was on him before the lever closed, driving the butt of his own rifle up and under Wade's arms, sending Wade's rifle spinning into the dust. Dzeni did not shoot. He did not strike Wade again. He stood over the fallen rifle, breathing hard, and looked down at Wade with contempt colder than any bullet.
You shot an unarmed man, Dzeni said, his voice shaking with a fury he was holding back by sheer will. "And you shot a horse. That is the sum of your morning's work, Wade. Get up, and go, and do not come back to this water with a gun."
Wade lay in the dust, his face white, his hands empty, and for the first time that morning he looked afraid β not of Dzeni's rifle, but of the fact that these men would not kill him when they had the chance.
It was Fitch who broke next. The younger gunman, nervous, thirty-three β Fitch looked past Ethan to the channel where the children were drinking, and Ethan saw his face change. He saw Yana, with water on her chin, looking up at him without fear, because a child of seven does not yet know how to be afraid of a man with a gun when there is water to drink. Fitch's rifle wavered. Then, slowly, he lowered it, butt to the ground, and stepped back.
I will not shoot children, Fitch said, quietly, to no one in particular, and to everyone. "I signed on to guard a well, Mr. Murdock. Not this."
One by one, the other riders lowered their rifles too β one laying his across his saddle, another letting his hang from its strap, a third turning his horse away from the water.
Murdock looked at his men, and at Wade in the dust, and at Fitch with his rifle lowered, and at Ethan standing with blood on his shoulder and water at his back, and Ethan saw the moment when the merchant understood that he had lost β not the canyon, but the only thing that had ever made his claim real: the willingness of other men to enforce it. His face went pale.
Pick up your man, Murdock said at last, his voice flat, to Fitch. "We are leaving."
And the water? the chief asked, stepping forward, his hands still wet, his voice gentle now. "You and your men are thirsty, Mr. Murdock. You have watched us drink. Will you drink with us, as guests, before you go?"
Murdock stared at him. Ethan held his breath, because he knew what that offer cost the chief β to offer water to the man who had come to steal it, after that man's foreman had shot a horse and grazed a friend.
For a long moment Murdock said nothing. Then, stiffly, he dismounted, walked to the channel, knelt, and drank. Wade, helped to his feet by Fitch, drank after him, sullenly, without meeting anyone's eyes. The other riders drank too, and no one spoke, and the only sound was the water running.
When Murdock rose, he looked at the chief, and then at Ethan, and nodded once β a short, grudging nod β and turned back to his horse without another word about claims or law. His men mounted, Wade last, empty-handed, his rifle left in the dust, and they rode out by the rim trail, past Dzeni and Jolon on the high path, past the basin running full and clear, and did not look back.
The chief walked to Ethan then, and Ishtah came with him, her bundle already open. But before she touched him, the chief did something Ethan would never forget. He turned to Besh, who stood nearby with Ethan's rifle β the rifle Ethan had laid on the ground at the camp on the first night β and took it from Besh's hands and held it out to Ethan.
Ethan Cole, the chief said, his voice carrying so that the whole canyon could hear it, "you came to us unarmed, and you stood unarmed between guns and children, and you gave away the water you found rather than own it. Take back your rifle. Not as a weapon against your enemies. As a sign that you are one of us now."
Ethan took the rifle. It was heavier than he remembered, and lighter, both at once β heavier with everything the last thirteen days had meant, lighter because he was no longer carrying it alone. His shoulder burned where the bullet had grazed it, and Ishtah's hands were already gentle on the wound, binding it with clean cloth, murmuring that the flesh was torn but the bone was whole. Around him, the band was drinking, openly now, and Nakai, with his wooden cup, knelt beside his grandfather and drank, and looked up at Ethan with water on his chin and a smile that broke Ethan's heart open.
The siege was over. Not because a battle had been won, but because mercy had broken it β because a man had refused to shoot back, because another had disarmed instead of killing, because a gunman had lowered his rifle at the sight of children drinking, and because a chief had offered water to his enemy and watched his enemy drink.