Tazhi did not speak words of hollow comfort. Instead, the old Apache matriarch sat down on the edge of the bed of furs, leaned forward, and pulled Sarah’s head against her own sturdy shoulder. She began to sing—a low, rhythmic lullaby in the Athabaskan tongue, devoid of words Sarah could comprehend, but filled with the timeless cadence of maternal comfort that had sheltered infants in these mountains long before the first white prospector struck iron against stone.
Chato watched them for a moment, his stoic face softening in the dim amber light. Then, hearing footsteps crunching on the pine needles outside, he rose soundlessly to his feet, drew back the deerskin flap of the wickiup, and stepped out into the mountain twilight to stand vigil.
As the soothing bitter tea coursed through her veins and the old woman’s chant hummed against her cheek, Sarah felt the terrifying world outside recede. Her heavy eyelids fell shut, and for the first time since Thomas had died beneath the tons of dark stone in the San Pedro Mine, she sank into a sleep that was not haunted by nightmares of empty cupboards, sneering deputies, and the smell of impending doom.
Morning in the high Sierra Bonita arrived not with the oppressive furnace heat of the low desert, but with a crystalline, frost-tinged brightness that turned the needles of the ponderosa pines into shimmering spears of silver. The thin mountain air tasted of cold stone, woodsmoke, and damp earth.
Sarah woke slowly, her senses piecing together the world around her. The dull, pounding agony in her skull had receded to a faint ache, and the sharp cramps in her lower abdomen had ceased entirely. When she shifted beneath the heavy buffalo robe, she found that Tazhi had dressed her in a clean tunic of soft, smoke-tanned deerskin that fell loosely over her pregnant frame, replacing her torn and sweat-soaked calico dress. Her cracked feet were wrapped securely in clean strips of oiled hide, entirely devoid of the searing pain that had crippled her the evening before.
Beside the hearth, Tazhi was grinding dried parched corn upon a flat metate stone, the rhythmic scritch-scratch of the basalt pestle providing a soothing backdrop to the morning silence. A clay bowl containing warm broth made from dried venison and crushed juniper berries sat waiting on a flat rock near the coals.
"You sleep long, daughter," Tazhi said without looking up from her grinding. "The sun has already crossed the two tall pines."
"I haven't slept like that in months," Sarah whispered, pushing herself up on one elbow. She reached instinctively for her apron, only to remember her old clothes were gone. Panic flared instantly in her chest. "My watch... Thomas’s watch..."
Tazhi pointed with her chin toward a woven reed basket hanging from the sapling ribs of the lodge wall. The silver chain of Thomas’s pocket watch gleamed softly against the woven willow. "No one steals from Tazhi’s lodge. The iron that speaks hangs where the morning sun can touch it."
Sarah breathed a sigh of immense relief and accepted the bowl of broth Tazhi handed her. She ate hungrily, savoring the rich, salty nourishment that warmed her to the marrow.
As she finished the last drop, the heavy deerskin door flap was pushed aside, and Chato entered. The morning light caught the high ridges of his copper cheekbones and the broad line of his shoulders. His face was set in grave, hard angles, his dark eyes shadowed with sleepless vigilance. Behind him stood another warrior—shorter, stockier, with a scarred nose and a band of white clay smeared across his forehead.
"Sarah," Chato said, speaking in English. "You have strength to walk?"
"I... I think so," she replied, carefully swinging her wrapped feet over the edge of the pallet. Though her joints were stiff and her ankles tender, the swelling had significantly decreased under Tazhi’s poultice. "What is happening? Has someone come?"
"Nalyce has returned from the lower pass," Chato said, gesturing toward the scarred warrior behind him. "The wolves did not lose your trail. They found the spring."
A cold fist of dread gripped Sarah's stomach. "Carpenter?"
"Carpenter and six more," Nalyce grunted in broken, guttural English, stepping forward. His voice was filled with grudging respect, though his dark eyes remained guarded. "And the one with the star of white iron. The deputy."
Sarah felt the blood drain from her face. "Brennan is with them? Out here in the open?"
"He has shed his lawman's skin," Chato said coldly, his fingers tightening around the barrel of his Winchester. "He rides with Carpenter's outlaws now, but he wears the badge on his vest still. He brought three Mexican trackers who read the shale where the water dripped from your boots. They know you climbed into the red gorge."
"Why would they come this far?" Sarah asked, her voice trembling. "They know this is Apache country. The townsfolk say white men don't enter these mountains without the cavalry."