The driver shouted something she couldn’t catch. The scar-jawed man inside the coach swore aloud, shoving the curtain aside to see better. Dust boiled up from the approaching riders, their ponies low and quick, their hair flying loose in the wind. Bright scraps of cloth streamed from their arms and weapons, and the air carried the fierce, high calls of voices she did not understand.
The driver whipped the team hard. The coach lurched forward, wheels bouncing over the ruts. Passengers clung to the seats and each other as the shouts grew louder, closer. Violet’s heart pounded so hard she felt it in her throat.
Her breath came in short, ragged bursts, the hot, dusty air tearing at her lungs. The jolting motion of the coach made it hard to keep her balance, and she gripped the edge of the seat until her knuckles blanched. She had imagined Texas as wild, yes—but in her naïve daydreams, the danger had been distant, like something out of a book, not galloping down upon her withpainted faces and weapons flashing in the sun. Her decision to come here—this mad, reckless leap toward a stranger—now seemed as foolish as running headlong into a storm.
The shouts rose again, closer still, slicing through the thundering of hooves. Every instinct screamed at her to hide, to vanish, but there was nowhere to go, nothing between her and the chaos closing in. Sticking her head out of the stagecoach window, she caught a glimpse of the driver’s tense profile, the way his eyes darted like a cornered animal, and realized with a sick twist in her gut that he was just as terrified as she was.
A shadow swept across the side of the coach. One of the riders pulled up alongside it, his face painted in bold streaks of black and red, his eyes sharp as the edge of a blade. He leaned low, his lance flicking toward the driver’s shoulder and finding its mark. The driver cried out, slumping forward and dropping the reins as the team of horses plunged forward in a frantic tangle.
The scar-jawed man grabbed for his revolver, but another rider was there beside him, striking it from his hand with the crack of a tomahawk against metal. The gun spun away into the grass.
Suddenly, the door beside Violet flew open. The bright outside rushed in—blinding light, the smell of dust and horse. A hand caught her arm, strong and unyielding. She gasped, struggling to plant her feet against the floorboards, but the next jolt of the coach sent her pitching into the sunlight.
The world turned to noise and motion—hooves thudding, shouts ringing, the ground spinning under her. She landed hard against a pony’s side, an arm closing around her waist. The rider hauled her up before him with a strength that left her breathless. She cowered, expecting a blow, but none came. Instead, the man holding her in front of him on the horse said something in a low, steady tone, the words foreign yet not sharp.
The pony wheeled away from the coach, carrying the two of them onto rolling grass where it halted and turned to face the stagecoach. The air smelled of heat and crushed grass.
Violet watched the team of horses and stagecoach wrench to a halt, dust boiling around them as warriors closed in from every side. The coach was surrounded. The driver and passengers shouted, their voices high pitched in fear.
Warriors barked orders in a language Violet didn’t understand, sharp and urgent, leaving no doubt of their meaning. As all of the coach doors were flung open, the warriors dragged the occupants out into the blinding sunlight. Men stumbled, women cried out; someone fell to their knees in the dirt.
The Indians moved among the stagecoach passengers with swift efficiency, stripping away watches, rings, purses—anything of value. When the man with the broad hat and scar resisted, clutching a leather satchel to his chest, Violet saw a tomahawk flash, and the man go down without a sound. Panic spiraled higher. A shot rang out, then another, and the bright grass was stained dark. The few survivors huddled together, trembling, under the unyielding gaze of painted riders who approached with their spears raised.
Then suddenly, Violet’s captor whirled his horse away from the scene, urging it into a long, loping run. Violet’s heart raced with such fear she thought she’d die from its pounding. As the horse ran on and on, other riders eventually fell in around them—some whooping, others silent. One passed close enough for her to see the eagle feathers tied in his hair, the fringe of his shirt snapping in the wind.
?
When at last the pace slowed, they had put a wide stretch of grassland between themselves and the road. The riders formeda loose circle, speaking in quick, clipped bursts. Violet sat stiffly before the man who held her, afraid to move, her throat too dry to swallow.
She dared a glance up at him. His face was younger than she’d expected—smooth-skinned, the angles strong but not harsh. His eyes, dark as wet earth, studied her without hostility. A streak of white paint ran from temple to jaw, like a bolt of lightning.
One of the older warriors rode near, saying something in a tone that seemed questioning. The man holding her—her captor—answered briefly. Whatever he said made the others glance at her, then nod.
It was then she realized: he had claimed her.
?
The circle broke apart, the riders moving off at an easy lope toward a low rise in the distance. The heat shimmered between them and whatever lay ahead—trees, perhaps, or a camp. The mosquitos kept up their endless hovering, and the sun blazed overhead, a hard, unblinking eye.
Violet sat rigid, feeling the rhythm of the pony under her, the steady rise and fall of the man’s breathing at her back. She did not know his name, but already she understood that her fate was tied to his.
She did not yet know if that was a mercy or a danger.
?
The miles unspooled beneath the ponies’ hooves, each stride carrying her farther from the shattered wreck of the stagecoach and the bodies left in its shadow. Sweat slid down her back beneath her bodice, her skirts clinging to her legs. Every jolt of the horse beneath her made her feel less like a passenger and more like a prize being carried away.
The warrior holding her—this quiet man with the single streak of white on his cheek—kept his left arm firm across her middle, steadying her against the shifting gait of the pony. His grip was unyielding but not cruel. He never struck her, never barked words as the others did, but neither did he loosen his hold or give any sign of release.
Violet’s eyes darted to the other riders. Some laughed and shouted to each other, the sound carrying across the wind. A few looked back toward the place where the raid had ended. Most seemed unconcerned, their attention on the horizon ahead. Every time her gaze flickered toward the edges of their formation, she found no gap, no chance to break free without being instantly caught.
Grey Horse—she did not yet know his name—rode as if born to the saddle, his posture straight, his weight moving fluidly with the pony. Now and again he spoke a quiet word to his mount, a low sound in a language she couldn’t understand. He didn’t glance at her often, but when he did, there was something in his eyes she could not name. It was not the hard, cold glint she’d seen in the others—nor was it pity, exactly. Something steadier.
The sun pressed down from above, the heat rising in waves from the ground. Grasshoppers sprang from the ponies’ path in snapping arches. Somewhere far off, a hawk circled against the perfect blue sky.
Her mind churned with images she couldn’t banish: the driver slumping forward with a cry, the thud of a body hitting the dirt, the terrified faces of the passengers. She tried not to think about whether any still lived. Tried not to imagine her own fate.
An hour bled into another, and then another. The land began to change—rolling rises giving way to flatter stretches where the grass grew tall and supple, rippling like water under the breeze. At last, far ahead, faint shapes broke the horizon: ridersand ponies moving against the light, and beyond them a ring of triangular, hide-covered tepees, their pale sides catching the sun.
