Luke Hale had crossed half of Arizona chasing stray steers, but he had never heard a canyon scream before. Tonight it did—timber cracking, fire roaring like a train with no tracks. He rode toward the orange mouth, cursing the wind that carried sparks across dry grass, and found the source: a fallen pine pinning someone beneath its burning bulk.
He vaulted off, hat flying, and wrapped his arms around the trunk. Heat blistered his forearms, but he lifted, tendons straining, until a figure rolled free—an Apache woman, tall as a cottonwood, clothes smoking, eyes wild with pain and fury.
“You… saved me?” she rasped, as if the words tasted foreign.
“I couldn’t leave you there,” Luke panted, patting out embers on her sleeve.
Her gaze hardened. “Then you should have left. My tribe will think you claimed me. Apache law says the man who pulls a woman from death must share her future—every dawn, every decision, every danger.”
Luke’s stomach dropped. “I don’t even know your name.”
“Takala,” she answered, and the wind seemed to repeat it. “And tonight you became part of my story, whether you meant to or not.”
She pointed to the ridge where torchlights already flickered—riders coming to find what the fire had taken or given. “They will be here before dawn. They will decide what that new life means—for both of us.”
Luke felt the weight settle—equal parts terror and wonder. He had only wanted to beat back flames; instead he had stepped into legend, wrapped in smoke and someone else’s law.
Takala straightened, firelight licking across the burn on her arm—an angry red welt that matched the one forming on his own. Two scars, same log, same second. She touched hers lightly. “These marks are witnesses. They will tell the council you chose the path the fire opened.”
In the distance coyotes howled, either warning or welcome—Luke couldn’t tell. He looked at the woman who stood like a spear between him and whatever came next, and realized the canyon had not screamed for help; it had screamed for change.
“Then we walk the same path,” he said, surprised at the steadiness in his own voice. “Together—at least until your people decide whether I live or die.”
Takala’s expression softened—just a flicker—before the night closed around them again. “Fire took my yesterday,” she murmured. “You gave me tomorrow. Whatever price it asks, we pay it side by side.”
Torches appeared on the ridge line, bobbing like low stars. Luke took a deep breath, tasted ash and promise, and waited for dawn to seal the destiny he had grabbed with both blistered hands.
