A torn strap.
A damaged piece of clothing.
A loose binding.
Small things could become serious problems when someone was far from home.
Ren had placed the needle there before the ceremony, intending to repair a loose line of beadwork.
Now it might help her survive.
She waited until the wagon passed over a rough section of trail.
Then she slipped two fingers beneath the seam.
Found the needle.
And began working carefully at the knot around her wrists.
She did not hurry.
The wagon moved through the darkness.
A coyote called somewhere beyond the rocks.
The men continued talking.
Ren listened.
Counted the turns.
Measured the time between steep descents.
And remembered every change in the sound of the wheels.
She could not see the canyon.
But she knew the land.
She had crossed these trails with her grandmother when she was younger.
Before the veil.
Before the stories.
Before her father's fear became the shape of her life.
She remembered a place where the dry wash divided beside a pale sandstone wall.
An old survey marker stood there.
A carved stone with a narrow line through its center.
If the wagon passed that marker, she would know exactly where Crane was taking her.
She worked at the rope.
One strand loosened.
Then another.
Ren took a slow breath.
She was frightened.
Terribly frightened.
But fear did not erase what she knew.
And Elias was not the only person trying to bring her home.
She intended to help.
As the first gray light appeared, the wagon slowed.
Ren heard the driver swear.
"Wheel's caught."
The vehicle stopped.
Someone climbed down.
The men began arguing about a stone lodged beneath the axle.
Ren carefully pulled one hand free.
She did not remove the covering from her head.
Instead, she reached beneath her dress and loosened a small piece of beadwork from the hem.
Six pale beads and two blue ones.
Her grandmother had arranged the colors in a pattern meant to represent the river and the dry canyon.
Ren opened her fingers.
Waited.
Then let the beads fall through a gap in the wagon boards.
They struck the ground softly.
A tiny sound.
Easily missed.
But someone searching the trail carefully might notice.
She retied the loosened rope around her wrists before the men returned.
The wagon lurched.
Then began moving again.
Several minutes later, she heard water.
Not much.
A thin trickle moving over stone.
Then a horse snorted.
Ren recognized the place.
Hawk's Tooth Wash.
The old freight road crossed a spring-fed seep before climbing toward the abandoned silver works.
She knew the route.
More importantly, she knew where it ended.
An old freight station stood in a narrow canyon surrounded by steep rock walls.
There was one main entrance.
But her grandmother once showed her a second path used by children gathering firewood.
A narrow shelf above the western wall.