He jerked the tree limb back level with his shoulder as if it were a baseball bat and ran toward them, yelling until the muscles along each side of his throat burned. The wolves scattered. Wyatt took a wild swing and hit one of them. Domino charged in like a black-and-white ghost in the darkness and tangled briefly with a wild dog four times his size. It was the wolf that broke away and ran with its tail tucked between its legs. Not Dom. And Wyatt had never felt such a surge of pride in his life.

“Good boy!” he cried, running over to the dog with tears in his eyes. He gathered Domino into his arms for a quick hug. “You are awesome!”

Then Wyatt remembered Erin and doubled back to eat up the distance between them with strides so long that the muscles of his groin panged. Erin left the rifle lying on the ground and rose to her knees. Wyatt did a home base slide on his own knees as he braked. When their bodies collided, he grabbed her in his arms, locked his muscles tight, and cried, “Are you all right? Did they hurt you? Answer me, damn it!”

Only she couldn’t. He felt the vibration of her voice. It moved through his tightly clenched arms and into his chest. But he couldn’t hear a word she said. He set her slightly away from him. In the faint moonlight, he could see her precious face, but there wasn’t enough illumination for him to read her lips. He began to run his hands over her, feeling for any sign of dampness to indicate she was bleeding. And suddenly she grabbed his wrists, shoved his arms back, and then drew his hands to her chest. He felt her fingers moving. And then she thumped herself between her breasts. He realized she was telling him something in ASL. “I’m okay.”

Wyatt felt as if all his bones dissolved. He grabbed her again, so relieved that tears came to his eyes.

She pulled away and scrambled to her feet. He followed her to the horses. She moved in on Barbwire. He saw her arm come up and knew that she’d put her hand on the rump of the mule to let him know she was there. For the second time in just as many minutes, Wyatt felt fiercely proud. While he’d been watching her work with Firecracker day after day, she’d become one hell of a horsewoman. He moved forward.

“Erin, did they get to him?” he asked. “Answer me.”

She turned and began signing with her hands against his chest. Wyatt couldn’t quite get what she was saying. In ASL, the signs weren’t confined to only hand and finger movement; they included gestures, and it was next to impossible for him to catch everything in the darkness. In that moment, he felt as impotent as an old man and every bit as useless. Maybe he was more useless. Even old men weren’t stone deaf. They could at least hear part of what was said to them.