Chapter 15 - The Second Marker
Tala developed a fever before dawn.
They sheltered in an abandoned shepherd’s hut.
Eli cleaned the reopened wound.
“No bullet inside,” he said.
“Then stop looking for one.”
“You’re getting meaner.”
“I am getting tired.”
“That too.”
Tala watched him prepare fresh bandages.
“You were married long?”
“Twelve years.”
“You loved her?”
Eli paused.
“Yes.”
“Still?”
He looked at Tala.
“That doesn’t stop because someone dies.”
She nodded as though she understood.
Maybe she did.
“Then why angry at her?”
“Because dead people leave questions and never have to answer.”
Tala almost smiled.
“Our father does that while alive.”
The moment of humor vanished when Daniel returned from scouting.
“No pursuit.”
Eli tied Tala’s bandage.
Then opened Sarah’s notebook.
He had been thinking about the note hidden with the map.
Daniel must never know where the second marker is.
Why would his father distrust Daniel as a boy?
Daniel was only fifteen in 1869.
Unless the sentence had been added later.
Eli compared ink.
Different.
His father had written it years after the original map.
Daniel noticed him staring.
“What are you hiding?”
Eli closed the notebook.
“Nothing.”
Daniel laughed bitterly.
“There it is.”
“What?”
“You sound like Sarah.”
Eli looked away.
Daniel sat.
“You think secrecy protects people.”
The accusation was deserved.
Eli took out the note.
Daniel read it.
His face changed.
“I was nineteen when Father stopped trusting me.”
“Why?”
“You know.”
“No.”
Daniel stared through the doorway.
“Gambling.”
Eli remembered.
Daniel had disappeared for weeks.
Their father paid a debt.
Nobody explained.
Daniel continued.
“I owed men in Tucson. Father found out I’d used the ranch name as collateral.”
Eli’s jaw tightened.
“At nineteen?”
“I was stupid.”
“You forged his signature?”
“Yes.”
That explained their father’s warning.
But Daniel said something else.
“Pike bought the debt.”
Eli looked sharply.
“What?”
“Edwin Pike.”
At nineteen, Daniel had already been caught in Pike’s net.
Pike canceled the gambling debt in return for small favors.
Deliver a letter.
Copy a ranch invoice.
Report where Samuel Crane rode.
“Why didn’t Father throw you out?”
“He nearly did.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You were already joining cavalry scouts. He thought you’d kill somebody.”
Eli sat back.
Another family secret built from fear of his temper.
Sarah had inherited the same strategy.
Keep Eli ignorant.
Keep Eli safe.
Keep everyone safe from Eli.
It had failed every time.
“What second marker?”
Daniel shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
Eli believed him.
The note did not say Daniel knew.
It said he must never know.
Meaning the marker protected something Pike hoped Daniel might accidentally expose.
Eli remembered another childhood place.
Not Dry Crow.
A stone post near Sarah’s grave?
No.
Their mother’s old peach orchard?
Then it came.
The northern well.
His father had once set a carved sandstone slab beside it.
Eli assumed it marked depth.
After his father died, the slab vanished.
Sarah later used a similar stone as the base of her garden bench.
He could see it now.
A spiral carved beneath the seat.
A marker moved deliberately into the yard.
Sarah must have found it.
“Ranch,” Eli said.
Daniel frowned.
“What?”
“The second marker is at the ranch.”
Pike had just legally seized the property.
And his men were likely searching it now.
Tala tried to stand.
Eli pushed her gently back.
“No.”
“You need eyes.”
“You need rest.”
“I can ride.”
“You nearly fainted.”
“I did not.”
“You fell sideways.”
“Horse moved.”
Daniel laughed before he could stop himself.
Tala glared.
Eli almost smiled.
Then seriousness returned.
They needed the marker.
But they also needed Nantan.
Copper Wash lay north.
The ranch east.
They could not do both quickly.
Eli made the choice.
“Nantan first.”
Tala stared.
“Your land?”
“Can wait.”
“Evidence?”
“Can wait.”
“Why?”
“Because your father is alive.”
Tala’s expression changed.
Eli realized no one had chosen her family over property before.
Not in this chase.
Maybe not in years.
Daniel nodded.
“Copper Wash.”
They rode at sunset.
Tala tied herself to the saddle with rope so weakness could not drop her.
Near midnight they saw lanterns in the distance.
A camp below red cliffs.
Six tents.
Two wagons.
Armed guards.
And one man tied to a chair near the central fire.
Tala stopped breathing.
Even from the ridge, she recognized him.
“Nantan.”
Her father was alive.
Then a second figure walked into the firelight.
Caleb Rourke.
He leaned toward Nantan.
And held up a knife.
Not to threaten him.
To cut his ropes.
Eli frowned.
Rourke looked around.
Then whispered something to Nantan.
The older Apache man stood unsteadily.
Rourke pointed toward a waiting horse.
Tala stared.
“The hunter is freeing him.”
Eli had no explanation.
Until Rourke turned toward the ridge.
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Straight toward them.
As if he had known they were there all along.
