Chapter 2 - The Wrong House
Eli blew out the lamp.
Darkness swallowed the room.
Mira gasped from the bed.
Tala crouched beside her, one hand pressed against the fresh bandage covering her shoulder.
Outside, horses moved around the cabin.
Eli counted them by sound.
Five.
Maybe six.
The first rider Tala had knocked from his horse might still be alive.
“Back room,” Eli whispered.
Tala shook her head.
“My sister cannot run.”
“She won’t.”
Another bullet punched through the front wall.
Wood splinters sprayed across Eli’s cheek.
He felt warmth.
Blood.
Minor.
He ignored it.
His ranch cabin had been built by his father when Eli was eleven. Everyone saw a simple two-room house.
Few people knew about the crawl tunnel beneath the pantry.
His father had dug it during the Apache conflicts decades earlier, then later regretted ever needing it.
Eli had used it only once.
The night Sarah died.
That memory hit him so hard he nearly missed the movement outside.
A shadow passed the window.
Eli fired.
The man dropped flat rather than falling.
Experienced.
Not common bounty hunters.
“Crane!” the leader shouted. “Nobody here wants you dead.”
“Then quit shooting at me.”
“You’re protecting property that doesn’t belong to you.”
Tala looked at Eli sharply.
Property?
Eli frowned.
The man outside laughed.
“The women are worth money. You’re not.”
Eli pushed the pantry table aside.
A square seam appeared beneath the rug.
Tala stared.
He opened the hatch.
“Where?”
“Dry arroyo behind the house. Tunnel comes out past the corral.”
Mira moaned.
Tala leaned close to her sister and spoke softly in Apache.
Eli caught only pieces.
Safe.
Quiet.
Trust.
The last word surprised him.
Together they lowered Mira into the tunnel.
Her broken leg remained secured between the wooden splints.
She bit down on a folded cloth to keep from crying out.
Tala climbed after her.
Eli remained above.
“What are you doing?” Tala whispered.
“Making them think we’re still here.”
He dragged a chair toward the window.
Then another.
He tied his coat around one and positioned his hat above it.
A crude silhouette.
Sarah would have laughed.
The thought hurt.
He found himself remembering her voice.
You solve everything like someone is still shooting at you.
Maybe she had been right.
The front door shook under a heavy kick.
Eli grabbed the oil lamp.
He poured a thin line across the floor—not enough to burn the cabin down, only enough to flare.
Then climbed into the tunnel.
The door broke.
Boots entered.
A gun fired at the chair.
Someone cursed.
Eli struck a match.
He tossed it through the hatch.
Flames rushed briefly across the oil.
Men shouted.
Eli closed the hatch and crawled.
Behind him came pounding footsteps, then yelling.
Ahead, Tala dragged herself beside Mira.
Her strength was failing.
Eli took Mira again.
The tunnel opened behind a screen of brush twenty yards beyond the corral.
His bay horse stood trembling inside the fence.
Two enemy horses were tied nearby.
Eli smiled grimly.
Their mistake.
He cut both loose.
A slap sent them racing into darkness.
Then he saddled his own horse.
“You ride,” he told Tala.
She shook her head toward Mira.
“Both.”
“My horse can carry two slowly.”
“And you?”
“I walk.”
The same answer as if the question had been foolish.
They moved into the arroyo just as the cabin door burst open behind them.
A man shouted.
Eli guided the horse beneath an overhang of stone.
The moon disappeared.
They waited.
Riders passed above.
One said, “Voss wants them breathing.”
Eli’s attention sharpened.
Voss.
He knew the name.
Everyone in southern Arizona did.
Harlan Voss owned more cattle than some counties, financed freight lines, lent money to ranchers, and shook hands with judges.
Eli had met him twice.
Once at a cattle auction.
Once at Sarah’s funeral.
The second memory made his stomach tighten.
Hours later they reached an abandoned line shack in the hills.
Eli helped Mira onto a bunk.
Tala almost collapsed beside her.
He gave them water.
Then he unfolded the bounty notice again.
In one corner, almost hidden beneath dirt, was a tiny printer’s mark.
MESA COMMERCIAL PRESS — TUCSON.
Eli knew who owned it.
Voss.
Tala watched his face.
“You know the man?”
“I know his reputation.”
“No.”
Her voice was quiet.
“You know more.”
Eli stared into the lantern flame.
He remembered Sarah’s funeral.
Harlan Voss had stood beneath a black umbrella despite the cloudless sky.
He had shaken Eli’s hand.
And said something Eli had forgotten until now.
Some secrets bury themselves, Mr. Crane. Best to let them.
At the time, Eli had thought Voss meant grief.
Now he understood.
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Voss had not been offering sympathy.
He had been warning him.
