Chapter 21 - The Road to Red Mesa
Rosa was alive.
That was the first mercy.
They found her stable wrecked, one door broken, blood on the floor from a guard she had struck with a shovel.
Rebecca and Samuel had escaped through a rear alley.
Mira had refused to let Rosa risk the child by fighting.
She surrendered.
Eli listened quietly.
Then asked, “How long ago?”
“Two hours.”
Thomas studied the road map.
“They’ll reach Red Mesa before dawn.”
Rourke loaded cartridges.
“Then we hit them before.”
“No,” Eli said.
Everyone looked at him.
Rourke frowned.
“You have another army?”
“Pike expects pursuit.”
“Correct.”
“He expects me angry.”
“Also correct.”
“He expects us to race after Mira and walk into whatever he prepared.”
Daniel stared.
“You’re not going?”
“I’m going.”
Eli took Sarah’s notebook from Rosa.
“But not blind.”
Chapter twenty-one began the endgame with one decision.
No more reacting.
For four years Pike had moved everyone else.
Now Eli would make him respond.
They divided.
Daniel took Rebecca and Samuel to the home of Deputy Ben Lowell’s mother.
Thomas went to the federal telegraph office with copies of Sarah’s records.
He would send summaries to the territorial attorney in Prescott and to a newspaper in Phoenix.
Not accusations alone.
Names.
Dates.
Payments.
The evidence needed to become impossible to bury.
Sarah’s instruction.
Make the truth impossible to buy.
Rourke rode toward Voss’s Red Mesa house.
If Voss truly kept an archive, they needed it.
Eli rode alone toward Red Mesa camp.
“Alone?” Daniel asked.
“Pike wants me.”
“He’ll kill you.”
“No.”
Eli looked at his brother.
“He wants the notebook.”
Daniel understood.
Bait.
Before leaving, Daniel stopped him.
“I’m coming.”
“No.”
“I’m done being left behind.”
“This isn’t punishment.”
“I know.”
Daniel looked toward Rebecca and Samuel.
“For once I know exactly what I’m risking.”
Eli studied him.
Then nodded.
They rode together.
At sunrise, Red Mesa spread beneath them.
Huge corrals.
A stone ranch house.
Water tanks.
Dozens of cattle.
And beneath the eastern bluff, an old survey building.
Eli saw three prisoners.
Tala.
Mira.
Nantan.
Mira sat in a wagon because of her splinted leg.
Tala’s shoulder remained bandaged.
Nantan stood between guards.
Pike waited near a table covered in maps.
Voss was nowhere visible.
Eli and Daniel rode down.
Rifles immediately surrounded them.
Pike smiled.
“You learn slowly, Mr. Crane.”
Eli dismounted.
“I brought what you want.”
He held up Sarah’s notebook.
Tala’s eyes widened.
Pike gestured.
A guard took it.
Pike opened the cover.
He turned several pages.
“This is the index.”
“Yes.”
“Where are the register pages?”
“Somewhere you can’t reach.”
Pike’s eyes sharpened.
“Thomas?”
“Maybe.”
“Voss?”
“Maybe.”
Pike looked at Daniel.
“And what does your brother contribute?”
Daniel answered.
“Bad decisions.”
Pike almost smiled.
“Finally, self-awareness.”
He ordered Mira brought forward.
She looked pale but alert.
Her splint remained intact.
At least Pike’s men had not worsened the injury.
Pike spread a survey map.
“Draw the underground channel.”
Mira stared at it.
“No.”
Pike nodded to a guard.
The man struck Daniel in the stomach.
Daniel doubled over.
Eli moved.
Rifles rose.
Pike said, “We will discover whose suffering changes your minds first.”
Tala stepped forward.
“You think we memorize lines.”
Pike looked at her.
“We memorize places.”
“What difference?”
“You cannot draw what you do not understand.”
Pike’s patience thinned.
“Then teach me.”
Tala smiled.
“No.”
Pike turned to Eli.
“Your mercy has become inconvenient.”
Eli met his gaze.
“You still don’t understand it.”
“No?”
“No.”
Eli looked toward the ridge.
Pike followed his eyes.
Nothing.
Then a distant sound.
A train whistle.
Impossible.
No railroad ran near Red Mesa.
Pike frowned.
Another whistle.
Then another.
Signals.
Rourke.
From three directions, riders appeared.
Not an army.
Ranchers.
Mexican farmers.
Apache families.
Freighters.
People whose names filled Sarah’s notebook.
Thomas had not merely telegraphed officials.
Ben Lowell had spread the evidence locally.
Families whose land Voss took had come.
Pike stared.
Eli said quietly:
“You built your power by making everyone believe they were alone.”
The riders kept appearing.
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“And Sarah left us a list proving we weren’t.”
For the first time, Edwin Pike looked afraid.
