Chapter 23 - Rourke’s Last Job
Eli rode after Rourke.
Tala followed despite her wound.
Daniel shouted for them to wait.
Neither did.
Rourke had a fast horse.
But Eli knew Red Mesa’s gullies from cavalry days.
He cut south.
Tala stayed beside him.
“You trust me to ride now?”
“No.”
“Good.”
They intercepted Rourke at a narrow wash.
He stopped.
Sarah’s notebook protruded from his coat.
Eli aimed.
“Give it back.”
Rourke sighed.
“You people never let a man retire.”
“Why take it?”
“Insurance.”
“Against prison?”
“Against Pike.”
“Pike is finished.”
Rourke laughed.
“No man like Pike is finished because a deputy puts iron on him.”
Tala dismounted.
“Notebook.”
Rourke looked at her.
“I saved your father.”
“You also hunted us.”
“Yes.”
“You shot Sarah’s wagon.”
“Yes.”
“You expect gratitude?”
“No.”
For once his silver-toothed smile disappeared.
“I expect consequences.”
That surprised Eli.
Rourke removed the notebook.
He did not hand it over.
“There’s something you haven’t read.”
Eli frowned.
“What?”
“The last pages.”
“I read them.”
“No.”
Rourke opened the back cover.
A thin lining separated.
Inside lay a folded sheet.
Sarah had hidden another page.
Rourke tossed it to Eli.
It was a confession.
Not Sarah’s.
Thomas Bell’s.
Dated three days after Sarah’s death.
Eli read.
Thomas admitted that after the wagon crash Sarah was alive.
Pike took the register.
Nantan escaped with torn pages.
Thomas remained with Sarah.
She begged him to carry her to town.
He tried.
Then riders returned.
Pike’s men.
Thomas panicked.
Sarah told him to run with her notebook.
He refused to leave her.
Then Pike offered Thomas a choice.
Hand over the notebook, and Sarah would be taken to a doctor.
Refuse, and both would die.
Thomas surrendered the notebook.
Pike took it.
Then left Sarah anyway.
Thomas found her dead less than an hour later.
He later stole the notebook back from Pike’s Tucson office.
But he could never admit what he had done.
Eli lowered the page.
Tala asked, “Thomas gave Pike the book?”
“Yes.”
“Did Pike kill Sarah?”
The confession said Sarah died from injuries after the wreck.
But Pike prevented immediate medical help.
Murder in spirit, perhaps law.
Rourke had fired the shot that caused the crash.
Thomas had surrendered leverage.
Daniel had revealed Sarah’s route.
No single hand killed her.
That was the horror.
A chain of cowardice, greed, fear, and obedience killed Sarah Crane.
Pike merely built the chain.
Eli felt something shift inside him.
For four years he wanted one man to hate.
One target.
One bullet.
Reality offered something harder.
Responsibility without simplicity.
Rourke watched him.
“I told you. Bad decisions in rapid succession.”
“You still fired.”
“Yes.”
“Why confess now?”
Rourke looked toward the horizon.
“Because Pike kept a list of men he planned to blame. I was first.”
“That’s self-interest.”
“Mostly.”
“Mostly?”
Rourke smiled faintly.
“Your wife once gave me water.”
Eli stared.
Rourke explained.
Days before her death, he had followed Sarah through the desert.
His horse went lame.
He walked for hours.
Sarah found him without recognizing him as the man tracking her.
She gave him water.
Then rode away.
“She helped you.”
“Yes.”
“And you still followed her.”
“Yes.”
Tala’s face showed disgust.
Rourke nodded.
“Exactly.”
He held out the notebook.
“I spent four years understanding that.”
Eli took it.
Rourke removed his gun belt and dropped it into the dirt.
“What are you doing?”
“Going back.”
“To jail?”
“To testify.”
Eli almost suspected another trick.
Rourke saw it.
“Don’t mistake me for a good man, Crane.”
“I don’t.”
“Good.”
They rode back together.
At Red Mesa, Pike sat under guard.
Thomas read his confession.
His face collapsed.
“You found it.”
Eli said, “You wrote it.”
“I never meant anyone to.”
“Sarah hid it.”
Thomas looked toward the ground.
“I failed her.”
Eli thought of Daniel.
Rourke.
Voss.
Himself.
Everyone wanted absolution.
Nobody deserved easy absolution.
“She needed you,” Eli said.
“Yes.”
“And you were afraid.”
“Yes.”
“That doesn’t disappear because you’re sorry.”
Thomas nodded.
“I know.”
It was the only answer Eli could accept.
Then Ben Lowell approached.
A rider from Tucson had arrived with a telegram.
Federal authorities were coming.
Pike would be formally arrested.
Voss was also wanted.
Daniel read the final line.
HARLAN VOSS LAST SEEN RIDING NORTH WITH PRIVATE PAPERS.
Eli looked toward Rourke.
“You said he was gone.”
“He is.”
“Where?”
Rourke shrugged.
“I’m not his keeper.”
Tala looked toward Nantan.
Her father spoke quietly.
Then she translated.
“He knows where Voss went.”
“Where?”
Nantan pointed north.
“Crane ranch.”
Eli frowned.
Why would Voss go back there?
Nantan answered before asked.
“Because there is one thing Pike never found.”
The original survey.
Not a copy.
Not notes.
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The document that could decide who legally controlled the water.
And according to Nantan, Sarah had hidden it beneath the graveyard.
