Chapter 8 - The Debt Behind the Bounty
Thomas led them through the kitchen.
A servant’s door opened into an alley.
“Go.”
Eli stopped.
“You’re coming.”
“No.”
“You think I trust you here?”
Thomas almost laughed.
“You shouldn’t.”
The front door crashed inward.
Daniel grabbed Eli’s shoulder.
“We stay, we get boxed in.”
Thomas pushed a key into Eli’s palm.
“Bank of Tucson. Box 314.”
“What’s inside?”
“What Sarah gave me the morning she died.”
Eli stared.
“You had something for four years?”
“I had something I was too afraid to open.”
Men shouted inside the house.
Thomas drew his revolver.
“Now go.”
Eli and Daniel ran.
They crossed two alleys before gunfire sounded behind them.
Eli turned.
Daniel pulled him forward.
“If Thomas survives, we find him.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
“Then we find out why he finally decided to be brave.”
They reached Rosa’s stable after dark.
Tala stood in the doorway holding a rifle.
Mira was awake behind her.
When Eli showed the bank key, Tala’s eyes narrowed.
“Sarah?”
“Maybe.”
He told them what Thomas had said.
When he finished, Mira whispered something to Tala.
Tala looked troubled.
“What?”
“Our father spoke of a box.”
Eli leaned closer.
“What kind?”
“A metal box.”
“Bank?”
“No. Buried.”
Daniel sighed.
“Of course there’s another box.”
Tala ignored him.
“Nantan said Sarah divided truth into three pieces.”
Eli’s frustration rose.
“She spent half her life dividing things nobody told me existed.”
Tala understood more of the pain than he intended to show.
“She wanted you safe.”
“She wanted me ignorant.”
“Sometimes people confuse the two.”
That silenced him.
Mira spoke from the cot.
“Our father did too.”
Tala looked toward her.
Mira continued carefully.
“Nantan did not tell us everything. Only after men came.”
“When?”
“Three weeks ago.”
The sisters had been at a seasonal camp near the Chiricahua foothills when Nantan arrived injured.
He carried the photograph and told them to ride west.
He said they must find “the Crane house.”
Tala had assumed he meant Sarah.
Nantan did not know Sarah was dead.
That detail chilled Eli.
“You were trying to reach me?”
Tala shook her head.
“We were trying to reach Sarah.”
The audience reversal inside Eli’s own mind shifted again.
Their meeting in the creek bed had not been chance.
The sisters had been heading toward his ranch.
They simply did not know who would be there.
Mira said, “Our father told us not to let Voss take us alive.”
Daniel frowned.
“Because of the register?”
“No.”
Mira looked at Tala.
Tala nodded once.
Mira continued.
“Because we know where the eastern spring begins.”
Eli stared.
“What spring?”
“The water beneath Red Mesa.”
Daniel sat down.
Suddenly the bounty made more sense.
Voss had been buying ranches around failing wells.
But if another underground water source existed, control of it could determine the value of thousands of acres.
Tala said Nantan had mapped seasonal water routes learned from generations of Apache families, Mexican settlers, and early survey crews.
Voss wanted the map.
“But you don’t have one,” Eli said.
“No.”
“Then how do you know?”
Tala touched her forehead.
“Our father made us learn it.”
Alive.
That explained the wording.
A dead prisoner could not reveal a memorized route.
Daniel rubbed both hands over his face.
“Five thousand dollars isn’t a bounty.”
“No,” Eli said.
“It’s an investment.”
A knock came at the stable door.
Everyone reached for weapons.
Rosa called from below.
“Daniel.”
He relaxed slightly.
Only slightly.
He went down.
A minute later he returned carrying a telegram.
His face was gray.
“What?”
He handed it to Eli.
The message had been sent to Daniel’s freight office.
CRANE STOP
YOUR ACCOUNT WITH RED MESA NOW DUE IN FULL STOP
DELIVER WOMEN BEFORE NOON TOMORROW STOP
OR COLLATERAL WILL BE COLLECTED STOP
Eli looked up.
“What collateral?”
Daniel sat slowly.
For a long moment he could not speak.
Then he said:
“My wife and son.”
Eli froze.
Daniel had told him two years earlier that his family moved east after the marriage failed.
That had been another lie.
“They’re still in Tucson?”
Daniel nodded.
“Where?”
“Voss owns a house near the north road.”
“You left them there?”
“I thought they were protected.”
Tala stared at him in disgust.
“Protected by the man you owe?”
Daniel’s voice broke.
“I thought if I cooperated, he wouldn’t touch them.”
Eli shoved the telegram against his chest.
“Men like Voss don’t hold debts, Daniel.”
He looked toward the dark street.
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“They hold people.”
And now they had until noon.
