Chapter 15 - The Freight Station
Vale owned an abandoned freight station near Dry Creek.
Caleb had delivered men there before.
“Men?”
Ethan stared.
“Debtors. workers. thieves.”
“Prisoners.”
Caleb did not argue.
“Yes.”
They rode at dusk.
Ethan, Caleb, Isaac and three village scouts.
Mara remained with the injured escort despite wanting to come.
The chief had asked her to protect the remaining documents.
The freight station appeared beneath a line of cottonwoods.
Two guards outside.
One inside.
Caleb knew their routines.
“I trained them.”
Ethan looked at him.
“That sentence keeps getting worse.”
“I know.”
They waited until moonrise.
Isaac moved behind the corral.
A scout created noise near the creek.
One guard investigated.
Caleb approached the second openly.
The man recognized him.
“Cole?”
Caleb punched him.
Ethan caught the falling rifle.
“Subtle.”
“I’m changing.”
They entered.
The captured rider was tied in a storage room.
Alive.
Beside him lay another prisoner.
A young white surveyor.
Ethan cut both free.
The surveyor introduced himself as Nathan Reeves.
“Vale hired me.”
“For the canyon?”
“Yes.”
Caleb grabbed his shirt.
“You placed the stakes.”
Reeves nodded.
“I thought it was mining work.”
“You mapped the spring?”
“Yes.”
“You knew they buried it?”
“Not until afterward.”
Caleb released him.
Ethan asked, “Why are you a prisoner?”
Reeves swallowed.
“Because I kept copies.”
“Of what?”
“The surveys.”
Ethan leaned closer.
“Show me.”
Reeves laughed weakly.
“Not here.”
Outside, a bell rang.
Alarm.
They escaped through the rear.
Gunfire followed.
A bullet struck the wagon beside Ethan.
The village scouts returned fire from cover.
No one pursued far.
By dawn they reached safety.
Reeves removed one boot.
Inside the sole he had hidden thin folded papers.
Survey diagrams.
Ethan spread them out.
Reeves pointed toward the canyon.
“Vale isn’t only after silver.”
Caleb looked irritated.
“Everyone keeps saying that.”
Reeves continued.
“A railroad consortium is studying a southern route.”
Ethan frowned.
“No tracks planned that far west.”
“Not publicly.”
Reeves showed a map.
A potential freight corridor passed through the canyon.
Water access would make it valuable.
“Vale bought adjacent land?”
“Options on it.”
“So forcing the village away gives him control of water and a transportation pass.”
“Yes.”
Silver was immediate wealth.
The canyon was long-term power.
Caleb stared at the maps.
“How much?”
Ethan looked at him.
Caleb sighed.
“Not because I want it.”
A beat.
“I’m trying to understand Vale.”
Reeves answered.
“Millions eventually.”
That silenced everyone.
Vale’s willingness to kill suddenly made terrible economic sense.
The village stood between him and more than a mine.
It stood between him and a corridor connecting mines, ranches and future rail transport.
The chief examined the map.
Isaac translated his reaction.
“He says men draw lines as though the earth agreed.”
Reeves lowered his eyes.
“I drew them.”
“Can you testify?”
“Yes.”
“Will you?”
Reeves hesitated.
Everyone noticed.
“My wife is in Tucson.”
Ethan understood.
Vale would threaten her.
“We get her out first.”
Reeves looked surprised.
“You’d do that?”
Ethan almost laughed.
The entire disaster had begun because he offered water before asking what he would receive.
“Yes.”
Reeves gave an address.
Mara volunteered to go with another document carrier.
This time they would travel disguised as a small trading party.
Before leaving, Reeves showed Ethan one final survey sheet.
“There’s something else.”
A symbol marked beneath the original spring.
“What?”
“When we drilled test holes, we hit timber.”
“Mine supports?”
“No.”
Reeves shook his head.
“Too shallow.”
Caleb leaned over the paper.
“Then what?”
“A buried chamber.”
Benton, who had joined them, suddenly went pale.
“What shape?”
Reeves described it.
Benton sat down.
“Thomas built that.”
Ethan turned.
“For what?”
Benton looked at the chief.
Then at Ethan.
“Records.”
“What records?”
“Everything he couldn’t leave at the bank.”
Thomas had hidden another archive directly beneath the spring Vale destroyed.
Perhaps Vale knew.
Perhaps that was why he buried the water there.
Not merely to force the village away.
To uncover Thomas Cole’s last cache.
Ethan stared toward the canyon.
His father had scattered truth in pieces across Arizona.
Bank boxes.
Notebooks.
Silver chambers.
Buried records.
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Every secret had required another secret to protect it.
And now Gideon Vale was digging directly toward the final one.
