Chapter 7 - Gideon Vale’s Offer
Ethan wanted to shoot Pike.
The chief stopped him with one raised hand.
Pike delivered a folded paper.
Caleb opened it.
Mortgage cancellation.
Eight thousand dollars plus accumulated interest erased with one signature from Gideon Vale.
Caleb stared at the paper.
Seven years of servitude reduced to ink.
Ethan watched his brother.
“Tempting?”
Caleb folded it carefully.
“Yes.”
The honesty surprised him.
Caleb walked to the fire.
Then dropped the paper into the flames.
Pike’s expression changed.
“Vale won’t offer twice.”
“Good,” Caleb said.
“I’m tired of owing him.”
Pike turned his horse.
Ethan caught the bridle.
“Where are my cattle?”
Pike smiled.
“Alive.”
“Where?”
“Vale’s north camp.”
“You stole them.”
“I moved them.”
“Why mine?”
“Because Caleb said you’d follow their tracks anywhere.”
Ethan looked at his brother.
Caleb flinched.
“I said that years ago.”
Pike laughed.
“Mr. Vale remembers useful things.”
Ethan released the bridle.
Pike rode away.
Isaac came beside him.
“He wanted you angry.”
“He succeeded.”
“He also wanted you to know the cattle are alive.”
Ethan considered.
“Leverage.”
Caleb nodded.
“He’ll use them as bait.”
The chief spoke to Mara.
She left with two riders.
Ethan asked Isaac where they were going.
“To see whether Pike rides directly to Vale.”
“That’s dangerous.”
Isaac stared at him.
“They know.”
Again Ethan felt the limits of his instinct to protect people who had not asked him to manage their risk.
He adjusted.
“What can we do here?”
That question produced a better response.
The chief gathered everyone around Thomas’s notebook.
Caleb explained the mine.
In 1859 Thomas Cole and Gideon Vale had entered the canyon secretly with four laborers.
They found silver.
Rich silver.
Vale wanted a permanent operation.
Thomas wanted to negotiate access and water.
Vale did not.
Their partnership fractured.
Then the Civil War disrupted Arizona.
Mining stopped.
By the time Vale returned, Thomas had flooded the shafts and concealed the entrances.
“Why didn’t Father tell us?” Ethan asked.
“Because he was ashamed,” Caleb said.
“Of mining?”
“Of what happened.”
Caleb turned another page.
Near the margin Thomas had written:
R. BENTON KILLED AT LOWER SHAFT. G.V. ORDERED BLAST.
Ethan frowned.
“Who was Benton?”
“I don’t know.”
The chief reacted to the name.
Isaac listened carefully.
Then looked at Ethan.
“The chief knows.”
“How?”
“His father found a wounded white man near the canyon years ago.”
“Benton?”
Isaac translated more.
The man had been caught in an explosion.
He died that night.
Before dying he said two names.
Thomas Cole.
Gideon Vale.
Ethan stared at his father’s notebook.
Thomas had written that Vale ordered the blast.
But why?
Caleb turned the page.
A section had been cut out.
Not torn.
Cut carefully with a knife.
“Was it like that before?” Ethan asked.
Caleb shook his head.
“No.”
“Who had the notebook?”
“Father. Then you.”
“And yesterday?”
Caleb understood.
“Vale’s men.”
They had searched Ethan’s house.
Maybe they had removed pages before Caleb recovered it.
“What was on them?” Isaac asked.
Caleb stared at the missing section.
“I don’t know.”
Ethan looked at the binding.
A faint impression remained on the next page.
Writing pressure.
He angled it toward the fire.
Letters became visible.
Not enough to read.
Mara returned before midnight.
She dismounted quickly.
Isaac translated her report.
Pike had joined Vale’s camp.
Fourteen armed men.
Two wagons.
Six crates of dynamite.
And Ethan’s cattle penned near the northern shaft.
“Six crates?” Caleb whispered.
“That’s enough to bring half the ridge down.”
The chief immediately ordered the evacuation to continue.
Then Mara said something else.
Isaac looked confused.
“What?”
She repeated it.
Isaac turned to Ethan.
“She saw another prisoner in Vale’s camp.”
“Who?”
“A white-haired man.”
“That tells me nothing.”
“He called Pike by name.”
Caleb suddenly looked alarmed.
“Describe him.”
Mara did.
Thin.
Gray beard.
Missing two fingers on his left hand.
Caleb stepped backward.
“No.”
Ethan looked at him.
“You know him?”
Caleb’s face had gone pale.
“That’s impossible.”
“Who?”
Caleb stared toward Vale’s camp.
“Robert Benton.”
Ethan felt the notebook grow heavy in his hand.
“You said Father wrote that Benton died.”
“He did.”
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But somewhere beyond the ridge, a man supposedly dead for fifteen years was sitting in Gideon Vale’s camp.
And if he was truly Robert Benton, then the oldest secret in Thomas Cole’s notebook was already a lie.
