Chapter 4 - Smoke in the VaultDaniel kicked the vault door.
It did not move.
“Ayana.”
She was already searching.
The smoke thickened.
It smelled wrong.
Not wood.
Oil.
Someone had deliberately started a fire.
Daniel hammered the door with the butt of his revolver.
“Help!”
No answer.
Ayana examined the shelves.
“Air vent.”
Near the ceiling sat a narrow iron grate.
Too small for either of them.
Daniel pulled a stool underneath.
He climbed and struck the grate.
Once.
Twice.
The third blow loosened one corner.
Ayana joined him.
Together they tore it free.
Fresh air rushed through.
Not enough.
But something.
Daniel shouted through the opening.
Finally a voice answered from the alley.
A delivery boy.
Daniel told him to find Sheriff James Dalton.
Minutes stretched painfully.
Smoke filled the upper half of the vault.
Daniel and Ayana lay close to the floor.
Ayana coughed.
Daniel looked at her.
Months earlier she had stood captive behind a fence because armed men thought fear gave them ownership over her choices.
Now someone had put her inside another locked place because of Daniel’s family secrets.
The thought filled him with rage.
“I’m sorry.”
Ayana turned toward him.
“For what?”
“You shouldn’t be here.”
“Do not decide where I should be.”
Daniel almost laughed despite the smoke.
“You really remember everything I say.”
“Only the foolish things.”
Boots thundered outside.
Metal scraped.
The door opened.
Sheriff Dalton and two townsmen dragged them out.
The fire had been started in a supply closet beside the vault.
Fortunately it had not spread far.
Unfortunately the bank clerk was gone.
Pike claimed ignorance.
Naturally.
He arrived ten minutes later wearing concern like a clean coat.
“Good God, Harper.”
Daniel wanted to hit him.
Ayana caught Daniel’s sleeve.
Not now.
Pike noticed the gesture.
“Were you harmed?”
“No,” Daniel said.
“What were you doing in my bank vault?”
“Using a legal key to open my father’s box.”
Pike’s face remained controlled.
But his eyes changed.
“What box?”
“Seventeen.”
Silence.
Sheriff Dalton noticed.
Daniel saw that he noticed.
Pike recovered.
“I wasn't aware Elias kept one.”
Daniel smiled coldly.
“You're a poor liar too.”
Dalton stepped between them.
“That’s enough.”
He questioned the bank staff.
Nobody admitted seeing the clerk leave.
By sunset they learned the man's name was Walter Finch.
He had worked at the bank for only six months.
He had disappeared with his belongings.
Daniel and Ayana returned to the ranch with the documents.
They spent the night studying them.
The survey revealed that beneath the north pasture lay a pressurized underground water basin feeding several springs across the valley.
Not merely Daniel’s property.
Neighboring ranches unknowingly depended on it.
The Harper–Pike Development Company had intended to acquire those properties cheaply, divert the water, then resell access.
Daniel stared at figures written by his father.
“It would have ruined half the valley.”
Ayana pointed to a notation.
“Your father stopped signing.”
She was right.
Early pages bore both Elias and Pike’s initials.
Later ones only Pike’s.
Then Elias began writing objections.
Daniel read one aloud.
Unauthorized diversion will leave the Ortega tract dry before summer.
Another:
Pike refuses to notify landowners of the basin connection.
Another:
No blasting. Risk to northern spring.
Daniel felt some of the anger toward his father shift.
Not disappear.
Elias had helped start this.
But he had tried to stop it.
A separate page contained names.
Seven ranchers.
Three widows.
A freight company.
And an Apache seasonal water route Elias identified only as eastern passage.
Ayana stared at that phrase.
“What?”
“My family used a spring east of here.”
Daniel turned toward her.
“Used?”
“It stopped running two summers ago.”
They looked at one another.
Daniel's stomach tightened.
Pike's operation had already begun.
Ayana traced the map.
“If they changed the water underground…”
“Then your family's spring could have been affected.”
She withdrew her hand.
For the first time Daniel saw something sharper than suspicion in her face.
Grief becoming anger.
Pike had not merely wanted land.
He had been manipulating survival.
Daniel continued through the documents.
Near dawn he discovered a list of payments.
One name appeared repeatedly.
W. Mercer.
Wade Mercer.
The outlaw.
Another name made Daniel sit upright.
S. Crane.
Silas Crane.
Sheriff Dalton’s senior deputy.
Daniel read the entries again.
Ayana stood.
“The man who arrested Wade?”
“Yes.”
Silas Crane had been one of the deputies surrounding the warehouse.
Daniel suddenly remembered something.
Crane had insisted on transporting Wade personally.
Wade had supposedly been sent to the territorial jail.
Yet Ayana’s map months later would show some members of the gang still free.
Daniel went cold.
Ayana said, “Your sheriff may have a traitor.”
Daniel folded the papers.
“And Pike may have someone inside the law.”
At sunrise a rider appeared near the gate.
Chester Hale.
He looked terrified.
“Daniel!”
Daniel stepped outside.
“What happened?”
Hale slid from his horse.
“Wade Mercer never reached the territorial jail.”
Daniel stared.
Hale continued.
“The prison transfer papers were forged.”
“By whom?”
Hale swallowed.
“Deputy Crane.”
Ayana emerged behind Daniel.
Hale looked at them both.
“And that isn’t the worst of it.”
He pulled a folded notice from his coat.
Daniel opened it.
It was a foreclosure document.
According to the paper, Daniel’s ranch secured an unpaid eight-thousand-dollar loan from Harlan Pike’s bank.
Daniel had never borrowed eight thousand dollars.
The signature at the bottom was supposedly his father’s.
Hale whispered, “Pike isn’t planning to buy your ranch anymore.”
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Daniel looked toward the north pasture.
“He’s planning to take it.”
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