Chapter 13 - Under the Mountain
The explosion erased sound for several seconds.
James opened his eyes in darkness.
His ears rang.
Stone dust filled his mouth.
Somewhere, Eleanor coughed.
“James?”
“I’m here.”
Samuel answered next.
Then one deputy.
The second did not.
They found him beneath a fallen timber, alive but with a broken leg.
James lit a lantern.
The tunnel behind them was sealed by rock.
Silas was gone.
“He planned it,” Eleanor whispered.
James examined the broken supports.
Drilled holes.
Powder residue.
“Yes.”
The court order had merely changed the timing.
James looked toward the underground lake.
There had to be another exit.
Old maps showed multiple channels.
Samuel unrolled a small tracing.
Mercer had stolen one copy.
They still had another.
“South passage,” Samuel said.
James raised the lantern.
A narrow shelf followed the cavern wall.
They splinted the deputy’s leg using broken timber.
Movement was slow.
Every sound seemed amplified underground.
Water dripped.
Stone groaned.
James thought about the ranch above.
About Ruth recovering.
About Lena waiting outside the shaft.
About Amos still tied near Mercer’s men.
Then he thought about Silas.
If they died inside, the story would be simple.
Illegal trespass.
Tragic collapse.
Perhaps blamed on unstable geology.
Silas would mourn publicly.
James almost laughed.
Eleanor heard.
“What?”
“Imagining Mercer’s funeral speech.”
“For us?”
“He’ll say I was stubborn but respected.”
Eleanor smiled despite herself.
“He’ll call me unusually capable for a woman.”
“That’s colder than murder.”
They moved for hours.
At one point the shelf disappeared beneath water.
James tested the depth.
Chest high.
Cold.
The injured deputy could not cross alone.
James carried him.
Halfway through, his foot slipped.
The water swallowed them.
Samuel grabbed James’s collar.
Together they reached stone.
Nobody spoke for several minutes.
The deputy whispered, “You could’ve left me.”
James answered, “Bad habit.”
The words reminded him of the sisters.
You gave your horse and walked.
What else was I supposed to do?
Mercy, he realized, was rarely dramatic while it happened.
Usually it felt inconvenient.
Heavy.
Expensive.
Near dawn, they found markings on the cave wall.
Old charcoal.
Samuel touched them carefully.
“What are they?”
“Directions.”
“Apache?”
Samuel nodded.
People had known these passages generations before surveyors drew maps.
Again, James felt the arrogance of the word discovery.
Elias had not discovered the water.
Whitcomb had not.
Mercer certainly had not.
They were late arrivals to knowledge already carried by others.
The marks led toward a rising passage.
Fresh air appeared.
Then daylight.
They emerged beneath cottonwoods two miles south of the ranch.
Lena was waiting.
She ran to Samuel first.
Then James.
Her relief was visible.
Ruth had insisted riders search the southern outlets after hearing the explosion.
James looked toward the ranch.
“Silas?”
“Gone.”
“Amos?”
Lena smiled.
She whistled.
The bay horse appeared between the trees led by Ruth, who should not have been walking that far.
James crossed quickly.
He pressed his forehead against Amos’s face.
Then looked at Ruth.
“You stole him back?”
Samuel translated.
Ruth shook her head.
“She says he bit the man holding him and came home.”
James laughed.
“That sounds like him.”
The injured deputy was taken to the physician.
Eleanor immediately wrote affidavits describing the explosion.
The surviving deputy signed.
That mattered.
Silas could no longer dismiss every accusation as Carter propaganda.
By afternoon, warrants were requested.
By evening, they learned Silas had reached Benson first.
His story:
Apache saboteurs had attacked the north shaft.
He claimed James and Eleanor disappeared during the chaos.
He expressed concern for their safety.
James stared at the newspaper proof.
“He buried us and announced we were missing.”
Eleanor said, “He also blamed the Apache again.”
The elder listened.
His anger remained controlled.
That control impressed James more than shouting would have.
Samuel translated.
“He says Mercer’s greatest weapon is making every action serve the same lie.”
James nodded.
“Then we need a truth he can’t bend.”
The underground lake proved the scale of the resource.
But access was dangerous.
The historical agreement mattered.
Still, Silas possessed wealth and influence.
James needed something tied directly to present crimes.
Caleb provided it.
He approached James near dusk.
“I know where Mercer keeps his private books.”
James stared.
“You waited until now?”
“I was hoping not to die.”
“That excuse is wearing thin.”
Caleb looked ashamed.
“His main ledger is at the Mercer ranch. Office safe.”
“What’s in it?”
“Payments. Judges. Deputies. Newspaper men. Gunmen.”
Eleanor overheard.
“That would be useful.”
James looked at her.
“That is lawyer language for devastating.”
“Yes.”
Caleb continued.
“There’s something else.”
“What?”
“Letters from Thomas.”
James’s pulse shifted.
“How many?”
“Years of them.”
James stepped closer.
“You’ve seen them?”
“No. Mercer keeps them tied together.”
“Why?”
“He says they prove a Carter always breaks eventually.”
James’s anger returned.
“Then I want them.”
Eleanor shook her head.
“You cannot break into Mercer’s house.”
James looked toward the distant northern ranch.
“He broke into mine.”
“That is emotionally satisfying and legally useless.”
Samuel smiled.
James did not.
Before they could decide, a rider arrived carrying a telegram from Tucson.
The federal land office had located Elias Carter’s original complaint.
Attached to it was a sealed statement.
Written by Daniel Whitcomb.
Dated the day before his death.
James read the telegram twice.
Whitcomb had apparently confessed participation in Gideon Mercer’s fraudulent claim scheme.
And he had named a fourth man.
Not Elias.
Not Gideon.
Not Nathaniel Whitcomb.
A government survey official.
Someone whose family still held political power in Arizona.
Eleanor read the name.
Her face drained.
James asked, “Who is he?”
May you like
![92 The Girl They Called Broke Was a Billionaire’s Daughter—But Her Father’s Arrival Exposed a Secret Powerful People Had Buried for Years]](https://cdn.treeiq.biz/site_590/2026/11/clone-0-0915d882-53d7-4d17-b43a-a010ca1a1068.webp)
She looked up.
“Judge Henry Bell’s father.”
