Chapter 7 - The Spy Among Them
The signal did not repeat.
James wanted to search everyone immediately.
The elder refused.
Not because he dismissed the danger.
Because panic would accomplish Silas’s work for him.
Seven hundred riders represented multiple extended families and communities, not a single military unit. Some knew one another well. Others had traveled long distances for the water council.
Accusing the wrong person could fracture trust precisely when Silas wanted them divided.
James accepted the logic.
He disliked every second of it.
At dawn, the grave was opened.
Only a small group attended: James, Samuel, the elder, Lena, two older men connected to the family that had buried Whitcomb, and a territorial physician from Benson who happened to be staying at a nearby ranch and agreed to witness the excavation.
James insisted on a written record.
“If Mercer challenges this,” he said, “I want every step documented.”
The physician nodded.
The grave had been shallow by modern standards but carefully built.
Beneath stones and dry earth lay the remains of a wooden box collapsed by decades.
Nobody treated the site casually.
When bones appeared, work slowed.
James felt no triumph.
Only discomfort.
A dead man was being disturbed because living men had failed to settle the truth.
Near the remains lay a leather case.
The hinges had corroded.
Inside were ruined papers.
Most had dissolved into brown fragments.
One notebook survived because it had been wrapped in waxed cloth.
Whitcomb’s field book.
James stared at it.
Forty years of violence, secrets, and land deals had circled this object.
The physician opened it carefully.
Pages near the edges were damaged.
The center remained readable.
Measurements.
Compass headings.
Water observations.
Names.
Gideon Mercer.
Elias Carter.
Several Apache guides identified only by marks or badly recorded approximations.
James’s jaw tightened at that.
Whitcomb had depended on people whose knowledge he reduced to symbols.
The field notes revealed two competing survey lines.
The first allowed Gideon Mercer to claim the main spring and northern channel.
The second moved the boundary west and placed the spring within the Carter parcel.
Someone had altered it.
James found Elias’s handwriting in the margin.
Correction ordered after fraudulent private claim discovered.
Beneath that:
Whitcomb refuses.
James exhaled.
Not proof of innocence.
But evidence.
Then Samuel found something more important.
A page dated three days before Whitcomb’s death.
Agreement proposed: Carter holds surface filing. Water access preserved for Apache camps and travelers. No exclusive sale without consent of both parties.
James read it again.
“Both parties.”
Samuel nodded.
The elder watched closely.
That sentence meant Silas could not simply purchase James’s ranch and claim exclusive control if the agreement remained legally relevant.
But relevance was the question.
A forty-year-old handwritten note was not automatically enforceable law.
James understood enough to know they needed more.
The final pages described the underground channels.
Whitcomb had recorded flow rates.
He believed the system was enormous.
Not an endless underground river, but a network of limestone cavities supplied by distant mountain recharge.
One line stood out.
Northern excavation must cease. Collapse risk severe. Pressure diversion could drain southern spring permanently.
James looked at Samuel.
“That’s what Silas is doing.”
The physician read it and swore quietly.
They copied the relevant pages before returning the notebook to a new protective wrapping.
The elder insisted Whitcomb’s remains be reburied immediately.
James agreed.
As they finished, Lena noticed something near the edge of the grave.
A brass button.
New.
James picked it up.
The metal was polished.
Stamped with a small letter M.
Mercer cattle uniforms used such buttons on winter coats.
Someone had opened the grave recently.
Samuel looked around.
James examined the disturbed stone.
They had assumed the weather caused it.
Now he saw marks from a shovel.
“Silas knew the notebook was here.”
The elder answered.
Samuel translated.
“Or someone told him.”
The spy.
James slipped the button into his pocket.
When they returned to camp, tension had spread.
Word traveled even when nobody meant it to.
Samuel quietly questioned those nearest the signaling area.
James examined tracks.
One set led from the camp toward the ridge.
Moccasin prints.
Too common to identify anyone.
Then Ruth approached.
Her ankle remained swollen, but she could walk short distances.
She carried James’s torn cloth.
She had removed it.
James thought she wanted a cleaner bandage.
Instead, she unfolded the strip.
Inside was a small smear of black grease.
James frowned.
Ruth pointed toward one of the camp wagons.
Axle grease.
She spoke.
Samuel translated.
“She says someone stepped beside her blanket last night. She pretended to sleep.”
“Who?”
“She did not see the face.”
“What did they do?”
“Looked through the leather map case.”
James’s pulse increased.
“Did they take anything?”
Ruth shook her head.
Then pointed to the cloth.
The intruder had brushed against her bandaged ankle while kneeling.
Grease from a wagon axle had transferred from clothing or hands.
James walked to the wagons.
Most used animal fat.
Only one had black commercial grease.
It belonged to a trading wagon driven by a man named Victor Hale.
White.
Forty-five.
Fluent in several local dialects.
He had joined the council claiming to sell flour and ammunition.
Victor was gone.
His wagon remained.
James opened it.
Food sacks.
Blankets.
Tools.
Beneath a false floor lay two items.
A signaling mirror.
And a contract signed by Silas Mercer.
Victor Hale was being paid fifty dollars per week.
Samuel read the agreement.
“For information concerning the Carter property, spring locations, council movements, and possession of historic survey documents.”
James looked toward the northern ridge.
“How long has he worked for Silas?”
Caleb appeared behind them.
“Years.”
James turned sharply.
“You knew?”
“I knew Hale carried messages. I didn’t know he was here.”
James shoved the contract toward him.
“What else don’t you know?”
Caleb’s face hardened.
“I’m trying to help you.”
“Try faster.”
The elder spoke.
Samuel translated.
“Hale will go to Mercer now.”
“With what?”
Samuel pointed toward the hidden compartment.
One thing was missing.
A duplicate tracing of the old leather map.
James’s stomach dropped.
They had made it the previous evening.
Silas now knew every marked underground channel.
James looked north.
A distant explosion rolled across the valley.
Seconds later, birds erupted from the cottonwoods.
The ground beneath James’s boots shook.
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From the direction of Mercer’s land, a column of pale dust rose into the sky.
Then the hidden spring began to sink.
