Chapter 3 - The Men from Black Creek
The newcomers stopped at the edge of the property.
A broad man in a dark coat dismounted.
“Corvin Torne?”
“Yes.”
“My name is Silas Mercer. I represent the Black Creek Cattle Company.”
Corvin had heard the name.
Mercer had spent two years buying land throughout the valley.
“You're trespassing.”
Silas smiled.
“I've come to discuss your property.”
“Then discuss it from the road.”
Silas glanced toward the riders.
His smile vanished.
“I see you've acquired unusual company.”
Lena stepped beside Corvin.
Silas looked at her.
“You should return north.”
“She decides where she goes,” Corvin said.
Silas's jaw tightened.
“I'll offer you five thousand dollars for the ranch.”
“It's not for sale.”
“Ten.”
“No.”
“Twenty.”
Corvin laughed.
“You think money changes the answer?”
Silas looked toward the well.
“Everything has a price.”
Lena suddenly spoke.
“Not this.”
Silas stared at her.
Then he looked at the silver medallion.
His face changed.
Only for a moment.
But Corvin saw it.
“You know that?”
Silas recovered.
“I know old junk when I see it.”
He climbed onto his horse.
“We'll speak again.”
After the men left, Corvin turned to Lena.
“He knew the medallion.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Because his grandfather searched for it.”
Corvin looked toward the road.
“What was your father involved in?”
“My grandfather believed your father hid a treaty record.”
“A treaty?”
“Not a treaty between nations. A land agreement.”
Lena explained that decades earlier, a group of ranchers and Apache families had agreed to protect a spring, grazing corridor, and burial ground from outside ownership.
The agreement had never been recorded publicly.
Someone had stolen the original documents.
Corvin looked at his ranch.
“And my father kept them?”
“He kept evidence.”
“Why?”
“Because he changed his mind.”
That answer stayed with Corvin.
His father had always told him that a man's character was measured by what he did after discovering he had been wrong.
Perhaps that lesson had been autobiographical.
That night, Corvin searched his father's old office.
Behind a loose floorboard, he found a tin box.
Inside was a single envelope.
The handwriting belonged to his father.
Corvin opened it.
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The first sentence read:
If you are reading this, someone has finally come looking for the land.
