Chapter 2 - Three Men in the Trees
Jonah extinguished the lamp.
Firelight remained, throwing long shadows across the cabin walls.
Naelli tried to rise.
“Stay down.”
“I can fight.”
“You can barely breathe.”
“That does not answer me.”
Jonah looked at her.
Even wounded, she hated helplessness.
He respected that.
He also ignored it.
He moved toward the window.
Outside, snow reflected enough moonlight to reveal the corral fence and the darker wall of pines beyond.
Nothing.
Then Amos snorted.
Someone was near the barn.
Jonah checked his rifle.
Six cartridges.
He placed Naelli’s knife beside her hand.
“If anyone comes through that door and it isn’t me—”
“I know what a knife is.”
“Good.”
He went out the rear.
Cold cut through his shirt immediately.
Jonah moved along the cabin wall and crouched behind stacked firewood.
A shadow passed near the barn.
Not Apache clothing.
Heavy wool coat.
Broad-brimmed hat.
A white man.
Jonah raised the rifle.
“Stop.”
The figure froze.
Another man emerged near the corral.
Then a third near the trees.
Exactly three.
Jonah’s finger rested beside the trigger.
“Bad place to wander after dark.”
The first man answered.
“We’re looking for someone.”
“You found me.”
“A woman.”
“No woman here.”
The man laughed.
“Jonah Reed?”
Jonah did not answer.
That told him enough.
They knew him.
“We rode from Hartwell,” the man continued.
Hartwell was the nearest mining settlement.
Jonah rarely went there.
“Then ride back.”
“We need the Apache woman.”
“Why?”
“She stole from our employer.”
“What?”
“Silver.”
Naelli’s word.
Jonah remained still.
The man continued.
“Turn her over, nobody troubles you.”
“Who employs you?”
No answer.
Jonah smiled without humor.
“That what I thought.”
The second man stepped forward.
“Reed, this isn’t your business.”
“It became my business when you shot arrows at my horse.”
The man hesitated.
Jonah caught it.
“You weren’t expecting me to see your faces.”
“We didn’t shoot at you.”
“Arrow landed close enough.”
The first man said, “Last warning.”
Jonah lifted the rifle slightly.
“No.”
For several seconds, nothing happened.
Then the first man whistled.
All three withdrew.
Too easily.
Jonah knew it.
He waited until hoofbeats disappeared.
Then waited five more minutes.
When he returned inside, Naelli was sitting upright.
“You lied badly.”
“I usually avoid practice.”
“They will return.”
“Probably.”
Naelli’s hand rested against her bandage.
“Then I should leave.”
“You would make it fifty yards.”
“That may be enough.”
“For what?”
“To keep them from burning your cabin.”
Jonah frowned.
“They want silver?”
She nodded.
“What silver?”
Naelli looked toward the fire.
“My father sent me to meet someone.”
“Who?”
“A man near Hartwell who said he had papers belonging to our people.”
Jonah waited.
“He never arrived. Three men did.”
“The men outside?”
“Two of them.”
“And the third?”
“Different.”
“White?”
“Yes.”
“You know him?”
“No.”
“What did they want?”
Naelli reached carefully beneath her torn clothing.
Jonah turned his head to give her privacy.
She removed a small wrapped bundle from an inner seam.
He looked back.
Inside the cloth was a flat silver disk.
Old.
Scratched.
Heavy enough to be valuable but not worth murder.
Jonah leaned closer.
One side bore a sunburst design.
The other was blank.
“You were nearly killed for that?”
“No.”
She rewrapped it.
“They thought I carried something else.”
“What?”
“A deed.”
Jonah stared.
“To what?”
“Land.”
“Whose?”
Naelli looked directly at him.
“Yours.”
Silence.
Jonah sat across from her.
“This ranch?”
“Cedar Pass.”
“Cedar Pass is larger than my ranch.”
“Yes.”
“My family has held the central valley since before I was born.”
Naelli’s eyes hardened.
“Your family says many things.”
Jonah bristled.
“You know nothing about my family.”
“I know this mark.”
She pointed toward the brand above the fireplace.
“And I know my father keeps the same mark on an old silver object he has carried since before I was born.”
Jonah felt something unpleasant move through him.
“What object?”
“I have never seen him open the wrapping completely.”
“Why?”
“He said it belonged to a promise.”
Jonah looked at the brand.
His grandfather’s mark.
According to his mother, the Reeds had established the ranch when his father, Elias, died before Jonah’s birth.
Jonah knew little else.
His mother Miriam had hated talking about Elias.
“He drowned crossing the Salt River,” she always said.
No body had been recovered.
That was common enough on the frontier.
Jonah asked, “Why would your father have anything from a Reed?”
Naelli studied him.
“You truly do not know.”
“Know what?”
Her expression softened slightly.
“That may be why they chose you.”
“Who?”
“The men who want the deed.”
Jonah leaned forward.
“Naelli.”
A noise came from outside.
Not hoofbeats.
A crack.
Wood.
Jonah stood.
Flames suddenly appeared through the rear window.
The barn.
“They came back,” he said.
He grabbed a blanket and rifle.
Naelli forced herself upright.
Jonah turned.
“No.”
“You cannot fight fire and men alone.”
“You cannot stand.”
Naelli reached for the table.
Then stood anyway.
Her face went white.
But she remained upright.
Jonah realized arguing would waste time.
He handed her his revolver.
“Know how?”
She checked the cylinder efficiently.
Jonah nodded.
“Apparently.”
They went outside.
The barn wall burned near the hayloft.
Jonah ran for the water barrel.
Naelli leaned against the porch post, revolver raised toward the trees.
A shot cracked.
The bullet struck the cabin wall.
Jonah dropped behind the trough.
Naelli fired once.
A shadow disappeared.
Another rifle shot answered.
Then hoofbeats retreated.
Again.
Jonah threw water against the flames.
Within fifteen minutes he had stopped the fire from spreading.
One wall was blackened.
No horses were injured.
Naelli sat in the snow afterward, exhausted.
Jonah carried her inside without asking.
This time she did not protest.
He placed her beside the fire.
Then found something lodged in the burned barn wall.
A knife.
Wrapped around the handle was paper.
Jonah opened it.
Four words.
GIVE US THE REED DEED.
He looked at Naelli.
“They think you have it.”
“Yes.”
“Do you?”
“No.”
“Then who does?”
Naelli looked toward the silver disk.
“The man they killed before I reached him.”
Jonah frowned.
“If he is dead, where is the deed?”
Naelli answered:
“Probably where he hid it before they came.”
“Where?”
She looked at him.
“Your father knew.”
Jonah’s patience broke.
“My father has been dead forty years.”
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)
Naelli stared into the fire.
“That may be the first lie we need to prove.”
