Chapter 24 - Sheriff Pike’s Choice
They found Warren Pike in the sheriff's office.
He did not deny it.
When Caleb placed Mary's ring on the desk, Pike sat down.
“I wondered when that would come back.”
“You were at the wash.”
“Yes.”
“Before Tokala.”
“Yes.”
“Was Mary alive?”
Pike closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
Caleb's voice cracked.
“You left her?”
“No.”
“Then what happened?”
Pike looked toward Cole.
“I was deputy then. Reeves sent me to find her.”
“Why?”
“He said she stole property.”
“The ledger.”
“Yes.”
Pike reached for a bottle.
Cole removed it from the desk.
“Talk sober.”
Pike almost laughed.
“I've been trying not to for five years.”
He described reaching the wash shortly after sunset.
Mary lay beside the wagon.
A bullet had struck her side.
She was conscious.
“She asked me whether Reeves sent me.”
Caleb's stomach turned.
“What did you say?”
“I said yes.”
“And?”
“She laughed.”
Pike stared at the desk.
“She said, ‘Of course he did.’”
Caleb could hear her voice.
“What happened?”
“I tried to lift her.”
“Did you shoot her?”
“No.”
“Did Reeves?”
Pike hesitated.
“I saw him leaving the ridge when I approached.”
There it was.
A witness placing Reeves near Mary after he claimed to have left.
“What did Mary tell you?”
“That Hargrove shot her.”
Caleb gripped the desk.
“Exact words.”
Pike looked at him.
“She said, ‘Reeves finally stopped pretending he wouldn't kill for the well.’”
Cole immediately wrote it down.
Dying declarations could be admissible under certain circumstances.
Caleb barely cared about law in that moment.
“Why didn't you help her?”
“I tried.”
“Then why did Tokala find her later?”
Pike's face twisted.
“Because I heard riders.”
Caleb stared.
“I thought they were Apache.”
“So you ran.”
“Yes.”
“You left her alone because you were afraid of the people you later blamed for killing her.”
Pike lowered his head.
“Yes.”
The ugliness of it was almost perfect.
Hargrove created fear.
Pike obeyed fear.
Then Pike helped transform the consequence of his cowardice into evidence against the people he feared.
“What happened when you came back?”
“Reeves was there.”
“With Mary?”
“No. With her body.”
Caleb stopped.
“Tokala had already gone?”
“I think so.”
“What did Reeves say?”
“That Apache raiders killed her.”
“And you knew they hadn't.”
“I knew Mary blamed him.”
“Yet you changed the report.”
Pike whispered, “Yes.”
Caleb wanted to hate him.
Part of him did.
But hatred no longer felt like an answer.
Cole arrested Pike for obstruction, falsifying official records and conspiracy related to the fraudulent land scheme.
Before Pike was taken away, he looked at Caleb.
“Why aren't you hitting me?”
Caleb replied, “Because too many men in this story solved fear with violence.”
Pike laughed sadly.
“Mary said something like that.”
Caleb stiffened.
“When?”
“At the wash.”
“What?”
Pike looked at him.
“She told me if I lived through this, I should spend the rest of my life trying not to become the worst thing I had done.”
Then he was led outside.
Caleb remained in the empty office.
Kalisa stood near him.
“Do you believe he deserves forgiveness?”
“No.”
“Do you believe Crane does?”
“I don't know.”
“Silas?”
“I don't know.”
“Reeves?”
Caleb looked at her.
“No.”
She nodded.
“Good.”
He almost smiled.
“Thought you were teaching me peace.”
“I am not teaching you stupidity.”
That did make him smile.
Then Deputy Marshal Cole returned with a telegram.
The Prescott bank had opened Hargrove's strongbox under warrant.
Inside they found no ring.
But they found something more important.
A sealed envelope written in Reeves Hargrove's own hand.
Dated the night Mary died.
Addressed to Daniel Voss.
Cole opened it.
One sentence stood out:
The Whitlock woman forced my hand. Proceed with the transfer before questions begin.
Caleb read it.
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The final wall around Reeves's story had cracked.
Now they only needed him to admit what “forced my hand” meant.
