Chapter 10 - The Road to San Miguel
They left before dawn anyway.
Pike stayed behind with the ranch.
Eli gave him one instruction.
“If Gideon comes, don't let him inside.”
Pike stared.
“It's your ranch.”
“That's why I'm telling you.”
Calico moved steadily beneath Eli.
She was no longer the explosive young mare who had carried him through Red Knife Canyon ten years earlier, but she still had endurance.
By midday the ranch had disappeared behind them.
Waya led.
Chaska rode beside Eli.
Serina followed.
For hours nobody mentioned Hale.
Finally Eli said, “How did Amos find you?”
Chaska answered without looking at him.
“He found Serina's work.”
Serina's beadwork carried patterns based on places.
Canyon walls.
Cloud formations.
River bends.
Several years earlier she had sold a decorated leather case through a trader near Santa Fe.
The design showed Red Knife Canyon.
Amos Bell recognized it.
He asked who made it.
Months later a letter reached Serina.
Bell did not reveal his name immediately.
He described the brass survey marker.
Only someone present in 1869 would know it.
They began exchanging messages through trusted traders.
“Why hide?” Eli asked.
“Because Amos witnessed the forged quitclaim,” Chaska said.
Eli's stomach tightened.
“He signed it.”
“He says he did not.”
“But his name is there.”
“So is yours.”
Point taken.
According to Amos, someone had copied his survey signature onto the 1871 transfer.
When he challenged Gideon privately, two men confronted him outside Socorro.
Amos survived.
Afterward he disappeared.
No formal complaint.
No police investigation.
Nothing dramatic enough to become legend.
Just a frightened surveyor who understood he had seen powerful men manipulating land records.
Eli stared ahead.
“Why didn't my father expose them first?”
“He died before the forged transfer.”
“Convenient.”
Chaska looked at him sharply.
“You think Gideon killed him?”
“I think I no longer know what to think.”
“Your father died sick.”
“So I was told.”
Chaska shook her head.
“Don't create monsters larger than the evidence.”
Eli glanced at her.
That was not what he expected.
“You're defending Gideon?”
“No.”
“I thought you hated him.”
“I barely know him.”
“You know what he did.”
“I know some of what he did.”
She looked toward the road.
“Truth becomes useless if we make it carry things it cannot prove.”
Eli considered that.
He had spent years resenting Thomas.
Maybe some of that resentment was based on truth.
Maybe some was Gideon's invention.
Untangling them would be harder than simply reversing blame.
At sunset they camped near a dry wash.
No fire.
Waya checked tracks behind them.
“One horse followed for several miles.”
“Hale?” Eli asked.
“Maybe.”
“Where now?”
“Turned east.”
Serina opened her satchel.
Eli watched her count the silver.
“You really planned to give me six hundred dollars?”
“No.”
He looked offended.
She smiled faintly.
“Invest.”
“Chaska's word.”
“A better word.”
“What if the ranch is worthless?”
“Then you owe us terrible coffee for twenty years.”
Eli laughed.
It felt unfamiliar.
Later, unable to sleep, he walked away from camp.
Chaska joined him.
“You're still angry.”
“Yes.”
“At us?”
“Yes.”
“Fair.”
“That easy?”
“No.”
She sat on a flat stone.
“But anger does not frighten me.”
Eli remained standing.
“Why did you keep looking?”
Chaska knew what he meant.
Not business.
Not the map.
Him.
She was silent long enough that he almost withdrew the question.
“My younger brother was thirteen in 1869,” she said.
“He depended on me.”
Eli listened.
“If Hale's riders had caught us, I might not have returned. My brother later became a father. His children exist inside a chain of ordinary days that only happened because I went home.”
She looked at Eli.
“Waya returned to two younger sisters.”
Serina lowered her voice.
“Serina's mother was sick. Serina cared for her until she died four years later.”
Eli looked down.
“That is what I meant when I told you that you changed families.”
“I just led riders into a canyon.”
“Yes.”
“You make it sound bigger.”
“It became bigger.”
Chaska stood.
“Most important acts do not know what they are when they happen.”
Eli thought about his father's hidden letter.
A single choice could reach ten years forward.
So could a lie.
A sound came from camp.
Waya.
“Riders.”
Everyone moved.
Three silhouettes appeared on the ridge behind them.
They did not approach.
They watched.
Waya whispered, “Hale's men.”
Eli climbed onto Calico.
“No.”
Chaska grabbed his reins.
“What are you doing?”
“Making them follow me.”
Her face changed.
The memory was immediate.
Ten years collapsed.
Eli saw three young women running.
Chaska saw a twenty-three-year-old fool riding toward danger.
“No,” she said.
“It worked last time.”
“You were twenty-three last time.”
“I'm better looking now.”
“Eli.”
He smiled.
It was the first truly reckless smile she had seen from him.
Then Waya interrupted.
“They're leaving.”
The silhouettes turned.
Not pursuing.
Heading south.
Toward San Miguel.
Serina's face went pale.
“They aren't following us.”
Eli looked toward the dark horizon.
“They know where Amos is.”
Chaska mounted.
“Then we ride.”
No one slept.
They traveled under moonlight until Calico began to stumble.
Eli dismounted and walked beside her.
Every mile cost time.
Just before dawn, the broken tower of the abandoned San Miguel mission appeared beyond a low ridge.
Waya raised a hand.
Smoke.
Not campfire smoke.
Dust and smoke drifting from the ruined buildings.
They rode faster.
At the mission entrance, they found a horse tied to a wall.
No rider.
Inside, a table had been overturned.
Papers covered the floor.
A chair lay broken.
Eli called out.
“Amos?”
No answer.
Serina found blood on a cloth.
Only a little.
No body.
Then Chaska saw writing scratched into the dust beneath the table.
Three letters.
R.M.C.
Eli stared.
“What does that mean?”
A weak voice answered from behind the ruined altar.
“Red Mesa Cut.”
They rushed forward.
An old man lay concealed beneath fallen canvas.
He was bruised, conscious, furious.
Amos Bell.
He looked at Eli.
“You've got Thomas's eyes.”
Eli crouched.
“Where's the map?”
Amos gave a bitter laugh.
“Hale took it.”
Everyone froze.
Then Amos raised one trembling finger.
“But he took the wrong one.”
From inside his coat, he produced a folded piece of paper.
The second half of Thomas Mercer's map.
And written across its back was a list of names.
At the top:
GIDEON MERCER.
Below it:
VICTOR HALE.
And seven payments dating back to 1869.
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The map was important.
The list might be devastating.
