Chapter 12 - The Road Home
They began the return immediately.
Amos rode in a wagon borrowed from a farmer near the mission.
The journey back took two days.
Eli barely spoke.
Chaska watched anger build inside him with every mile.
On the second afternoon she rode beside Calico.
“What are you planning?”
“Getting my land back.”
“That isn't a plan.”
“It is where I come from.”
“By doing what?”
Eli said nothing.
Chaska reached across and caught Calico's reins.
The mare stopped.
Eli looked at her.
“Move.”
“No.”
Waya and Serina continued a short distance before stopping.
Amos watched from the wagon.
Chaska's voice remained quiet.
“Hale expects you to become angry.”
“I am angry.”
“Gideon expects you to become reckless.”
“I've been called worse.”
“They want you arrested.”
Eli looked at her.
“If you threaten your uncle, strike a deputy, move the cattle by force—anything—they no longer need to argue about forged paperwork.”
She released the reins.
“They can call you dangerous and take possession while you're sitting in a cell.”
Eli's jaw tightened.
“You think I should let them occupy my house?”
“No.”
“What then?”
“Use their confidence.”
“How?”
“Make them believe they've already won.”
Eli hated the idea.
Which was why he considered it.
At sunset they stopped near a ridge overlooking the Mercer property.
Through Amos's small field glass they could see cattle in the south pasture.
Six men near the barn.
Gideon's carriage beside the house.
Eli's house.
Smoke rose from his chimney.
Someone had cooked in his kitchen.
Eli's fingers whitened around the glass.
Then Calico whinnied.
One of the men below looked toward the ridge.
Waya pulled everyone back.
“We've been seen.”
“Good,” Eli said.
He rode down openly.
Chaska caught up.
“You agreed not to be reckless.”
“I agreed not to give them what they want.”
At the gate, Deputy Marshal Frank Dorsey stepped forward.
He was not a bad man.
That complicated things.
“Eli.”
“Frank.”
“You've been served.”
“I've been robbed.”
“I don't decide that.”
“Then who does?”
“District court.”
“Three weeks from now?”
“Probably.”
“By then Hale owns everything.”
Dorsey lowered his voice.
“Don't make this harder.”
Eli looked past him.
Gideon stood on the porch.
Exactly where Eli had stood when the women arrived.
“Get off my porch,” Eli said.
Dorsey raised a hand.
“Eli.”
Gideon smiled.
“You abandoned mortgaged property.”
“I went to find the man whose name you forged.”
The smile disappeared.
Amos's wagon appeared behind the riders.
Gideon went white.
Amos lifted two fingers in greeting.
“Evening, Gideon.”
Nobody moved.
Eli could almost hear his uncle calculating.
Gideon recovered.
“Amos Bell.”
“Still alive.”
“So I see.”
“You look disappointed.”
Dorsey looked confused.
“You two know each other?”
“Oh,” Amos said, “very well.”
Eli dismounted.
“I'll sleep in the barn.”
Gideon shook his head.
“You'll leave the property.”
“No.”
“The foreclosure—”
“Doesn't transfer possession.”
Eli looked at Dorsey.
“Correct?”
The deputy reluctantly nodded.
“Technically.”
“Then Gideon can occupy the guest room if he's frightened of coyotes. I'm staying.”
Gideon stepped down.
“You don't understand how exposed you are.”
“I understand the mortgage is sixteen hundred, not twenty-four.”
Dorsey's head turned.
Eli continued.
“I understand the interest rate is six percent, not eight.”
Gideon's face hardened.
“I understand a quitclaim carrying my forged signature moved the canyon to you before you moved it back into a mortgage.”
“Be careful.”
“And I understand Amos Bell did not witness it.”
Amos waved.
Gideon looked at Dorsey.
“These accusations are desperate.”
“Then they'll be easy to disprove.”
Eli smiled.
For the first time Gideon seemed uncertain what version of his nephew stood before him.
The isolated rancher who accepted every debt statement was gone.
They entered an uneasy arrangement.
Gideon kept his hired men.
Eli slept in the barn.
Chaska, Waya, and Serina camped beside the dry creek.
Amos stayed in the bunkhouse under Dorsey's protection.
That night nobody trusted anybody.
Around midnight Eli woke to Calico stamping.
A shadow moved beside the barn.
He remained still.
Someone slipped inside.
Not Gideon.
A younger man.
Gideon's son.
Nathan Mercer.
Eli's cousin.
They had not spoken in almost four years.
Nathan carried a ledger.
“You need to stop,” Nathan whispered.
Eli sat up.
“Stop what?”
“Digging.”
“Interesting advice from a man sneaking into my barn.”
Nathan shoved the ledger toward him.
“If my father catches me with this, I'm finished.”
Eli recognized the cover.
Gideon's business ledger.
“Why bring it?”
Nathan looked terrified.
“Because everything you're saying is true.”
Eli stared.
Nathan swallowed.
“And you don't know the worst part.”
He opened the ledger to a page marked 1874.
A payment appeared.
SAN AURELIO TO G. MERCER — $1,000.
Beside it:
CONTINGENT UPON E.M. MARRIAGE DISSOLUTION AND PROPERTY CONTROL.
Eli stopped breathing.
“My marriage?”
Nathan nodded.
Eli thought of Anna.
Eleven months.
The arguments.
Her sudden departure east.
The letter she sent saying she could not remain.
“What does Gideon have to do with Anna?”
Nathan's voice dropped almost to nothing.
“He paid her brother.”
Eli stared.
“To do what?”
Nathan looked toward the barn door.
“To make sure she left you.”
The ranch had been one betrayal.
Now the conspiracy had reached into Eli's bed, his marriage, and the most private failure of his life.
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Gideon had not simply waited for Eli to become alone.
He had helped make him that way.
