Chapter 2 - The Brass Marker
Eli did not invite them inside immediately.
That told Chaska more about him than anything he said.
Ten years earlier, he had risked his life for three strangers without asking their names.
Now he stood three steps from his own front door as if hospitality itself might be a trap.
Waya noticed too.
She folded her arms.
“You always this suspicious?”
“I got poor by trusting people.”
“And rich by avoiding them?”
Eli almost smiled.
Almost.
Chaska gave Waya a warning glance.
“We did not come here to insult him.”
“He looks difficult to insult.”
“I can hear both of you.”
“Good,” Waya replied.
Serina remained quiet.
She held out the brass marker.
Eli finally took it.
It was heavier than it looked.
He turned it in his hand.
“Where did you get this?”
“In the canyon,” Serina said.
Her voice was softer than Chaska's but steady.
“Ten years ago.”
Eli looked up.
“You had this when I found you?”
“No.”
Chaska nodded toward the house.
“Can we sit?”
Eli hesitated, then stepped aside.
Inside, the women saw the reality of his financial trouble immediately.
The ranch was clean but nearly bare.
A rifle rack held no rifle.
Two shelves that had once stored dishes were empty.
A saddle blanket covered a chair where the leather seat had split.
Beside the sale document rested a stack of notices.
Chaska did not touch them.
Eli noticed that too.
He placed the brass marker on the table.
“Talk.”
Serina opened the wrapped hide completely.
Inside lay three objects.
The brass marker.
A small piece of dark stone streaked with pale mineral.
And half of an old paper map.
Eli frowned.
The paper was brittle, its edges darkened with age.
A survey line crossed the page.
Near the bottom someone had written:
MERCER SPRING — PERMANENT FLOW.
Eli stared.
“There isn't any Mercer Spring.”
Waya leaned against the wall.
“Your cattle drink from what?”
“A shallow well and a seasonal seep.”
“Seasonal?”
“Yes.”
Chaska said, “Have you ever followed the north branch of the dry creek all the way into the canyon?”
“Can't. It narrows into stone.”
“Not on foot.”
Eli looked at her.
Chaska tapped the map.
“Your father knew.”
Eli gave a short, humorless laugh.
“My father knew plenty of things he didn't bother telling me.”
The bitterness in his voice was unmistakable.
Chaska did not challenge it.
“Maybe.”
Eli examined the map.
Only half remained.
“Where's the rest?”
“We don't know.”
“Then this proves nothing.”
“By itself, no.”
He pushed it toward them.
“Then why come?”
Waya stepped forward.
“Because three months ago men working for Gideon Mercer started asking traders along the western routes whether anyone remembered three Apache women chased through Red Knife Canyon in 1869.”
Eli went still.
“Gideon?”
“Yes.”
“My uncle doesn't care what happened ten years ago.”
Waya's expression said otherwise.
Chaska continued.
“One of those men carried a sketch of you.”
Eli's eyes narrowed.
“A sketch?”
“As you looked when you were younger. Brown hat. Split leather saddle. Gray mare.”
He glanced through the window at Calico.
She was older now, her coat pale and her movements slower, but unmistakable.
“How would Gideon know about the canyon?”
“That,” Chaska said, “is why we came.”
Eli paced once across the room.
“You said you had a proposal.”
“We do.”
Chaska pulled out a chair but did not sit until Eli nodded.
“We have money.”
Eli's expression immediately closed.
“I told you—”
“Not enough to purchase your ranch.”
“Then it doesn't matter.”
“It matters because we don't want to purchase it.”
Waya reached into Serina's satchel and withdrew a folded ledger page.
“We operate trade routes between several settlements, ranches, and family camps west of here. Horses, hides, blankets, tools, food supplies.”
Eli examined her.
“You're traders.”
“Among other things.”
Chaska continued.
“We need a permanent stopping point between the western canyon routes and the settlements east of here. Water. Shelter. A place where goods can be exchanged safely.”
Eli looked around the nearly empty room.
“You picked a poor place.”
“We picked your place.”
“Why?”
“Because this ranch sits at the mouth of the only canyon that remains passable year-round.”
Eli shook his head.
“There are two other routes.”
“One floods.”
“Only in spring.”
“The other will be blocked within a year if the buyer of your ranch gets what he wants.”
That caught him.
“The buyer is a cattle company.”
“No.”
Chaska slid the sale document toward herself but did not lift it.
“Read the purchaser's legal name.”
Eli already knew it.
“San Aurelio Land and Livestock Company.”
“Have you seen their cattle?”
He frowned.
“No.”
“Their corrals?”
“No.”
“Their ranch hands?”
“No.”
Chaska leaned closer.
“Because cattle are not what they're buying.”
Silence settled over the room.
Serina tapped the pale streak running through the dark stone.
“Silver?”
Eli asked.
“Not enough to matter,” she said.
“Then what?”
“Water.”
Eli stared at her.
Chaska pointed toward the map.
“A permanent spring lies inside your northern canyon.”
“If that were true, I'd know.”
“Your father knew.”
“My father has been dead nine years.”
“And somebody has spent those nine years making sure you never found what he knew.”
Eli's jaw tightened.
“You keep saying somebody.”
Waya looked toward the road.
Then back at him.
“Your uncle.”
Eli abruptly stood.
“Gideon loaned me money when nobody else would.”
Chaska remained seated.
“What interest?”
“That isn't your concern.”
“It is if the debt was designed to make you sell.”
Eli's voice dropped.
“You don't know him.”
Chaska met his gaze.
“No.”
Then she pointed at the brass marker.
“But we know that ten years ago the men chasing us were carrying another one exactly like that.”
The room went silent.
Eli slowly looked down.
The mark of his family sat between them.
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And for the first time, gratitude was no longer the reason three women from his past frightened him.
They knew something about the Mercers that he did not.
