Chapter 3 - The Debt
By sunset, Eli had still not signed.
That fact alone irritated Gideon Mercer.
Eli's uncle arrived in a black carriage just as the canyon walls turned red beneath the falling sun.
He was fifty-eight, broad through the shoulders despite his age, silver beginning to show at his temples. He dressed better than anyone who lived thirty miles from the nearest proper town had reason to.
Gideon climbed down holding a leather document case.
His pleasant expression disappeared when he saw three unfamiliar horses tied near the porch.
“Company?”
Eli stood at the corral brushing Calico.
“Apparently.”
Gideon looked toward the house.
“Who?”
“People passing through.”
“Apache?”
Eli's hand stopped on Calico's neck.
“Does that change the answer?”
Gideon smiled thinly.
“No.”
But it clearly changed something.
Chaska stepped onto the porch.
For one fraction of a second, Gideon's face betrayed him.
Recognition.
It vanished immediately.
Chaska saw it.
So did Eli.
Gideon removed his hat.
“Ma'am.”
“Mr. Mercer.”
Gideon's eyebrows rose.
“You know me?”
“Your nephew mentioned you.”
Eli knew that was not true.
He had never told Chaska Gideon's first name.
Gideon looked at Eli.
“Sale paper ready?”
“No.”
“We agreed today.”
“I agreed I'd consider it today.”
“You've been considering it for six months.”
“And the ranch has been here forty years. It can survive another night.”
Gideon walked onto the porch.
His gaze briefly shifted toward Serina's leather satchel resting inside the doorway.
“What are they selling?”
“Nothing.”
“Then perhaps they're buying.”
Waya appeared behind Chaska.
“We're not.”
Gideon's eyes moved across the women again.
Something about his calm felt rehearsed.
He entered without being invited.
Eli followed.
The sale document remained on the table.
Gideon opened his leather case.
“I brought the final debt statement.”
He placed a page beside the sale.
$4,780.16.
Eli had seen the figure before.
Still, something bothered him now.
Chaska's earlier question returned.
What interest?
Eli picked up the statement.
“Show me how this became forty-seven eighty.”
Gideon blinked.
“What?”
“The original loan was twenty-four hundred.”
“Six years ago.”
“I've paid you every cattle season.”
“You've paid interest.”
“All of it?”
Gideon sighed.
“Eli, we've gone over this.”
“Go over it again.”
The women remained silent.
Gideon noticed.
“This is family business.”
Chaska started toward the door.
Eli stopped her.
“Stay.”
Gideon's jaw tightened.
He opened a ledger.
“Twenty-four hundred principal. Eight percent annual interest. Additional advances in seventy-five, seventy-six, seventy-seven—”
“What advances?”
“Feed.”
“I paid Porter Feed in cash in seventy-six.”
“After I advanced the purchase.”
Eli shook his head.
“No.”
Gideon looked annoyed rather than worried.
“Then your memory is poor.”
Serina spoke from beside the window.
“Is there a receipt?”
Both men looked at her.
Gideon smiled without warmth.
“Miss, business records between my nephew and me are not your concern.”
“She asked a simple question,” Eli said.
Gideon closed the ledger.
“I didn't drive twenty miles to be examined by strangers.”
Chaska watched his hands.
The right thumb rubbed against the edge of his document case.
A nervous habit.
“You didn't answer,” Eli said.
“I have the receipt at my office.”
“Then tomorrow we'll look at it.”
Gideon studied him.
“What happened today?”
“Nothing.”
“This morning you were selling.”
“This morning I didn't know there might be a permanent spring in the north canyon.”
The change in Gideon was almost invisible.
Almost.
His breathing stopped.
Then resumed.
“A what?”
Eli watched him carefully.
“Spring.”
“There is no spring.”
“You sure answered quickly.”
Gideon laughed.
“I grew up here.”
“So did my father.”
“My brother believed every foolish prospecting story he heard.”
Chaska said, “Thomas Mercer marked the spring on a survey.”
Gideon's face hardened.
Now he looked at her fully.
“Who are you?”
“Chaska.”
The name meant nothing visible.
Then Serina placed the brass marker on the table.
Gideon's eyes dropped to it.
He went pale.
Eli saw.
“You recognize that.”
“No.”
“You looked like you'd seen a ghost.”
“It's old brass.”
“It has our mark.”
“Lots of ranch equipment did.”
“Survey number too.”
Gideon reached for it.
Serina picked it up first.
His hand stopped.
The room became very still.
“Where did you get that?” Gideon asked.
Chaska answered.
“Red Knife Canyon.”
Something inside Gideon broke through his control.
Only for a moment.
Anger.
Then fear.
He looked at Eli.
“These women need to leave.”
Eli stared at him.
“Why?”
“Because you don't know who they are.”
“They know who you are.”
Gideon picked up the sale document.
“Sign tonight.”
Eli took it from his hand.
“No.”
“You owe me almost five thousand dollars.”
“Then one more day won't change much.”
“It changes everything.”
The words came out too quickly.
Eli heard them.
So did everyone else.
Gideon realized his mistake.
He closed his case.
“You have until noon tomorrow.”
“For what?”
“To sign voluntarily.”
Eli stepped closer.
“And if I don't?”
Gideon's voice cooled.
“I call the note.”
“You said the sale deadline was next month.”
“I changed my mind.”
“You can't.”
“The contract says I can demand payment after default.”
Eli looked at the debt statement.
Then at his uncle.
For years Gideon had presented himself as the only reason the ranch still belonged to Eli.
Suddenly he looked like the man waiting to take it.
Gideon put on his hat.
Before leaving, he turned to Chaska.
“Whatever you're hoping to get from him, there isn't enough left.”
Chaska answered calmly.
“We didn't come for what he has.”
Gideon paused.
“We came because of what somebody is trying to steal.”
Gideon walked outside without another word.
They listened until the carriage disappeared.
Eli looked at the unsigned document.
Then he picked up the debt statement again.
At the bottom was a date.
June 3, 1873.
Six years earlier.
Eli stared at it.
“My father died in February 1870.”
Chaska said nothing.
Eli's face slowly changed.
“The original mortgage Gideon says I renewed?”
He looked toward the door.
“It was supposedly based on a debt my father owed him.”
Serina understood first.
“But your father had been dead three years when this accounting began.”
Eli looked down at the number.
$4,780.16.
For years he had thought it represented failure.
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Now he wondered whether it represented something else entirely.
A plan.
