Chapter 13 - Blood Beside the Spring
Elias and Aayoka rode through darkness.
Behind them Clay remained with a doctor.
Whether he lived no longer mattered to the immediate danger.
At Red Mesa they found horses near the canyon entrance.
Four.
Elias dismounted.
“Investors?”
“Men hired by them.”
They approached the spring.
Lantern light moved near the warning marker.
Two men searched the rocks.
Another entered the fissure leading to the echo chamber.
A fourth guarded the horses.
Elias and Aayoka split.
No grand plan.
Just familiarity with terrain.
Aayoka distracted the guard by releasing one horse.
Elias reached the fissure.
Inside, a man stood over the archive box.
“Where is it?” another demanded.
“I don’t know.”
Clay had hidden the ledger somewhere else inside.
Elias raised his revolver.
“Evening.”
Both men turned.
One fired.
The bullet struck stone.
The chamber amplified the explosion painfully.
Elias fired into the floor.
“Next one isn’t polite.”
They surrendered.
Outside, Aayoka had disarmed the guard.
The fourth escaped.
They searched the chamber.
No ledger.
Elias remembered Clay’s exact word.
Spring.
Not chamber.
He returned to the water.
Moonlight.
Still surface.
Aayoka stood behind him.
“Where?”
Elias examined the warning marker.
Loose wood.
He removed it.
Inside the hollow base was a wrapped leather book.
“Clay.”
Aayoka shook her head.
“Predictable?”
“No. Dramatic.”
The ledger named investors.
Judges.
Land agents.
Sheriffs.
Men paid to overlook illegal intimidation.
Men paid to process questionable claims quickly.
Horace Bell’s name was absent.
That mattered.
Sarah Finch’s absent too.
Clay had built a machine around water.
His financial partners wanted the machine without him.
Aayoka turned pages.
One entry made her stop.
“What?”
Payment made five years earlier to someone named Amos Boon.
Elias stared.
“Impossible.”
His father had been dead seven years by that date.
“Forgery?”
“Or another Amos.”
The entry contained an account reference.
A Tucson bank.
Elias felt an old dread.
Clay collected secrets.
Maybe this one was bait.
They took the ledger.
Then the spring rippled.
No wind.
Elias backed away.
Aayoka watched.
“Do not.”
“Do not what?”
“Listen.”
“Excellent plan.”
A whisper came anyway.
“Blood.”
Aayoka heard it too.
She looked toward Elias.
Neither had spoken.
Elias checked the captives.
Both were outside hearing range.
“Echo?”
Aayoka’s voice lacked confidence.
Then water near the edge darkened.
Elias crouched.
Blood.
A thin trail ran between rocks from above.
They followed.
Atop the ridge lay a man.
The fourth attacker.
Shot through the shoulder.
Alive.
Beside him stood Clay Danner.
Pale.
Bandaged.
Holding a revolver.
Elias stared.
“You were supposed to be unconscious.”
“I improved.”
“You rode with a bullet wound?”
“I’ve done worse.”
Aayoka looked at the wounded man.
“You shot him.”
“He shot first.”
Maybe true.
Clay sat heavily.
“I knew they’d come here.”
“You could’ve told us where the ledger was.”
“Then I couldn’t see who followed you.”
Elias almost punched him.
“You used us as bait.”
“Now you’re remembering.”
Aayoka helped the wounded attacker.
Clay watched her.
“You save everyone?”
“When possible.”
“Exhausting.”
“Yes.”
Elias held up the ledger.
“Your partners tried to kill you.”
“They’re practical.”
“You sound proud.”
“I chose them.”
For the first time Clay looked genuinely ashamed.
Not for the settlement.
Not for years of crimes.
For discovering men he trusted were exactly like him.
Perhaps that was the only mirror he understood.
Clay asked for the ledger.
Elias laughed.
“No.”
“It’s mine.”
“That’s your problem.”
Clay raised his gun slightly.
Elias drew.
Aayoka stepped between them.
Both men stared at her.
“Stop.”
Clay said, “Move.”
“No.”
Elias lowered first.
Clay noticed.
Aayoka turned toward him.
“Your choice.”
The same word.
Clay looked at Elias.
Then slowly lowered his weapon.
One moment did not redeem a man.
Elias knew that.
But it mattered.
Clay leaned against a rock.
“What now?”
Elias opened the ledger.
“We give this to Bell and Finch.”
Clay laughed.
“They’ll arrest me.”
“Probably.”
“You’re welcome.”
“For what?”
“The ledger.”
“You hid evidence of your own crimes because you wanted insurance.”
“Yes.”
“That is not heroism.”
“Never claimed it.”
Aayoka looked toward the water.
“Why hide it here?”
Clay’s face became strange.
“I heard something.”
Elias went still.
“When?”
“First night I found the spring.”
“What did it say?”
Clay hesitated.
Elias had never seen him hesitate over fear.
Finally:
“Nothing I want to repeat.”
Aayoka looked at him sharply.
“Why?”
Clay smiled weakly.
“Because your mother was right.”
Elias frowned.
Clay could not know—
unless he had read Amos’s stolen papers.
“Words get stronger when repeated.”
The water rippled again.
Clay looked away.
Elias understood suddenly that the spring did not divide men into believers and skeptics.
It divided them into people who admitted fear—
and people who built entire lives trying not to.
Clay had built a company.
Elias had built a reputation.
Amos had built warnings.
All around a pool of water nobody could fully explain.
Then Clay whispered:
“It told me you would kill me.”
Elias stared.
Clay smiled without humor.
“So every time you point that gun at me, I wonder whether I’m watching prophecy or simply helping it happen.”
And Elias finally understood why Clay had spent years provoking him.
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Perhaps Clay did not want death.
Perhaps he wanted certainty.
