Chapter 2 - Every Arrow Was Meant to Miss
Elias expected the men above him to take the saddlebag.
Instead, they lowered a rope.
“Stay away from me,” Elias shouted.
The Chief ignored him.
A younger warrior descended carefully into the pit.
Elias reached for his revolver.
His holster was empty.
He remembered the fall.
The weapon must have landed somewhere beneath the leaves.
The younger man stopped.
“If I wanted you dead,” he said in clear English, “you would not be talking.”
Elias glanced upward.
Fifteen bows had been within killing distance for several minutes.
The fact bothered him.
The man crouched beside Elias’s leg.
“Broken.”
“I had noticed.”
“You ride again if we set it now.”
“And if I refuse?”
“You crawl home.”
Despite himself, Elias almost laughed.
Pain immediately punished him.
The Chief called down.
“Let him help you.”
Elias looked at the bracelet still clenched in his fist.
“Who are you?”
The older man answered after a pause.
“Tavan.”
“That supposed to mean something to me?”
“No.”
Tavan’s expression tightened.
“But your mother’s name should.”
Elias waited.
“Mara.”
Nothing.
No memory.
No recognition.
Only a name belonging to somebody else’s life.
“My mother was Ruth Boone.”
Tavan did not argue.
“That may also be true.”
Elias frowned.
The answer unsettled him more than a denial.
The younger man introduced himself as Sani and began examining Elias’s leg.
When he touched the lower shin, Elias nearly blacked out.
“Easy.”
“Break my leg again and I’ll shoot you.”
“With what?”
Elias looked toward the leaves.
Sani smiled faintly.
Then he pulled two straight pieces of wood from a bundle lowered into the pit.
“What were you doing with Voss’s bag?” Tavan asked.
Elias looked up.
“How do you know Voss?”
“I asked first.”
“I stole it.”
A murmur passed among the men.
Tavan’s eyes narrowed.
“Why?”
“Because Voss is stealing my ranch.”
“Your ranch in Kansas?”
Elias stiffened.
“How do you know where I live?”
Tavan looked at the bracelet.
“We have known where you lived for many years.”
Elias’s hand moved instinctively toward the empty holster again.
Sani noticed.
“You should stop doing that.”
“Then stop giving me reasons.”
Sani bound the splints tightly.
Pain exploded.
Elias gritted his teeth.
Tavan said, “The arrows frightened you.”
“That usually happens when men shoot arrows at me.”
“They were not aimed at you.”
“The hole in my coat disagrees.”
“The sleeve.”
Elias looked at it.
Torn cloth.
No blood.
Tavan continued.
“The hat.”
Elias touched the sliced brim.
“The trees.”
Elias remembered every impact.
Close.
Terrifying.
But none had struck flesh.
“You were herding me.”
Tavan nodded.
“Why?”
“Because you were riding toward Voss’s men.”
Elias stared.
“What men?”
“Six riders waited beyond the eastern trail.”
“How would they know I was coming?”
Tavan’s expression hardened.
“Because the man you stole from was supposed to let you steal the bag.”
Silence settled over the pit.
Elias looked down at the leather saddlebag.
“That’s nonsense.”
“Is it?”
“I followed him.”
“He slowed whenever you fell behind.”
Elias remembered.
The courier had stopped twice.
Once to tighten a saddle strap.
Once beside the creek.
Conveniently alone.
Tavan said, “Voss wanted that bag in your hands.”
“Why?”
“That is what we have been trying to learn.”
Sani finished the splint.
“We lift you now.”
Elias grabbed his coat.
“Wait.”
He opened the saddlebag completely.
Ledger.
Three folded maps.
The beaded pouch.
A small brass key.
Nothing else.
“Why put this bracelet in a bag meant for me?”
Tavan’s face became grim.
“Because someone wants you asking the same questions we do.”
“Who?”
“We do not know.”
Elias laughed bitterly.
“So you chased me through a forest because you don’t know anything.”
Tavan’s eyes hardened.
“We know your mother.”
“Knew?”
Tavan did not answer.
That tiny hesitation cut through Elias’s anger.
“Is she alive?”
Tavan looked down into the pit.
“No.”
Elias felt an emotion he had no right to feel.
Loss.
For a stranger.
He hated it.
“How did she die?”
“That answer requires the rest of the story.”
“I’m listening.”
“Not here.”
Sani tied the rope around Elias.
The men above pulled.
Every movement sent pain through his leg.
When Elias reached the surface, he lay panting beneath the trees.
His brown horse stood twenty yards away.
Alive.
One of the warriors had caught it.
Elias stared.
If these men had wanted him dead, they could have killed the horse.
They had not.
Tavan walked toward him holding something.
Elias’s revolver.
Tavan turned it once in his hand.
Then offered it grip first.
Elias stared.
“You’re giving me my gun?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I need you to understand one thing.”
Elias took it cautiously.
Tavan stepped close enough that Elias could have fired into his chest.
“We are not afraid of you, Elias Boone.”
Then Tavan looked toward the saddlebag.
“We are afraid of whoever wanted you to find what is inside.”
A distant gunshot cracked through the forest.
Every warrior turned.
Another shot.
Then another.
Tavan’s expression changed.
“Voss.”
Elias looked toward the eastern trees.
Through the fading light, riders were approaching.
Not Native warriors.
White men.
Six of them.
Exactly as Tavan had said.
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And the man leading them was Elias’s oldest friend.
Jonah Pike.
