Chapter 17 - Borrowed Gun
Creed fired.
Cade turned.
The bullet cut across his ribs beneath the poncho.
Hot pain.
Shallow.
Still enough to spin him half around.
Nalin fired at Creed.
Missed as his horse reared.
Cade hit the ground.
His wounded arm took part of the fall.
Pain blurred the fort yard.
Creed dismounted.
Cade’s second Colt remained in his hand.
“Fitting,” Creed said.
Cade rolled behind a water trough.
Another bullet punched through the wood.
Water spilled.
Nalin moved to cover.
Colter and Voss grappled in the dirt.
The general was older but stronger than he looked.
He drove an elbow into Colter’s damaged eye.
Colter cried out.
Marshal Beck pulled them apart at gunpoint.
Soldiers hesitated.
Whose orders now?
Creed shouted:
“Voss betrayed every man here!”
Voss shouted back:
“Creed is under arrest!”
Perfect.
Each trying to rewrite alliance as victimhood.
Cade pressed a hand to his ribs.
Blood.
Not deep.
He could breathe.
Likely graze.
Still painful.
Creed circled.
“You know what I admire about you, Thorn?”
Cade said nothing.
“You survive your own mistakes.”
Nalin’s voice came from the side.
“He finally started admitting them.”
Creed turned.
Mistake.
Cade rose and fired.
His bullet struck Cade’s stolen Colt from Creed’s hand.
The revolver spun across the dirt.
Creed stared.
Cade could have shot center mass.
Creed knew it.
“So noble now?”
“No.”
Cade winced.
“Need you alive.”
Creed laughed.
“Evidence.”
“Yes.”
“I should have killed you at Fort Grant.”
“Yes.”
Creed drew a small derringer from his vest.
Nalin fired first.
Her bullet struck Creed’s forearm.
The derringer dropped.
Creed staggered.
Minor blood spread through his sleeve.
Nalin approached.
“You burned my uncle.”
“Gabe did.”
“You ordered it.”
“I ordered intimidation.”
“Same excuse.”
Creed looked at her.
“I never wanted him dead.”
“And Taza?”
Creed did not answer.
Nalin’s jaw tightened.
“You wanted him dead.”
“Yes.”
Cade watched her.
Creed continued.
“He discovered too much.”
“At twenty-three.”
“He made a choice.”
Nalin’s face became almost calm.
Cade recognized danger.
“Nalin.”
Creed smiled.
“Yes. Listen to the man who shot your brother.”
She looked at Cade.
Pain crossed her face.
Then she lowered the revolver.
Not for Creed.
For herself.
“Marshal.”
Beck stepped forward.
“Silas Creed, you are under arrest.”
Creed laughed.
“By what authority?”
“Territorial.”
“Voss outranks you.”
Voss, now held by two of his own uncertain soldiers, said nothing.
Beck looked at him.
“General?”
Voss had choices.
Protect Creed and expose himself.
Abandon Creed and attempt to survive investigation.
He chose himself.
“Arrest him.”
Creed stared.
“Silas,” Voss added coldly, “you attacked a military installation.”
Creed smiled slowly.
“There you are.”
The old partnership died completely.
Then one of Creed’s riders fired from the gate.
Marshal Beck took a bullet through the shoulder and fell.
Chaos returned.
Creed lunged for Cade’s fallen Colt.
Cade moved too.
His ribs screamed.
They reached it together.
Creed grabbed the barrel.
Cade the grip.
They struggled.
Creed kicked Cade’s wounded arm.
Cade nearly lost hold.
Nalin could not fire cleanly.
Colter rushed Creed from the side.
Creed struck him with his injured forearm.
Colter stumbled.
Cade twisted the revolver free.
Creed grabbed his throat.
Both men crashed against the water trough.
Wood broke.
Water poured over them.
Cade drove one punch into Creed’s stomach.
Creed answered with a headbutt.
Cade’s cheek split wider.
Blood entered his mouth.
Creed whispered:
“You think confession makes you clean?”
Cade shoved him away.
“No.”
Creed looked surprised.
Cade hit him once.
“Nothing does.”
Another punch.
Creed staggered.
Cade stopped.
No prolonged beating.
Creed reached for a hidden knife.
Nalin saw.
She kicked his wrist.
Knife fell.
Then she drove him face-first into the mud created by the broken trough.
“Enough.”
Creed coughed.
Nalin pinned his wounded arm behind him.
A soldier brought shackles.
For once, Creed had no paid man close enough to change the room.
Across the yard, General Voss attempted to walk toward his quarters.
Elias Ward’s voice stopped him.
“General.”
Everyone turned.
Elias stood at the gate on crutches.
Doctor Halpern and several Dry Creek men supported him.
Behind them—
Colonel James Harrow.
The Army inspector had arrived early.
Harrow looked around the burned records office.
Wounded marshal.
Creed in irons.
Civilians.
Soldiers.
Then at Voss.
“Nathaniel.”
Voss’s face lost all color.
Harrow said:
“I believe you and I should talk.”
For the first time in eleven years, Cade felt the structure protecting Voss begin to crack.
Not collapse.
Not yet.
Power rarely fell from one bullet.
It fell when too many people stopped holding it up.
Harrow ordered Voss confined to quarters pending investigation.
He ordered all records secured.
Beck, despite his wound, insisted on witnessing the inventory.
Nalin produced the manifests she carried.
Colter produced the letters.
Cade did not produce the original ledger.
Not yet.
Harrow noticed.
“You have more?”
Cade looked at Nalin.
She nodded.
Then Cade said:
“Yes.”
Harrow waited.
“It’s in Dry Creek.”
Voss laughed from across the yard.
“You trust a territorial marshal with evidence?”
Cade looked at Beck’s bleeding shoulder.
“No.”
He looked at Elias.
“Or soldiers.”
Then at Nalin.
“I trust that too many people know it exists now.”
That was different.
Evidence no longer depended on one heroic keeper.
They had made secrecy harder.
Harrow nodded.
“Bring it.”
Cade looked toward Colter.
His brother stood exhausted, bruised, alive.
For a moment they simply stared at each other.
Then Colter said:
“You shot my client.”
Cade almost laughed.
“Former client.”
“Still billable.”
Even Nalin smiled.
But the relief lasted only seconds.
A soldier approached Harrow carrying a telegram.
The colonel read it.
His expression darkened.
“What?” Cade asked.
Harrow looked at Nalin.
“Someone in Tucson received advance warning about these records.”
“So?”
“They issued a federal warrant.”
“For whom?”
Harrow hesitated.
“Nalin.”
She went still.
“Charge?”
“Robbery of military property. Murder conspiracy. Insurrection.”
Cade laughed once.
Not because it was funny.
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Voss had built another trap before losing the first.
And this one was written on federal paper.
