Chapter 2 - Sheriff Vale
“Hands away from the Colts.”
Sheriff Amos Vale stood behind Cade with a twelve-gauge leveled at his back.
He was fifty-eight, narrow-faced, gray-mustached, and dressed too carefully for the heat.
Cade knew him.
That was worse than seeing a stranger.
“Amos.”
“Cade.”
Nalin moved.
Vale immediately shifted the shotgun toward her.
“You stay exactly where you are.”
Cade’s voice hardened.
“Point that back at me.”
Vale smiled faintly.
“There he is.”
Cade’s wounded arm throbbed.
Blood had reached his wrist.
He kept his hand visible.
Around the saloon, men who had previously pretended to hide began drawing weapons.
Seven.
Maybe nine.
Cade counted without turning his head.
That was what he had always done.
Count exits.
Hands.
Distances.
Threats.
Nalin noticed too.
Her eyes moved rather than her head.
Vale said, “You walked into Dry Creek and shot two men in front of twenty witnesses.”
“Gabe fired first.”
Vale shrugged.
“Witnesses saw different.”
The bartender looked down.
Cade understood.
The trap was not designed to kill him inside the saloon.
Not yet.
It was designed to make his death lawful.
Or at least look lawful enough.
Pike groaned from the ruined card table.
“You saw him, Sheriff.”
Vale glanced at Pike’s shoulder.
“I surely did.”
Cade looked at Nalin.
“Were you part of it?”
Her expression turned cold.
“I was the bait.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“No.”
Gabe rolled onto one elbow.
His nose bled heavily, and his right hand was wrapped against his chest.
“Lying Apache bitch.”
Nalin took one step toward him.
Cade said quietly, “Don’t.”
She stopped.
Not because he commanded her.
Because she saw Vale waiting for exactly that.
Vale smiled.
“Smart.”
Nalin looked at him.
“Smarter than your men.”
Vale’s smile vanished.
Cade understood something else.
She knew Vale.
Maybe better than Cade did.
The sheriff motioned toward the floor.
“Drop the Colt.”
Cade slowly bent.
Pain burned through his arm.
He set his right revolver on the sawdust.
“Other one.”
“It’s under the table.”
Vale nodded toward one of the armed men.
“Silas.”
A bearded gambler retrieved Cade’s fallen weapon.
Now both Colts were gone.
Cade felt naked.
Vale stepped closer.
“You’re under arrest for attempted murder.”
“Of men you hired?”
“Careful.”
“Why?”
“Because I might begin believing those stories about your temper.”
Cade looked around.
Nobody met his eyes.
Except Nalin.
“You knew I was coming.”
Vale did not answer.
Cade continued.
“Gabe had the paper. Somebody knew my route.”
Vale’s gaze flickered.
Small movement.
But enough.
Cade had spent years surviving men who lied with their mouths while telling the truth with their eyes.
“Who told you?”
Vale struck Cade across the wounded arm with the shotgun stock.
Pain exploded through Cade’s shoulder.
His knees nearly buckled.
Nalin surged forward.
Three revolvers swung toward her.
Cade caught himself against the bar.
Blood ran faster down his sleeve.
Vale leaned near his ear.
“You don’t ask questions anymore.”
Cade breathed through the pain.
“You always hit prisoners before paperwork?”
“Only famous ones.”
Nalin said, “He wants you angry.”
Cade looked at her.
Vale did too.
She continued.
“He wants you to resist.”
Vale walked toward her.
Nalin held her ground.
“You talk too much.”
“That is why your men failed.”
Vale grabbed her chin.
Cade moved before he could stop himself.
A rifle barrel pressed against his ribs.
Silas.
“Don’t.”
Vale released Nalin.
He smiled at Cade.
“Still predictable.”
That word stayed with him.
Predictable.
Someone had designed the entire room around Cade Thorn’s habits.
A brutalized woman.
Three drunk aggressors.
A sheriff waiting.
They knew Cade would intervene.
They knew Gabe would shoot.
They knew Cade would shoot better.
Why?
Vale ordered both prisoners outside.
The street seemed empty.
Too empty.
Dry Creek was normally noisy even in the heat.
Now shutters were closed.
Horses stood tied but unattended.
Cade saw rifle barrels inside two upstairs windows.
Nalin walked beside him.
Her left leg dragged slightly from the beating.
He lowered his voice.
“Can you run?”
“No.”
“Good.”
She glanced at him.
“Good?”
“If you said yes, I’d know you were lying.”
Something almost resembling amusement crossed her face.
Vale marched them toward the jail.
Gabe, Pike, and Harlan remained behind.
Cade noticed that too.
Men Cade had supposedly nearly murdered were not coming to make statements.
The jail stood across from the telegraph office.
Cade saw the telegraph operator through the window.
The man quickly looked away.
Inside the jail, Vale removed Nalin’s small knife from inside her boot.
Then he took Cade’s ammunition belt.
“You missed one,” Cade said.
Vale checked him again.
Nothing.
“What?”
“My bad manners.”
Vale hit him in the stomach.
Cade folded against the cell bars.
The sheriff leaned close.
“I waited eleven years for you to come back.”
Cade looked up.
There.
The first truth.
“Back?”
Vale’s face changed.
Just slightly.
Then he locked the cell.
Nalin sat on the bunk across from Cade.
Vale left.
Bootsteps faded.
Cade pressed cloth against his bleeding arm.
Nalin watched.
“Eleven years.”
“Yes.”
“You have been here before.”
“No.”
“He thinks you have.”
Cade shook his head.
“Not Dry Creek.”
Nalin leaned forward.
“Then what happened eleven years ago?”
Cade looked through the bars.
Outside the window, the sun was lowering over the Arizona dust.
“Fort Grant.”
Nalin went still.
Cade noticed.
“You know it?”
She stared at him for several seconds.
“My brother died there.”
Cade’s jaw tightened.
“When?”
“Eleven years ago.”
Neither spoke.
Then Nalin asked:
“What did you do at Fort Grant, Cade Thorn?”
Cade looked at the blood spreading through his sleeve.
He had spent eleven years telling himself the past was buried because nobody had come looking.
Now he understood.
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The past had not been buried.
It had been waiting.
