Chapter 3 - Fort Grant
Cade had been thirty-one when he rode into Fort Grant.
Notorious already.
Not famous yet.
There was a difference.
Famous men attracted stories.
Notorious men attracted work.
In 1875, Cade worked for whoever paid enough and lied convincingly.
Rail companies.
Cattle outfits.
Mining interests.
Occasionally federal marshals who needed a man with no official badge and fewer questions.
At Fort Grant, the job came from a territorial contractor named Silas Creed.
Cade remembered the man’s white gloves.
Arizona dust everywhere, yet Creed’s gloves remained clean.
“Escort payroll,” Creed had said.
Three wagons.
Four armed riders.
Two days south.
Good money.
No complication.
There had been a complication.
Cade told Nalin only part of it.
“There was a payroll robbery.”
“Who robbed it?”
“I don’t know.”
“You were there.”
“I know.”
“That is not the same answer.”
Cade tied a strip torn from his poncho around his upper arm.
Pain pulsed with every movement.
Nalin watched his fingers.
“You are losing too much blood.”
“Not yet.”
“That is another bad answer.”
Cade glanced at her.
“You always this cheerful?”
“When men are stupid.”
“Then Dry Creek must be paradise.”
For the first time, she smiled.
Barely.
Then it disappeared.
“My brother’s name was Taza.”
Cade’s hands stopped.
Nalin noticed.
“You knew him.”
Cade looked away.
“Taza Nalin?”
“In your language, people used Nalin as though it were our family name. It is not.”
Cade absorbed the correction.
“I remember Taza.”
“How?”
“He was a scout.”
“Yes.”
“He worked with the Army.”
“When it suited survival.”
Cade nodded.
Fair.
Nalin moved closer to the bars.
“My brother was twenty-three. He returned home twice after becoming a scout. The third time, soldiers said he died helping thieves attack a government wagon.”
Cade said nothing.
“They said he betrayed the fort.”
Still nothing.
“They said Cade Thorn shot him.”
Cade looked at her.
“That is why you came?”
“I did not know you were coming.”
“Then why are you in Dry Creek?”
Nalin’s expression hardened.
“To find the man who paid Gabe Mercer to burn my uncle’s ranch.”
Cade frowned.
“Why?”
“My uncle found something.”
“What?”
“He would not tell me in a letter.”
“Where is he?”
“Dead.”
Cade exhaled slowly.
“How?”
“Fire.”
“And you think Gabe?”
“I watched him ride away.”
“Why didn’t you leave?”
“Because he dropped this.”
Nalin reached toward her waist, then remembered Vale had taken her knife and searched her.
Her expression tightened.
“What?”
“There was a brass token hidden in my dress.”
“Vale took it?”
“No.”
She smiled faintly.
“You are not the only one who knows where men avoid searching when witnesses are present.”
Cade raised an eyebrow.
Nalin slipped two fingers under a torn seam near her collar and removed a small brass disc.
One side bore a star.
The other had the number 17.
Cade recognized it.
He wished he did not.
Nalin saw his face.
“What is it?”
“Freight token.”
“From where?”
“Fort Grant contractors used them.”
“Eleven years ago?”
“Yes.”
The cell suddenly felt smaller.
Cade took the token.
Silas Creed’s wagons had used numbered brass markers to identify payroll crates.
Cade remembered seventeen.
Crate seventeen had not contained payroll.
It had contained rifles.
Thirty of them.
Winchesters.
Unregistered.
Not meant for Fort Grant.
That was the moment the escort stopped being a simple job.
Cade remembered lifting the canvas.
Taza standing beside him.
Both men looking at weapons that were not supposed to exist.
Creed appearing behind them.
Then everything went wrong.
Nalin said, “Tell me.”
Cade looked toward the jail office.
Vale was gone.
Still he lowered his voice.
“The payroll escort was cover.”
“For weapons.”
“Yes.”
“Going where?”
“I never found out.”
“You never asked?”
“I asked.”
“What happened?”
Cade saw dust.
Muzzle smoke.
Taza shouting.
A wagon burning.
“People died.”
Nalin’s gaze sharpened.
“My brother?”
“Yes.”
“Did you shoot him?”
Cade did not answer immediately.
That was answer enough.
Nalin stood.
Even injured, she moved fast.
She grabbed Cade by the shirt and slammed him against the bars.
Pain tore through his wounded arm.
“You killed him.”
Cade did not resist.
“Listen.”
“You killed him.”
“Yes.”
The word stopped her.
Cade continued.
“I fired the bullet.”
Nalin’s eyes filled with hatred.
“But that is not the whole truth.”
She struck him across the face.
His cheek cut reopened.
He accepted it.
“Tell me why I should care about your whole truth.”
“Because Taza asked me to shoot.”
Nalin froze.
Cade spoke quietly.
“He was already hit.”
“By whom?”
“Creed’s men.”
“You expect me to believe—”
“He found the rifle shipment. He wanted to report it. Creed ordered us killed.”
Nalin’s grip loosened.
“Taza took one through the stomach. Bad.”
Cade remembered kneeling beside him.
Blood soaking desert sand.
Riders approaching.
Taza unable to stand.
“He knew they would question him if they took him alive.”
Nalin’s face changed.
“He asked?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“He did.”
“No.”
“He handed me his revolver first.”
Cade reached slowly beneath his boot.
Nalin tensed.
He pulled free a flat piece of metal hidden inside the leather sole.
A small silver medallion.
Worn smooth.
A sunburst etched around one letter.
T.
Nalin stopped breathing.
Cade held it through the bars of light.
“Taza gave me this.”
Nalin stared.
Her hand began trembling.
“That belonged to our mother.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“He told me.”
Nalin reached for it.
Before her fingers touched the medallion, the outer jail door opened.
Vale entered.
Behind him walked a man Cade had not seen in eleven years.
White shirt.
Black vest.
Silver hair.
No white gloves this time.
Silas Creed smiled.
“Still carrying souvenirs, Thorn?”
Cade closed his fist around Taza’s medallion.
Creed looked at Nalin.
Then at the brass token.
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His smile disappeared.
“That,” he said softly, “was supposed to burn with the ranch.”
