“He could have killed you.”
“Yes.”
“Why risk that?”
Nara’s eyes filled.
“Because my mother died believing her brother was still alive.”
She reached into her pocket.
From a small leather pouch, she withdrew a silver pendant.
It was shaped like a bird in flight.
Eli stopped breathing.
He knew that pendant.
He had seen it before.
In dreams.
A woman’s hand.
Warm sunlight.
The scent of cedar smoke.
A song.
He reached toward it.
Nara placed it in his palm.
“It belonged to your mother.”
Eli closed his fingers around the silver.
A memory broke through.
Not a complete memory.
Only a voice.
A woman calling him by another name.
He whispered it before he understood what he was saying.
“Tahko.”
Nara gasped.
“Say it again.”
Eli stared at her.
“Tahko.”
Tears spilled down her cheeks.
“That was your name.”
Chapter Seven: The Warning Nailed to the Door
The first threat came two days later.
Someone slaughtered one of Eli’s cattle and left it beside the ranch gate.
A note was nailed to the fence.
SEND THE WOMAN AWAY.
Eli burned it.
The second threat came the following morning.
Three riders followed Nara while she gathered herbs near the creek.
She escaped through a narrow ravine, but one bullet struck the tree beside her head.
Eli found her trembling behind the barn.
“You’re not going out alone again.”
Nara’s eyes flashed.
“I will not live as a prisoner.”
“I’m trying to keep you alive.”
“So am I.”
They argued for the first time.
Eli wanted to ride to the territorial marshal.
Nara insisted that Dugan had allies among officials.
“He will know before you reach them.”
“Then what do you suggest?”
“Find proof.”
“We have the ledger.”
“One ledger from a dead man. Dugan will say it is false.”
Eli paced the kitchen.
“What proof?”
Nara looked toward the eastern hills.
“The mine.”
That night, they rode through the mountains.
Nara led him along a narrow trail invisible from the main road.
After four hours, they reached an abandoned silver mine.
Its entrance had been sealed with timber.
But behind a curtain of brush, Nara found a second opening.
Inside, the air smelled of wet stone and rotting wood.
They carried one lantern.
Deep within the mine, they discovered a storage chamber.
Crates lined the walls.
Inside were ledgers, mining maps, property records, and letters bearing official seals.
One document listed payments made to Sheriff Dugan.
Another recorded the forced removal of families from land containing valuable ore.
But the most horrifying discovery was a book containing names.
Dozens of children.
Their ages.
Their descriptions.
The amounts paid for them.
Eli turned the pages with shaking hands.
Then he found an entry dated 1870.
Male child, four years. Gray eyes. Scar on shoulder. Origin: eastern Apache camp.
Beside it was a name.
Tahko.
And beneath the name was the signature of the man who had received payment.
Silas Dugan.
Eli closed his eyes.
The truth was no longer a possibility.
It was written in ink.
Then Nara found another document.
She held it toward the lantern.
“Eli.”
He looked.
It was a letter written eight years earlier.
The date was familiar.
Terribly familiar.
Three days before Samuel became ill.
The letter was addressed to Dugan.
Ward has begun asking questions about the old transfers. His wife has discovered the records. The matter must be contained before he speaks to the territorial authorities.
It was signed with the initials C.B.
Eli felt his blood turn to ice.
“Rebecca found out?”
Nara looked at him.
“Perhaps.”
Eli took the letter.
Below the signature was a handwritten instruction.
Use the usual method. Leave no witnesses.
Eli remembered Rebecca’s final days.
The sudden fever.
Samuel collapsing.
The doctor insisting it was a contagious sickness.
The strange bitterness in the medicine.
And the way Sheriff Dugan had appeared at the funeral, offering condolences.
Eli had spent eight years believing disease had destroyed his family.
Now he wondered whether someone had murdered them.
Chapter Eight: The Doctor’s Confession
They returned to Dustwater before sunrise.
Eli went directly to the home of Dr. Charles Bell.
Bell had treated Rebecca and Samuel.
He had signed both death certificates.
He was also the only physician within fifty miles.
When Bell opened the door, Eli pushed past him.
“We need to talk.”
Bell stared at the documents in Eli’s hand.
His face drained of color.
“Where did you get those?”
“Tell me what happened to my family.”
Bell backed toward his desk.
“Eli—”
“What happened?”
The doctor began sweating.
“It wasn’t supposed to happen that way.”
Eli felt the room tilt.
“What wasn’t?”
Bell’s lips trembled.
“Dugan wanted your wife frightened. She’d found records hidden in your father’s study. She said she was going to expose him.”
Eli’s fists tightened.
“What did you give her?”
Bell shook his head.
“A preparation. It was meant to make her sick for a few days. Dugan thought she’d become too weak to travel.”
