“What?”
Gideon pointed toward Thomas.
“Ask your friend why I spent six months trying to find those papers before he did.”
Thomas’s face hardened.
“Gideon.”
But Gideon continued.
“I was never after the evidence for myself.
Grace made me promise before she died that I’d destroy it.”
Eleanor’s voice shook.
“You beat me.”
“Yes.”
Gideon looked at his hands.
“And there is no excuse for that.”
A strange admission.
Not forgiveness.
Not innocence.
Just truth.
“I was angry.
Drunk.
Terrified.
Every day you refused to tell me where those papers were, I imagined Bell finding you first.”
Thomas raised the revolver.
“That’s enough.”
Gideon laughed.
And Samuel suddenly understood.
Thomas was afraid of what Gideon would say next.
“Rebecca wasn’t the first,” Gideon said.
Thomas fired.
The gunshot shattered the afternoon.
Gideon jerked backward and fell.
Chaos exploded.
Samuel dove.
Eleanor screamed.
Gideon’s riders drew weapons.
Thomas fired again.
Samuel hit him at the waist.
Both men crashed into the dirt.
The revolver skidded away.
Thomas struck Samuel across the jaw.
Samuel answered with a fist that broke Thomas’s nose.
They rolled down the creek bank.
Thomas grabbed a rock.
Samuel caught his wrist.
For several seconds they struggled in the dust, two aging men fighting with the desperation of everything buried between them.
Then Thomas hissed:
“She was going to ruin all of us!”
Samuel froze for half a heartbeat.
Thomas swung.
Samuel blocked it.
“Rebecca?”
“Everyone!”
Thomas’s face twisted.
“You think your little ranch was yours?
Half this county was bought before settlers even knew the railroad was coming!”
He clawed toward the revolver.
“The investors paid us to move boundaries.
Your wife found out because Mercer’s damned survey put the river back where it belonged.”
Samuel struck him again.
Thomas spat blood.
“She told me she was going to Lawrence.”
Samuel grabbed his shirt.
“And you chased her.”
“Yes!”
The confession tore from Thomas.
“I chased her!”
Samuel slammed him against the ground.
“And when she fell?”
Thomas’s eyes glittered.
“I let her die.”
Samuel’s fist drew back.
He wanted to kill him.
Every part of him wanted it.
Then a hand touched his shoulder.
Samuel spun.
Eleanor stood there.
She was trembling.
But she did not flinch.
“Samuel.”
His fist remained raised.
“If you kill him,” she whispered,
“then he takes another thing from you.”
Samuel stared at Thomas.
Then slowly lowered his hand.
Gideon’s men had surrendered their weapons.
Gideon himself lay near the ridge, wounded through the shoulder but alive.
Thomas was tied to a cottonwood.
The sun was beginning to sink.
Samuel thought it was over.
He was wrong.
Because Eleanor was keeping one final secret.
Thomas laughed when Samuel said they would take him to Abilene.
“To who?”
Samuel looked at him.
Thomas spat into the dirt.
“The sheriff?”
His grin widened.
“Sheriff Crane’s name is in that ledger.”
Samuel’s stomach dropped.
“The county judge too.”
Thomas leaned against the tree.
“Half the people you think will save you are already bought.”
Samuel looked toward the documents.
If Thomas was right, riding into Abilene might simply deliver the evidence into the hands of the men who wanted it destroyed.
