One rider frowned.
Samuel snapped, “Enough.”
Ethan continued.
“And who buys them?”
Nobody answered.
“I said who buys them?”
A man near Samuel finally muttered, “Walker Land Company.”
Samuel spun.
“Quiet.”
That was enough.
Several riders looked at one another.
They had been told they were defending settlers.
Not protecting land theft.
Ethan almost felt relief.
Then Samuel smiled.
A terrible, quiet smile.
“You always were your mother’s son.”
Ethan froze.
Samuel reached inside his coat.
Ayana raised her rifle.
So did twenty others.
Samuel slowly withdrew a folded document.
Not a weapon.
He tossed it into the dust.
“Read it.”
Ethan picked it up.
The paper was old.
Twenty-nine years old.
A land agreement.
His father’s name appeared near the bottom.
Jonathan Walker.
Beside it was another signature.
Whitehawk’s.
Ethan looked up.
The world seemed to tilt.
Whitehawk stared at the document.
He knew it.
“What is this?”
Samuel answered.
“Ask your chief.”
Ethan turned.
Whitehawk’s silence frightened him.
“Sir?”
Ayana looked at her father.
Whitehawk stepped forward.
“Before you were born, your father came here.”
Ethan’s mouth went dry.
“He knew you?”
Whitehawk nodded.
Samuel laughed.
“Oh, he knew him.”
Whitehawk ignored him.
“Your father was not merely a rancher.”
Ethan could barely breathe.
“He surveyed water routes.”
Samuel spoke again.
“He found the most valuable watershed in southern Arizona.”
Whitehawk continued.
“Your father learned that businessmen intended to buy the surrounding land. They wanted control of every spring.”
Ethan stared at the document.
“And this?”
“Your father proposed an agreement.”
Whitehawk pointed toward the distant valley.
“The ranch you own was purchased so its river frontage could never be controlled by one company.”
Ethan looked at Samuel.
Samuel’s eyes were full of hatred.
“My brother gave away a fortune.”
Whitehawk shook his head.
“He protected water.”
Samuel snapped, “He stole from his family!”
“No,” Ethan said slowly.
“He stopped you.”
Samuel’s gaze shifted toward him.
For twenty-eight years Ethan had believed his parents died in a wagon accident outside Tucson.
A broken axle.
A ravine.
Bad luck.
Suddenly bad luck felt impossible.
“Samuel.”
His uncle’s face changed.
Ethan’s voice dropped.
“How did my parents die?”
Silence.
Ayana moved closer.
Samuel looked at the riders around him.
Then back at Ethan.
“Careful.”
Ethan’s blood turned ice-cold.
That single word answered too much.
“You killed them.”
Several men inhaled sharply.
Samuel said nothing.
“You killed your own brother.”
Samuel’s composure fractured.
“Jonathan was going to sign the entire watershed into permanent protection.”
“So you killed him?”
“He gave everything away!”
Samuel’s shout echoed across the rocks.
There it was.
The truth.
Ugly and irreversible.
Samuel seemed to realize what he had admitted.
One of his riders slowly lowered his rifle.
Then another.
Samuel looked around.
“Raise your weapons.”
Nobody moved.
“I’m paying you!”
A broad-shouldered rider spat into the dust.
“You paid us to stop a raid.”
Another said, “There ain’t no raid.”
Samuel reached for his pistol.
Ayana fired first.
The bullet struck the earth beside his boot.
“Next one is higher,” she said.
Samuel stopped.
Ethan should have felt victory.
Instead, dread hit him.
