He took one look at Harlan Voss and stopped smiling.
“What’s this snake doing here?”
Voss sighed.
“Good morning, Gideon.”
“Didn’t sound like one anymore.”
Then Gideon saw the Apache women.
His face changed.
Eli noticed something remarkable.
Recognition.
Not of them.
Of the silver cylinder on the table.
Gideon went pale.
Eli saw it immediately.
“Gideon?”
The old man stared.
“Where did you get that?”
Serina touched the silver case.
“You know it?”
Gideon removed his hat.
For once, he had no joke.
“Where did you get it?”
“Lieutenant Rusk’s widow.”
Gideon closed his eyes.
“Oh, Lord.”
Eli felt anger rise.
“You know what this is about.”
Gideon sat heavily in the empty chair.
“I know some.”
“How much?”
“Enough that I should’ve told you years ago.”
Eli stepped back as if Gideon had struck him.
Of all the people in the valley, Gideon Pratt was the one person Eli trusted without reservation.
The old man had helped raise his barn.
Sat with him three days when pneumonia nearly killed him.
Brought Nell over every Sunday because the child claimed Eli’s biscuits were better, though everyone knew they were nearly identical to saddle leather.
“What didn’t you tell me?”
Gideon stared at his hands.
“Your father came through this valley once.”
Eli stopped breathing.
“My father?”
“Benjamin Mercer.”
“You knew him?”
“For six days.”
“When?”
“1857.”
A year before Eli’s parents died.
Gideon looked up.
“He was looking for something.”
“What?”
“You.”
The room seemed to tilt.
“That makes no sense.”
“It will.”
Gideon swallowed.
“Your mother’s name wasn’t Margaret.”
Eli said nothing.
The old man continued.
“The name she used after marriage was Margaret Mercer. But she was born Margarita de la Cruz.”
Chaska closed her eyes.
As if hearing something confirmed that she had feared to hope.
Eli stared at her.
“You knew?”
“We suspected.”
“You knew my mother?”
“No. But our mothers did.”
Eli backed toward the wall.
His mother had died when he was twelve.
He remembered black hair.
A soft singing voice.
A habit of touching the small silver cross at her throat whenever she worried.
She had spoken Spanish sometimes when she believed Eli was asleep.
He had never questioned it.
Children rarely questioned the shape of the world they inherited.
“My mother was from Missouri.”
“No,” Gideon said gently. “She told people she was.”
Eli looked toward Chaska.
“Who was she?”
Chaska pulled the blue-corded papers from Serina’s bundle.
“We think she was part of a family that lived along these valleys before you were born. A family connected by marriage and kinship across several communities—Apache, Hispano, and settlers who came north from Mexico.”
Eli’s throat tightened.
Chaska continued.
“Her grandfather held legal title under an older territorial grant.”
Voss spoke from the doorway.
“An unconfirmed grant.”
Everyone turned.
He should have left.
He had not.
Voss smiled thinly.
“Stories grow larger in the telling.”
Serina pulled a paper free.
“This is not a story.”
Voss’s face changed.
Serina unfolded it carefully.
A seal showed at the bottom.
Gideon whispered something Eli could not hear.
“What is that?” Eli asked.
Gideon stared at the document.
“The original family record.”
Voss stepped forward.
Waya moved between him and the table.
He stopped.
Chaska looked at Eli.
