Eli stepped off the porch.
“Ten years ago I chose theirs without knowing their names.”
Voss stared at him.
Eli’s voice remained quiet.
“Don’t assume I’ve grown wiser.”
Waya almost smiled.
Voss did not.
He climbed into his carriage and left.
Gideon waited until the dust disappeared.
Then he said, “We’ve got another problem.”
Eli turned.
“Of course we do.”
Gideon looked miserable.
“I sold him my north forty.”
Eli stared.
“When?”
“Six months ago.”
“Why?”
Gideon looked toward the road leading home.
“Nell.”
The old man’s granddaughter had been sick the previous winter.
Eli remembered.
A fever.
A doctor from Santa Fe.
Medicine.
Weeks when Gideon had pretended everything was fine while losing weight because he kept giving Nell the best food.
“I borrowed money,” Gideon said. “More than I could repay.”
“Why didn’t you ask me?”
“You had two bad horse sales and a barn roof that needed replacing.”
“You should’ve asked.”
“Yes.”
Gideon looked older than sixty-eight.
“Pride makes fools of old men just as easily as young ones.”
The north forty bordered Eli’s pasture.
Right above the underground water channel.
Voss already controlled part of the access point.
Chaska looked toward the window.
“He will move tonight.”
Waya nodded.
Eli looked at both.
“How do you know?”
Waya answered.
“Because men like Voss become dangerous when paper stops working.”
At sunset, Nell arrived crying.
She had run more than a mile barefoot.
“Grandpa!”
Gideon caught her before she reached the porch.
“What happened?”
“Men came.”
Every adult went still.
“What men?”
“They said Mr. Voss owns the north field now. They’re putting fence posts across the creek.”
Gideon cursed.
Eli saddled Calico.
Waya was already mounting.
Chaska grabbed his rein.
“Think.”
“They’re blocking water.”
“That is what they want you to see.”
Eli paused.
Chaska glanced toward the barn.
“Where are the papers?”
Inside.
On his table.
A diversion.
Eli jumped down.
Almost immediately, smoke rose behind the house.
“Barn!” Serina shouted.
Flames appeared along the western wall.
Everything exploded into motion.
Gideon dragged Nell toward the creek.
Eli ran for the barn.
Horses screamed inside.
Someone had barred the rear doors.
Waya chopped through the rope with a knife while Eli kicked open the front stall.
Smoke poured through the rafters.
“Move!”
Seven frightened horses surged past him.
Calico reared outside.
Serina and Chaska formed a line with Gideon, throwing buckets from the trough.
Then Serina screamed.
“The house!”
Eli turned.
A shadow moved through his doorway.
He ran.
Inside, a man stood beside the table stuffing documents beneath his coat.
Eli hit him before recognizing him.
Both crashed against the stove.
The man swung a pistol.
Eli caught his wrist.
The gun discharged into the ceiling.
Then Waya appeared behind them and struck the man across the head with the wooden curve of her bow.
He collapsed.
Eli looked at her.
“You could’ve warned me.”
“You were busy.”
The barn burned.
But the horses survived.
So did the papers.
And the unconscious thief carried something Voss could not explain away.
In his pocket was a written instruction signed by Voss’s foreman:
Recover silver survey case and all documents. Burn Mercer barn.
Gideon read it twice.
“Well,” he said, “that seems inconvenient for Mr. Voss.”
Deputy Hatcher agreed.
