"You don't know what you're holding."
"I know enough."
Vane lunged.
Caleb knocked him down.
They bound him.
Then they discovered something unexpected.
Thomas Reed was not at Red Rock Station.
He had been taken.
Vane had planned another trap.
They found Reed's wagon abandoned near the river.
Inside was blood.
No body.
Elena looked at Caleb.
"We're too late."
Caleb shook his head.
"Not yet."
He pointed to the ground.
Hoofprints.
"They took him alive."
"Where?"
Caleb followed the tracks.
"Old Fort Mason."
Elena's expression changed.
"That's three days away."
"We have one day."
They rode.
The Prisoner in the Stone Fort
Old Fort Mason stood against the mountain like a dead animal.
Caleb and Elena approached after midnight.
They found six guards.
Too many to fight directly.
Elena whispered:
"There is another entrance."
"How do you know?"
"My mother showed me."
They entered through a narrow tunnel.
Inside, they found Thomas Reed chained to a wall.
He was alive.
Barely.
Caleb freed him.
"Can you walk?"
Reed nodded.
"I can try."
"Where are the records?"
Reed pointed toward a locked room.
"There."
They opened it.
Inside were boxes.
Contracts.
Ledgers.
Letters.
Photographs.
Enough evidence to destroy Samuel Vane.
But one document made Caleb stop.
It contained his father's signature.
Caleb stared.
"My father worked with Vane."
Elena shook her head.
"No."
The signature was real.
But the letter was dated two years after his father's supposed death.
Caleb understood.
"Forgery."
Reed nodded.
"Vane forged signatures to make people appear guilty."
"Why?"
"To control land."
Caleb opened another file.
His father's name appeared again.
This time with a payment.
Caleb felt sick.
Then Elena found a photograph.
A young Anna Mercer.
Standing beside Running Wolf.
And beside them was a little boy.
Caleb stared.
"That's my father."
Running Wolf had been right.
His father had loved Anna.
He had never betrayed her.
He had been protecting her.
The sound of boots interrupted them.
Vane's men.
"Go!" Caleb shouted.
They ran.
Gunfire filled the fort.
Reed was shot in the leg.
Elena dragged him.
Caleb covered them.
They reached the tunnel.
A fire had been set at the entrance.
They were trapped.
Elena looked at Caleb.
"There is another way."
"Where?"
"The roof."
They climbed.
Bullets struck the stones around them.
At the top, they reached the old bell tower.
There was nowhere else to go.
Caleb looked down.
A drop of thirty feet.
Elena smiled.
"Trust me."
She jumped.
Caleb stared.
"Elena!"
She landed on a pile of hay below.
Then looked up.
"Come on!"
Caleb jumped.
They landed together.
Reed followed.
They escaped into the night.
But Vane followed.
They rode until dawn.
At sunrise, Elena looked back.
"He'll never stop."
Caleb nodded.
"Neither will we."
She looked at him.
"Caleb."
"What?"
"You know what this means?"
"What?"
"If we survive, we can't go back to our old lives."
Caleb smiled.
"I don't want my old life."
"Neither do I."
They rode side by side.
For the first time, neither was running away.
They were riding toward something.
The Veil Burns
They returned to the valley with the evidence.
Running Wolf gathered the elders.
Thomas Reed testified.
The documents were examined.
Everything connected.
Vane had stolen land.
He had arranged murders.
He had forged signatures.
He had provoked violence between settlers and Apache families.
The evidence was overwhelming.
But Vane was still free.
He arrived at the valley that night with forty men.
Running Wolf prepared the warriors.
Caleb stood beside him.
Elena stepped forward.
Her father tried to stop her.
"No."
She shook her head.