“I offered to buy your ranch fairly.”
“You offered to buy something you needed for a fraud.”
“I offered enough money for you to live comfortably.”
“I am comfortable.”
Bell shook his head.
“Men like you worship hardship because you have never learned ambition.”
Noah stood slowly.
“And men like you call greed ambition because greed sounds ugly.”
Mercer raised the rifle again.
Bell stopped him.
“No.”
He turned toward the canyon.
“Tie them near the eastern wall.”
Elena finally showed concern.
“Why?”
Bell smiled.
“Because when the charges go off, anyone finding your bodies will assume you came here to sabotage my legal construction project.”
Noah understood.
Bell would blame them for the explosion.
Possibly claim the Apache community attacked railroad workers.
The company would get everything it wanted.
They were tied to a timber post twenty yards from the blasting area.
Workers continued drilling.
Mercer guarded them.
Noah whispered:
“Can you reach your boot?”
Elena did not move.
“No.”
“I have a knife.”
“Where?”
“Boot.”
“Useful.”
“Thank you.”
“But I cannot reach it.”
“Yes. That is the problem.”
Mercer heard them.
“Planning something?”
Noah smiled.
“Discussing footwear.”
Mercer shook his head.
At 4:10 the crew began connecting fuse lines.
At 4:20 Bell mounted his horse.
At 4:25 Elena whispered:
“Someone is on the ridge.”
Noah could not see.
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
A bird call sounded.
Three short notes.
Elena’s eyes changed.
“What?”
“That is Rosa.”
Noah stared.
“Rosa is at the ranch.”
Another call sounded.
Then a rifle shot shattered the lantern beside Mercer.
Darkness swallowed the camp.
Men shouted.
Horses panicked.
A second shot severed the rope holding the company remounts.
Animals scattered.
Noah laughed.
“That is definitely Rosa.”
Elena twisted her wrists.
A figure slid from the rocks behind them.
Rosa.
Noah stared.
“You were supposed to stay with Elijah.”
“I disagreed.”
She cut Elena free.
“Isabel took him with her.”
“You let an injured man ride eighty miles?”
“He complained the entire time, so he is probably alive.”
Gunfire erupted near the wagons.
Tomas and six riders emerged from the canyon mouth.
Bell’s crew scattered.
Mercer ran toward a horse.
Elena tackled him before he reached it.
Noah got his knife and freed himself.
But one company man had reached the fuse.
He struck a match.
Noah saw the flame.
“Fuse!”
The man lit it.
A bright spark raced toward the cliff.
Noah ran.
Twenty feet.
Fifteen.
Ten.
He threw himself to the ground and grabbed the burning line.
The fuse burned through his glove.
He ripped it from the charge.
The flame died inches from the detonator.
Silence fell gradually.
Smoke drifted through the darkness.
Noah rolled onto his back.
Rosa appeared above him.
“That was stupid.”
“Yes.”
Elena joined her.
“Very stupid.”
“Yes.”
Tomas walked over.
“You chose all three?”
Noah looked at the sisters standing over him.
“I’m beginning to think they chose themselves.”
For the first time all night, Elena laughed.
Then hoofbeats thundered at the western entrance.
Not company riders.
A young ranch hand approached carrying a telegram.
He handed it to Tomas.
Tomas read.
His expression darkened.
“What?”
The old man looked at Noah.
“Isabel reached Santa Rosa.”
“That’s good.”
“No.”
Tomas handed him the telegram.
The territorial judge had been arrested before the hearing.
On orders signed by Deputy Commissioner Weller.
And Crown Meridian now had an emergency order authorizing the removal of every person at Red Mesa.
By noon.
They returned to Red Mesa at sunrise.
Families were already packing.
Not because they intended to surrender.
Because Tomas refused to leave children trapped in the valley if Crown Meridian attacked.
Noah stood beside the stream reading the emergency order.
It accused the Apache community of armed trespass, theft of livestock, sabotage and attacks upon railway contractors.
Every accusation had been manufactured from Bell’s own crimes.
His stolen horses became evidence of Apache theft.
The canyon ambush became evidence of violence.
Bell’s illegal blasting operation became a lawful construction project attacked by Noah and Elena.
“They built the lie before anything happened,” Noah said.
Tomas nodded.
“That is why they needed your horses.”
Noah crushed the paper in his fist.
A rider approached from the south.
Isabel.
She looked exhausted.
Elijah rode behind her with a bandage around his head.
Noah walked toward them.
“You’re alive.”
Elijah looked offended.
“Apparently disappointing several people.”
Isabel dismounted.
“The judge was detained on false corruption charges.”
“Can Weller do that?”
“No.”
“But he did.”
“Yes.”
She pulled another paper from her coat.
“There is worse.”
Noah groaned.
“You have a remarkable talent for saying that.”
“Bell has hired forty men.”
Tomas’s face hardened.
“Forty?”
“They will arrive before noon.”
Elena looked across the camp.
They had perhaps fifteen capable riders.
Several older men.
Some ranchers might help, but there was no time to reach them.
Noah looked at the stream.
Bell wanted them to fight.
He needed bloodshed.
Once bullets started, his story became easier to sell.
Noah suddenly asked:
“Where is Deputy Commissioner Weller?”
Isabel frowned.
“San Mateo.”
“And his records?”
“The land office.”
“Elena.”
She looked at him.
“How fast can you reach San Mateo?”
“Two hours if the horse survives.”
“Take mine too. Switch halfway.”
Tomas understood.
“You want the original filing.”
“I want every version of it.”
Isabel’s expression changed.
“If Weller altered a federal survey, there will be registration numbers.”
“And if he destroyed them?”
“Territorial filings are copied to the county recorder.”
Noah pointed south.
“Where?”
“Mercy Station.”
“Rosa?”
She smiled.
“I assume you are about to tell me where to go.”
“Mercy Station.”
“With Isabel?”
“Yes.”
Isabel shook her head.
“Someone must remain here with the documents.”
“No.”
Noah looked at all three.
“This is how Bell keeps winning. He forces everyone into one place and gives them one problem. We give him four.”
Tomas watched quietly.
Noah continued.
“Elena gets the land-office record. Isabel and Rosa get the county copy.”
“What do you do?” Rosa asked.
“I stay here.”
“With forty men coming?”
“Yes.”
“That is not a plan.”
“It is part of one.”
Tomas looked at him.
“What is the rest?”
Noah faced the ranch hands and riders around them.
“We don’t defend Red Mesa alone.”
He sent riders in every direction.
To Broken Spur.
To the Ortega ranch.
To the small cattle outfits along the southern creek.
To families that had used the Red Mesa spring during drought.
To farmers whose irrigation ditches depended on the same underground water.
The message was simple.
Crown Meridian was not taking Apache land.
It was taking the water system everyone depended on.
That changed everything.
By ten o’clock ranchers began arriving.
Five from the Ortega spread.
Three Mexican cattlemen from the south.
Two farmers from Mercy Creek.
Then twelve men from Broken Spur.
Not an army.
But witnesses.
Noah instructed everyone:
“No one fires first.”
A rancher named Cole Harris frowned.
“They shoot, we shoot.”
“If they shoot at you, defend yourself. But Bell wants a battle. Don’t hand him one.”
At eleven-fifteen dust appeared on the eastern road.
Crown Meridian.
Forty riders.
Bell came at the front.
Beside him rode Wade Mercer, whose face was bruised from Elena’s tackle but whose wrists were somehow no longer tied.
Noah looked at Tomas.
“You let him escape?”
Tomas shrugged.
“My knots are not what they used to be.”
Noah suspected the old man was lying.
Perhaps Mercer had been allowed to return deliberately.
Bell’s men stopped fifty yards from the stream.
Bell looked around.
He had expected a frightened settlement.
Instead he saw Apache riders standing beside ranchers and farmers.
The surprise pleased Noah.
Bell recovered quickly.
He raised the emergency order.
“You have thirty minutes to clear this valley.”
Noah stepped forward.
“Your order is fraudulent.”
“It carries the territorial seal.”
“So does a lot of paper Weller sells.”
Bell’s eyes narrowed.
“Where are Tomas’s daughters?”
Noah smiled.
“Which one?”
Bell’s irritation showed.
All three were absent.
Which meant Bell did not know where the evidence was going.
“You think you’re clever,” Bell said.
“No.”
Noah glanced at Tomas.
“I learned that from them.”