Inside, the air was cold.
Aranda dismounted.
He walked toward a pile of stones.
He removed one.
Beneath it was a small wooden cross.
Then another.
And another.
Hundreds.
Elias looked at the ground.
There were marks everywhere.
Old graves.
Some had names.
Most did not.
Aranda knelt.
He touched one of the crosses.
“My daughter.”
Elias stood beside him.
“I'm sorry.”
The chief looked up.
“Sorry is not justice.”
“No.”
Elias looked toward the canyon.
“But maybe we can find it.”
Aranda studied him.
“Your father said the same thing.”
Elias looked at Tomas.
“What else did my father know?”
Tomas hesitated.
Then he pulled another object from his coat.
A brass key.
Elias recognized it.
His father had owned one exactly like it.
“Where did you get that?”
“Your father gave it to me.”
“When?”
“The night before he died.”
Elias took the key.
“What does it open?”
Tomas pointed toward the canyon wall.
“There.”
Hidden behind the rocks was an old iron door.
Elias inserted the key.
It turned.
The door opened.
Inside was a narrow chamber.
And inside the chamber were twenty years of evidence.
Ledgers.
Letters.
Military orders.
Photographs.
Names.
Receipts.
Maps.
And one locked wooden chest.
Elias opened the first ledger.
The names of soldiers appeared.
Then payments.
Then land grants.
Then dates.
The massacre had not been an accident.
It had been planned.
The Apache families had been deliberately moved into the canyon.
The soldiers had surrounded them.
The exits had been blocked.
Then the shooting began.
The land had been cleared.
The survivors were hunted.
And the government records had been altered.
Elias turned page after page.
Then he saw his father's name.
Nathan Boone — witness.
Below it:
Eliminate before testimony.
Elias stopped breathing.
His father had not been robbed.
He had been executed.
And the order had been signed by Silas Crowe.
That night, Elias could not sleep.
He sat beside the canyon entrance.
Aranda joined him.
For a long time, neither spoke.
Finally, Elias asked:
“Why did you bring three hundred men?”
Aranda looked toward the stars.
“Because twenty years ago, we came with fifty.”
“And?”
“Only seven returned.”
Elias looked down.
“I understand.”
“No.”
Aranda's voice was gentle.
“You don't.”
He pointed toward the graves.
“Every year, I told my people to remember.”
Elias nodded.
“But remembering is not enough.”
“No.”
The chief looked at him.
“This morning, when I saw you, I remembered your father.”
Elias swallowed.
“You could have killed me.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn't you?”
“Because your father once told me something.”
“What?”
Aranda smiled faintly.
“He said a man's blood does not determine his heart.”
Elias looked at the graves.
“My father believed that?”
“He died believing it.”
Silence returned.
Then Tomas approached.
“We have a problem.”
Elias stood.
“What?”
“Crowe knows.”
Aranda's expression hardened.
“How?”
Tomas held up a telegram.
“They intercepted one of the copies.”
Elias looked at it.
The message contained only one sentence.
BURN THE CANYON BEFORE SUNRISE.
They returned to the canyon.