"Remind me never to make you angry," Arthur said, his voice quiet.
The youngest sister gave a sharp, wolfish grin. "Too late."
"Now," she added, turning toward the north. "We run."
They moved quickly, keeping to the jagged sandstone ravines where iron shoes left no marks and tracks were swallowed by the drifting sand. They were not fleeing toward the wild country; they were striking southwest, toward the territorial town of Prescott.
Arthur knew something that Harrow, in his arrogant greed, had overlooked. Federal Marshal Amos Reed had arrived in the territory three days earlier, setting up a temporary office in the county courthouse while investigating a series of missing army payroll shipments. Reed was a hardened Union veteran who answered only to Washington, far beyond the reach of local bribes or small-town bankers.
If the document reached Reed, Harrow’s web of power would shatter instantly.
By dawn, however, the chase turned desperate. Harrow was no fool; he quickly realized the cattle stampede was a diversion. Within an hour, his men had rallied, found the trail where Arthur’s boots dragged, and were pursuing them with ruthless speed.
Arthur was failing. His fresh stitches had burst during the climb up the ridge, and blood was soaking through his shirt. Every step felt as though a hot iron were being twisted between his ribs.
"You can walk?" the middle sister asked, coming up beside him as they paused in the shade of a rock overhang.
"I can complain tomorrow," Arthur grunted, pressing his hand against his wound.
"That means no," she said flatly.
"That means move faster," Arthur countered, forcing his legs to keep moving.
The youngest sister laughed—a light, quick sound that seemed wildly out of place in the grim wilderness. Yet, to Arthur’s surprise, that laugh gave him a strange surge of strength.
Crack!
A rifle shot echoed through the gorge. The bullet struck the sandstone inches above Arthur’s head, showering his face with hot grit.
"Down!" the eldest sister barked.
They reached Black Rock Crossing—a dangerous, narrow gorge where the muddy waters of the Verde River surged between two sheer, ninety-foot walls of basalt. Behind them, five riders emerged from the tree line, shouting and levering fresh rounds into their rifles.
The eldest sister looked at her family, speaking rapid, guttural Apache words that Arthur could not understand. But he understood what happened next.
The sisters split up.
The eldest bounded north along the high ridge. The youngest darted south into the thick brush near the water's edge. The middle sister took Arthur by the arm, dragging him directly across the shallow ford toward the town road.
The pursuers ground to a halt at the edge of the canyon, confused.
"Which one has the paper?!" one gunfighter screamed above the roar of the water.
"They don't know who has the document," Arthur whispered, sudden admiration washing over him.
The middle sister looked at him with a dark, satisfied expression. "Now you understand."
Harrow’s men split their forces, shouting over the noise of the river. Two men rode north after the eldest sister. Two plunged into the south brush after the youngest. Harrow himself, along with his lead enforcer, spurred their horses straight across the ford, pursuing the middle sister and Arthur.
It was a brilliant plan, but it was built on a lie that Arthur himself didn't fully comprehend until that very moment.
None of them was carrying the primary document.
Before leaving the ranch, while the cattle were being freed, the middle sister had slipped the oilcloth-wrapped papers into the saddlebag of Arthur's old gray mare—the horse they had turned loose into the hills. That mare had spent six years walking the path between Arthur's farm and the livery stable in town, and would head straight for the town water trough on her own.
They were not carrying the evidence. They were acting as the bait.
Arthur and the middle sister climbed the steep, shale-covered slope leading out of the riverbed. Arthur’s strength was rapidly fading; his vision blurred at the edges, and his breath came in agonized, whistling gasps.
"Leave me," Arthur grunted, collapsing against a boulder. "I’m slowing you down. Take my rifle and go."
The middle sister stopped, turned, and slapped him—hard—across his face.