Mara glanced toward the windows.
“Sheriff Boone will come back.”
“I know.”
“He won't stop.”
“I know.”
“You should leave.”
Caleb took another sip of coffee.
“You're the second person today to tell me that.”
“You don't understand.”
“I understand enough.”
“No,” Mara said. “You don't.”
Her voice broke.
“My father is dead. The men who killed him are still walking around. Everyone here knows something, but nobody will speak. They took my home. They took my family's land. And now they want the last thing my father left me.”
She held up the watch.
Caleb looked at it.
“What is inside?”
“I don't know.”
“You never opened it?”
“My father told me not to.”
“Why?”
“He said I would know when the time came.”
Caleb stared at the watch.
Then he looked at Mara.
“Maybe the time came today.”
They left the saloon through the back door after dark.
Caleb led her to an abandoned house at the edge of town.
The roof leaked.
The windows were cracked.
But it was quiet.
Mara stood in the middle of the room.
“You stay here tonight.”
“And you?”
“I'll be nearby.”
“You think Boone will search the town?”
“I know he will.”
“How?”
“Because men like him don't like losing control.”
Mara sat beside the fireplace.
“You knew my father.”
“Yes.”
“Did he trust you?”
Caleb thought about it.
“I don't know.”
“But he gave you his watch.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I don't know.”
Mara looked at the second watch.
“Maybe you should open it.”
Caleb shook his head.
“It's yours.”
“My father trusted you.”
“He trusted me eight years ago.”
“And you still have it.”
Caleb said nothing.
Mara watched him.
“You kept it all these years.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
He looked at the watch.
“Because I couldn't bring myself to throw away the last thing a good man ever gave me.”
Mara's expression softened.
She handed him her watch.
“Then let's find out what he wanted us to see.”
Caleb placed both watches on the table.
He studied the backs.
The first had a small bird engraved into it.
The second had the same bird.
Mara touched the engraving.
“That symbol belonged to my family.”
Caleb nodded.
“Your father showed it to me.”
“When?”
“Before I left.”
“What did he say?”
“He said that a person can forge a signature.”
He paused.
“But not history.”
Mara frowned.
“What does that mean?”
“I don't know.”
Caleb examined the watch.
Then he noticed something.
The back cover was slightly loose.
He opened it.
Inside was a tiny piece of folded paper.
Mara gasped.
Caleb unfolded it carefully.
Only one sentence had been written.
DO NOT TRUST THE MAN WHO WEARS THE STAR.
Mara looked at him.
“The sheriff.”
Caleb nodded.
“Probably.”
“There is more.”
She pointed toward the bottom.
A series of numbers had been written beneath the sentence.
Caleb studied them.
“Coordinates.”
“For what?”
“I don't know.”
Mara suddenly remembered something.
“My father used to talk about a place called Black Mesa.”
Caleb looked up.
“Where?”
“North of here.”
“How far?”
“Two days on horseback.”
“Then we leave at dawn.”
Mara looked at him.
“Why?”
“Because whatever your father wanted you to find, someone else is willing to kill for it.”
She swallowed.
“And you still want to help me?”
Caleb put the watches away.
“No.”
Mara looked hurt.
“I want to finish what your father started.”
Before sunrise, they rode north.
The desert stretched endlessly before them.
For several hours they said nothing.
The only sounds were hoofbeats and wind.
Eventually Mara asked:
“Why did you really leave my father?”
Caleb kept his eyes on the trail.
“I was afraid.”
“Of him?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“Of owing him.”
Mara looked confused.
“He saved your life.”
“I know.”
“Why would that frighten you?”
“Because a debt like that doesn't disappear.”
He looked toward the horizon.
“I spent years convincing myself that I owed nothing to anyone. It was easier that way.”
“And now?”
“Now I know better.”