“Naya, stay with Samuel!” Ethan shouted, bursting out the rear door.
He leapt onto his old bay gelding, digging his heels into the horse's flanks. Dust billowed behind him as he spurred the gelding into the canyon, ignoring the crack of rifle fire from the cliffs above.
Hoofbeats thundered right behind him. Ethan looked back over his shoulder—Naya had mounted a second workhorse, pulling Samuel up behind her, refusing to be left behind.
They drove their horses deep into the granite gorge where the canyon walls rose hundreds of feet into the sky, blotting out the prairie sun. Fifty yards ahead, the black stallion galloped with absolute precision through the twisting stone passages before coming to a sudden halt before a heavy wooden door built directly into the cliff side.
Above the door was a rusted metal plate: 17.
Ethan swung off his gelding, pulled Key 17 from his pocket, and thrust it into the iron lock. With a heavy, metallic click, the ancient deadbolt retracted.
Inside lay a cool, dry cavern lined with pine shelving. It was not a mine; it was an extensive subterranean archive. Stacked neatly along the stone walls were dozens of bound ledgers, original land patents, surveyor field notebooks, and official territorial seals—decades of evidence detailing every fraudulent deed Whitcomb had ever generated.
“This is enough to indict Whitcomb and half the territorial legislature,” Ethan said, thumbing through a ledger filled with names, dates, and payout amounts.
“Mother!” Samuel called from the canyon trail outside.
Ethan and Naya rushed back to the sunlight. The black stallion had moved twenty yards further down the rock face, standing beside a second, smaller iron door hidden behind thick desert ivy.
Above it sat the second plate: 18.
Ethan stepped forward, took Key 18 from the stallion’s saddle pouch, and turned it in the lock. The thick oak door swung inward.
Inside the narrow stone cell sat a man chained to an iron ring in the wall. He was gaunt, his hair matted, his clothes reduced to rags, but his dark eyes were clear.
“Thomas!” Naya cried, rushing past Ethan to fall to her knees beside him.
Her brother wept quietly as Ethan used a iron prybar from the archive to shatter the chain links. Thomas had not been killed four years ago; Whitcomb had kept him imprisoned inside the spring system to force him to reveal where Daniel had hidden the master ledgers.
“You’re Walker?” Thomas asked, gasping as Ethan hauled him to his feet.
“I am,” Ethan said. “We have to move. Whitcomb’s men are at the canyon mouth.”
Thomas shook his head weakly. “They won't just let us ride out with those books, Walker. Whitcomb brought twenty men from town.”
Ethan looked from the mountain of ledgers to the black stallion standing patiently in the canyon passage. A desperate plan took shape.
Ethan grabbed the primary ledger—the one containing Whitcomb’s handwritten payment records—and tied it tightly inside a canvas bag, securing it beneath the black stallion’s saddle. He placed Captain Hawthorne’s silver cavalry badge in the pouch on top.
“What are you doing?” Naya asked.
“If we try to carry these out together, we’ll be cornered,” Ethan said. “The stallion knows the trail back to Red Hollow. He’ll take the main evidence straight to the town square.”
Ethan slapped the stallion’s flank. The great black horse let out a sharp bugle and bolted toward a narrow, hidden drainage wash at the rear of the canyon that led out toward the open flats.
Shots echoed from the ridge as Whitcomb’s men spotted the horse escaping, but the animal was moving too fast, disappearing into the dust of the valley floor.
“Now,” Ethan said, turning to Thomas, Naya, and Samuel. “We take the ventilation tunnel.”
“Naya, stay with Samuel behind the rock wall!” Ethan shouted, his voice echoing violently off the sheer granite cliffs of the narrow gorge.
He swung himself onto his bay gelding, driving his spurs into the horse’s flanks. Dust and gravel exploded into the air as the gelding sprinted into the dark, narrow mouth of the canyon. The canyon walls rose three hundred feet above them, blotting out the harsh sky until the sunlight was reduced to a razor-thin ribbon of blinding yellow high overhead.
Heavy hoofbeats thundered right behind him. Ethan turned his head—Naya had mounted a second trail horse, hauling young Samuel up behind her, holding the reins with a grip of iron.
“I told you to stay back!” Ethan yelled over the roar of the horses' hooves.
“And I told my husband I would see this through to the end!” Naya shouted back, her dark shawl whipping in the canyon draft. “Keep moving!”
A rifle cracked from the high ridge far above. A heavy lead bullet slammed into the granite wall six inches from Ethan’s head, showering them with razor-sharp stone splinters.
“Keep your heads low!” Ethan yelled, flattening his body against his horse’s neck.
Fifty yards ahead, the black stallion galloped with astonishing, unhesitating familiarity through the winding rock labyrinths. The horse wasn't panicking; it was following a path it had memorized years ago. Suddenly, the stallion dug its hooves into the loose gravel and skidded to a halt before a massive oak and iron door built directly into the solid rock wall of the cliff face.
Above the iron door sat a rusted metal plate stamped with a clear number: 17.
Ethan dismounted before his horse had even fully stopped. He yanked Key 17 from his coat pocket, his hands covered in dirt and sweat, and slammed it into the heavy iron lock. The mechanism was dry and stiff. For a terrifying two seconds, the key refused to budge. Ethan braced his shoulder against the oak planks, gritted his teeth, and put his whole weight into the turn.