"So he fabricated raids."
"Yes."
"And then blamed the Apache."
"Yes."
Silas's hands curled into fists.
"But why use me?"
Coyle looked at him.
"Because you knew the territory."
Silas laughed bitterly.
"So I was useful."
"You were young."
Silas looked away.
Coyle continued.
"And you trusted the uniform."
That hurt more than an accusation.
Because it was true.
Silas had trusted the uniform.
He had believed that the men wearing it knew more than he did.
He had believed orders came from somewhere honorable.
He had believed that if something terrible happened, someone above him would stop it.
No one had.
Instead, everyone had kept riding.
Silas looked toward the ridge.
"Then Nantan survived."
"He did."
"How?"
Nantan answered himself.
"The river."
Silas turned.
Nantan's eyes were fixed on the distant cliffs.
"There was a narrow passage beneath the western bank. My wife knew it."
Silas swallowed.
"Your wife?"
Nantan's face changed.
For the first time, Silas saw something break through the chief's controlled expression.
Grief.
"My wife died that night."
Ayana lowered her eyes.
Silas couldn't speak.
Nantan continued.
"She took the children through the water tunnel."
"Children?"
"Six."
Silas's heart sank.
"How many survived?"
Nantan looked at him.
"Four."
Silas closed his eyes.
Four.
The number seemed impossible to carry.
Nantan's voice remained steady.
"My wife stayed behind."
"Why?"
"Someone had to hold the soldiers away from the tunnel."
Silas remembered gunfire.
A woman running.
A flash of fire.
He had never known who she was.
He had never asked.
That ignorance had become its own kind of guilt.
Nantan looked at Ayana.
"She was the eldest."
Silas turned.
Ayana was staring at the ground.
"You were there."
She nodded.
"I was thirteen."
Silas felt sick.
Thirteen.
He remembered a girl from the settlement.
Dark hair.
A red cloth around her wrist.
She had been carrying a small wooden doll.
He had seen her near the river.
He had looked away.
He had told himself that the soldiers would protect the innocent.
He had been wrong.
"Did you see me?" Silas asked.
Ayana lifted her eyes.
"Yes."
His breath caught.
"You saw me?"
"I saw you standing with Mercer."
Silas could not look away.
"What did I do?"
"You pointed."
The word was quiet.
"You pointed toward our homes."
Silas's throat tightened.
"I didn't know."
"I know."
That surprised him.
Ayana stepped closer.
"You didn't know everything."
Silas stared at her.
"But you knew enough."
He had no defense.
She continued.
"That night, I hated you."
Silas nodded.
"You should have."
"I wanted you dead."
Silas nodded again.
"I deserved that."
"But you weren't the one who killed my mother."
Silas looked up.
Ayana's expression was complicated.
"You weren't the one who ordered the fire."
"That doesn't make me innocent."
"No."
She shook her head.
"It doesn't."
Her honesty cut deeper than hatred would have.
Coyle stepped forward.
"There is more."
Silas looked at him.
"What?"
Coyle reached into his coat again.
This time he removed a small metal cylinder.
It was blackened around the edges.
Silas recognized it.
A military dispatch tube.
His stomach tightened.
"Where did you find that?"
"Hidden in Mercer's personal safe."
"What's inside?"
Coyle handed it to him.
Silas opened the cylinder.
A tightly rolled document fell into his palm.
He unrolled it.
The ink was faded but readable.
His eyes moved across the page.
Then stopped.
At the bottom was a signature.
Captain Hollis Mercer.
And beneath it:
Silas Carter is to be considered an expendable civilian asset should the operation become compromised.
Silas stared.
For a moment he couldn't breathe.
Ayana came beside him.
"What does it say?"
Silas couldn't answer.
Coyle did.
"It says Mercer planned to kill you."
Silas looked up.
"When?"
"That night."
"After the attack?"
"During it."
Silas's mind raced.
He remembered the moment.
Mercer had called him aside.
Told him to stay behind.
Said the soldiers were advancing through the southern pass.
Silas had obeyed.
Then Mercer disappeared.
Silas had assumed he was leading the assault.
But perhaps—
"Mercer wasn't with the main force."
Coyle nodded.
"No."
"Where was he?"
"At the eastern ridge."
Silas's face went pale.
"The survey station."
Coyle's eyes sharpened.
"You remember."
Silas nodded slowly.
"There was a camp."
"Yes."
"I thought it belonged to the engineers."
"It did."
"What were they doing?"
Coyle looked toward the valley.
"Measuring the water."
Silas felt a chill despite the heat.
The pieces were finally connecting.
Mercer had not merely ordered the attack.
He had used the army to clear the valley.
Then he had planned to eliminate the only guide who could later expose what happened.
Silas.
A convenient dead witness.
The Apache would be blamed.
The army would file a report.
Mercer would become a hero.
And Red Willow Valley would eventually be opened to men who had already purchased its future.
Silas folded the document.
"We need to leave."
Nantan looked at him.
"Why?"
"Because if Mercer is dead, someone else is continuing his work."
Coyle nodded.
"That's why I came."
A distant rifle shot cracked across the valley.
This time it was followed by another.
Then another.
The Apache warriors on the ridge immediately moved.
Silas grabbed his Winchester.
"Where?"
Coyle pointed toward the northern cliffs.
"Three hundred yards."
Nantan shouted something in Apache.
The warriors scattered.
Silas watched them disappear among the rocks as though the earth itself had swallowed them.
Ayana drew her revolver.
"How many?"
Coyle listened.
"At least ten."
Silas looked at him.
"Who are they?"
Coyle's face was grim.
"Mercer's men."
"Mercer is dead."
"Mercer had friends."
Another shot.
A bullet struck the cabin wall.
Wood splintered beside Silas's head.
Ayana pulled him down.
"Get inside!"
Silas rolled behind the porch support.
Nantan shouted.
The ridge erupted.
Apache rifles answered from concealed positions.
The attackers had expected an easy target.
Instead, they had walked into a trap.
Silas crawled toward the side of the cabin.
"How many?" he shouted.
Coyle crouched beside him.
"Fifteen, maybe twenty."
Silas peered around the corner.
Men were moving through the dry grass.
They wore no uniforms.
That told him everything.
Outlaws.
Hired guns.
Men who could disappear after doing someone else's dirty work.
Silas raised his rifle.
He fired.
One of the men fell.
Another ducked behind a boulder.
Silas worked the lever.
The familiar mechanical sound calmed him.
For twelve years, he had avoided violence.
He had believed that refusing to carry a rifle would somehow erase what he had done with one.
It hadn't.
Now he understood something.
A weapon was not evil.