Chapter 3 - The Debt No Money Could Pay
Clara packed in eleven minutes.
Water.
Dried beans.
A blanket.
Thomas's rifle.
The packet.
Nothing else mattered.
Tahen ordered the fires extinguished.
Keta was placed on a horse despite his protest.
Clara saddled her mare, Molly.
By the time the first faint light touched the eastern horizon, the cabin looked abandoned.
Clara paused at the doorway.
She had lived there nine years.
Three with Thomas.
Three happily.
Three after his death.
She had imagined leaving only once, during the worst drought.
Even then she had stayed.
Now she didn't know if she'd ever see the place again.
Keta watched her.
"Go."
Clara shut the door.
They rode south.
Tahen's group moved fast but carefully.
Scouts ranged ahead.
Others watched their trail.
Clara rode near Keta.
"You should be lying down."
"I am sitting."
She gave him a look.
He smiled.
His humor irritated her less now.
Perhaps because anger had found a new target.
Silas Boone.
They crossed dry washes and narrow passes.
Tahen knew routes Clara had never seen despite living in the region for nearly a decade.
By noon, the cabin was far behind them.
No pursuit appeared.
That worried Tahen more than hoofbeats would have.
"He knows where we go," he said.
"How?"
Tahen looked at Keta.
Keta shook his head.
Clara sensed another secret.
"Enough."
Tahen turned.
"No more half-truths. Thomas died because of this. My house may be gone by sunset. If I'm riding with you, I hear everything."
Tahen considered.
Then he nodded.
"Boone has men everywhere."
"That isn't an answer."
"He has a man among people who trade with us."
Clara felt cold.
"A spy?"
"Maybe."
"Do you know who?"
"No."
Keta spoke.
"Maybe packet tells."
They stopped in a narrow canyon for water.
Clara unfolded the papers.
Together they searched names.
Tahen recognized several.
One belonged to a trader named Elias Venn.
Tahen's expression hardened.
"He sold flour to our camps."
"Could be Boone's man?"
"Could."
Another belonged to a rancher Clara knew only by reputation.
Another was a deputy marshal.
Clara stared.
"If we bring this to the wrong lawman, Boone gets it back."
Tahen nodded.
"That is why we go to Marshal Caleb Ross."
"You trust him?"
"Thomas did."
Clara looked up sharply.
Tahen reached inside his shirt.
He pulled out a small leather cord.
On it hung a brass button.
Clara recognized it instantly.
Thomas's coat.
She snatched it.
"Where did you get this?"
Tahen's eyes softened.
"From your husband."
Clara couldn't speak.
"Thomas met us before he died."
"Us?"
"Me. Others."
"When?"
"Three nights before Boone killed him."
Clara gripped the button.
Tahen continued.
Thomas had discovered wagons moving through the western canyon at night.
He thought they carried stolen livestock.
Instead, he found people chained inside.
Men taken from mining camps.
Women seized from remote settlements.
Two Native boys captured after an attack.
Thomas freed one wagon.
Then he rode to warn Tahen's people because he believed Boone would retaliate.
He had planned to meet a marshal.
Caleb Ross.
He never made it.
Clara's vision blurred.
Thomas had died trying to help strangers.
Just as she had stepped between Boone and Keta without knowing any of this.
The thought hurt more than grief had in years.
"He never told me," she whispered.
"He wanted you safe."
"He left me ignorant."
Tahen nodded.
"Sometimes men confuse those things."
Clara looked at him.
There was no judgment in his voice.
Only recognition.
"Did you see him die?"
"No."
"Then how do you know Boone killed him?"
Keta answered.
"I saw."
Clara turned.
Keta's expression had lost all humor.
He had been younger then.
A scout.
He watched Boone's men intercept Thomas near the canyon.
Thomas fought.
He almost escaped.
Boone shot his horse.
Thomas fell.
The men dragged him away.
Keta followed.
He saw them stage the wagon accident.
Clara couldn't move.
"You knew for three years."
Keta lowered his head.
"Did not know where you lived."
"You knew his name."
"Yes."
"Why didn't anyone tell me?"
Tahen answered.
"Because Boone watched you."
Clara stared.
"What?"
"For months after Thomas died."
A sound escaped her that was almost a laugh.
Not from humor.
From disbelief.
Tahen said Boone expected Thomas might have hidden records with his wife.
Clara had known nothing.
Eventually Boone stopped watching.
Until now.
Until Clara unknowingly received another set of records from Keta.
Fate, she thought bitterly, had a cruel sense of symmetry.
They resumed riding.
By late afternoon they reached a ruined mission near a narrow water source.
Tahen planned to rest until dark.
Clara sat in the shade with Thomas's button.
Keta joined her.
For several minutes neither spoke.
Then Clara asked, "Did he suffer?"
Keta did not lie.
"Yes."
Clara closed her eyes.
"But he fought."
She looked at him.
Keta continued.
"Boone asked where papers were."
"What papers?"
"First list. Smaller."
"Thomas had evidence too?"
Keta nodded.
"Boone never found."
Clara's heart jumped.
"Where is it?"
Keta looked at her.
"We think Thomas hid it."
Clara stood.
"Where?"
"We do not know."
Clara thought of the cabin.
Thomas's belongings.
His tools.
His books.
Three years she had lived beside whatever he hid.
Then one memory surfaced.
Thomas's saddle.
He had refused to replace it even when the leather cracked.
After his death, Clara had stored it in the loft.
Still there.
She remembered something else.
A seam beneath the saddle flap had always looked thicker on one side.
She had assumed Thomas repaired it badly.
"His saddle."
Keta frowned.
Clara said, "I think it's in his saddle."
Tahen overheard.
"You are sure?"
"No."
The leader looked toward the north.
Returning to the cabin was dangerous.
Going forward without the earlier list might be worse.
If Thomas's records confirmed Boone's crimes independently, Marshal Ross would have stronger evidence.
Especially with a deputy marshal implicated in Keta's packet.
Tahen made the decision.
Half the group would continue toward Ross's outpost with Keta and the current packet.
Tahen, Clara, and four riders would return for Thomas's saddle.
Keta objected immediately.
Clara objected louder.
"You can barely ride."
"I go."
"You are going south."
"No."
"Keta."
"No."
Clara crossed her arms.
"Do you argue with everyone who saves your life?"
Keta looked at her.
"Only you."
Tahen laughed.
Clara did not.
Eventually Keta relented.
Before leaving, he handed Clara a small knife.
She looked at it.
"I have one."
"This sharp."
She tested the edge.
He was right.
"Thank you."
Keta nodded.
Then he said, "Debt."
Clara almost gave it back.
Instead she tucked it into her belt.
"No more debts."
Keta looked toward Thomas's button in her hand.
"Not all debt is bad."
They separated at dusk.
Clara rode north with Tahen and four others.
The return journey felt longer.
Every ridge looked occupied.
Every shadow could hide Boone.
Near midnight, one scout returned with news.
The cabin still stood.
No riders visible.
Tahen frowned.
"Too easy."
Clara agreed.
They approached from the west.
Clara's house appeared beneath the moon.
Silent.
Dark.
Untouched.
Her heart lifted despite herself.
Then she saw the front door.
Open.
She knew she had closed it.
Tahen raised a hand.
Everyone stopped.
Two riders circled behind the cabin.
Nothing.
No horses.
No voices.
Clara dismounted.
Tahen caught her arm.
"No."
"My house."
"Could be trap."
"It probably is."
She took Thomas's rifle.
Tahen gave her a look that said he had begun to understand arguing with Clara was useless.
They approached together.
Inside, drawers had been pulled open.
Mattress cut.
Flour scattered.
Boone's men had searched everything.
Clara climbed to the loft.
Thomas's saddle still hung from a beam.
Her breath caught.
She lowered it.
The leather flap on the left side was thicker.
Keta's knife sliced the old stitching.
Inside was oilcloth.
Clara pulled it free.
Papers.
Thomas's handwriting.
Her knees weakened.
Tahen stood beside her.
"We have it."
Clara opened the first page.
Dates.
Wagon numbers.
Descriptions.
Then a letter.
Addressed to her.
Clara.
Her hands shook.
She began reading.
If you're holding this, then either I found courage too late or Boone found me first.
Clara covered her mouth.
Tahen looked away, giving her privacy.
She read on.
Thomas apologized.
He explained enough to confirm everything Tahen had told her.
At the bottom was one sentence underlined twice.
The man funding Boone is not Boone. His name is—
A floorboard creaked downstairs.
Tahen turned sharply.
Clara froze.
Someone was inside the house.
Tahen raised his rifle.
The bedroom door below slowly opened.
A man's voice rose through the darkness.
"Finish reading, Mrs. McKe."
May you like
Silas Boone stepped into the moonlight.
And four guns appeared behind him.
