Chapter 4 - Six Riders Return
Silas Boone smiled as though visiting an old friend.
Clara hated him for that smile.
"Put the rifle down," he said.
Tahen didn't move.
Boone's men aimed upward.
Clara calculated distance.
Bad.
Angles.
Worse.
One shot from Tahen might kill Boone.
The return fire would kill both of them.
Clara folded Thomas's papers slowly.
"You're outnumbered," Boone said.
Tahen glanced toward the windows.
Boone smiled wider.
"Your friends outside are alive."
That was not reassuring.
"Hands tied," Boone added. "But alive."
Clara stared down from the loft.
"What do you want?"
"You know."
"The packet isn't here."
Boone's expression shifted.
"I guessed that."
"Then why come?"
"For what Thomas hid."
Clara touched the oilcloth.
Boone saw.
"There it is."
He almost sounded relieved.
Three years.
He had searched for Thomas's records for three years.
Clara understood suddenly why he had never burned her cabin or forced her away.
He had believed the evidence remained somewhere inside.
"You watched me," she said.
Boone tilted his head.
"For a time."
"You stood at my husband's coffin."
His smile disappeared.
"I did."
"You told me it was an accident."
"Would you have preferred the truth?"
"Yes."
"Truth isn't always kindness."
Clara's voice hardened.
"Men like you say that when truth is inconvenient."
One rider behind Boone shifted.
A younger man.
Nervous.
Clara remembered him from the creek.
He had laughed when Boone threatened her.
Now he looked less certain.
Boone noticed.
"Eyes up, Mercer."
The young man obeyed.
Clara stored the name away.
Mercer.
Boone extended one hand.
"The papers."
Clara didn't move.
"Give them to me, and you walk away."
"You'll kill us."
"If I wanted you dead, Mrs. McKe, we'd be having a shorter conversation."
"Why shouldn't I believe you?"
"Because belief doesn't matter. Math does."
He nodded toward the rifles.
"Five men below. Two people above."
Clara looked at Tahen.
His face remained unreadable.
Boone said, "Your husband made the same mistake."
Clara's blood turned hot.
"What mistake?"
"Thinking righteousness stops bullets."
She stepped toward the ladder.
Tahen stopped her.
Boone smiled.
"Careful."
Clara looked down at him.
"Did Thomas beg?"
Boone's smile vanished.
"No."
That answer mattered.
More than she expected.
"Did he give you anything?"
"No."
"Good."
Boone's jaw tightened.
Clara had hurt him.
Not much.
Enough.
She looked at the papers.
Then at the oil lamp hanging from a loft hook.
Tahen followed her gaze.
Boone noticed.
"Don't."
Clara reached for the lamp.
Every rifle rose.
Tahen spoke quietly.
"Clara."
She lifted the lamp.
Boone's voice sharpened.
"You burn those papers, your husband's death means nothing."
Clara paused.
Boone thought he'd won.
He hadn't.
"If the papers burn," Clara said, "you lose too."
Silas stared.
"Maybe."
"You've spent three years looking for them."
No answer.
"Which means you're more afraid of these pages than I am of your guns."
Mercer looked at Boone.
That was the first crack.
Clara lifted the glass chimney from the lamp.
The flame flickered.
"Let Tahen's men go."
Boone laughed.
"No."
Clara lowered the corner of the oilcloth toward the flame.
"Then Thomas's papers disappear."
Boone took one step forward.
Tahen cocked his rifle.
Boone stopped.
"You're bluffing."
Clara's eyes burned.
"My husband died for these."
"Exactly."
"Which means I'd rather destroy them than hand them to the man who killed him."
Silence.
The young rider, Mercer, swallowed.
Boone studied Clara for a long moment.
Then he said, "Let the men outside go."
One gunman protested.
Boone turned.
"Do it."
Footsteps moved outside.
Minutes later, Tahen heard a distant whistle.
One of his riders.
Free.
Tahen nodded once.
Clara moved the papers away from the flame.
Boone extended his hand.
"Now."
"Not finished."
His face darkened.
"What else?"
"You leave."
Boone laughed.
"You don't negotiate well."
"I've kept the papers so far."
"You'll never reach Ross."
Clara froze.
Boone saw it.
"There it is."
He smiled.
"You thought I didn't know."
Tahen's face changed slightly.
Boone continued.
"Marshal Caleb Ross has been watched for months."
Clara said nothing.
"Every road into his outpost. Every courier. Every telegraph line."
"Why?"
"Because Thomas trusted him."
Boone's eyes flicked toward the papers.
"And because I know that list names people who'd rather not hang."
Clara looked at Mercer again.
The young man's face had gone pale.
He knew what Boone was admitting.
Boone didn't seem to care.
Maybe because he didn't expect Mercer to live long enough to repeat it.
Clara realized that at the same moment Mercer did.
Mercer's hand shifted away from his weapon.
Boone noticed.
"Mercer."
The young man looked up.
"Sir."
"You look nervous."
"No, sir."
Boone smiled.
"Good."
Clara saw fear in Mercer's eyes.
A different kind than before.
This was useful.
She said, "How much does Boone pay you?"
Boone's gaze snapped back to her.
Mercer stared.
Clara continued.
"Enough to die for him?"
"Shut up," Boone said.
Clara ignored him.
"Because if Thomas's records are accurate, everyone who rides with Boone becomes expendable once the law gets close."
Mercer's jaw tightened.
Boone raised his gun.
Not toward Clara.
Toward Mercer.
That happened faster than anyone expected.
Mercer stepped back.
Tahen fired.
The lamp exploded.
Darkness swallowed the room.
A gunshot thundered.
Then another.
Clara dropped flat.
Someone screamed.
She heard Tahen jump from the loft.
A struggle.
Wood breaking.
Clara crawled toward the rear edge.
A hand grabbed her ankle.
She kicked.
The grip tightened.
"Got you!"
Clara twisted and drove Keta's knife downward.
The man yelled and released her.
She slid from the loft onto a cabinet, then the floor.
Moonlight from the open door gave her just enough to see.
Tahen fought one gunman near the table.
Mercer had vanished.
Boone stood near the bedroom, clutching his shoulder.
Clara raised Thomas's rifle.
Boone looked at her.
For one second neither moved.
Then Boone smiled.
"Do it."
Clara's finger tightened.
She wanted to.
God help her, she wanted to.
Three years of grief stood ten feet away.
One shot.
Done.
Then she remembered Thomas's letter.
Evidence.
Names.
Truth.
Not vengeance.
Clara lowered the barrel slightly.
Boone's smile vanished.
"No."
"I'm not making you a martyr."
He lunged toward the side window.
Tahen shouted.
Boone crashed through the frame.
Clara fired.
The bullet struck wood.
Outside, horses screamed.
Tahen's freed riders rushed forward.
Two of Boone's men surrendered.
One fled.
Mercer appeared from behind the barn holding both hands up.
"I'm done!"
Tahen's men seized him.
Clara ran toward the broken window.
Boone had mounted a horse.
Blood darkened his left shoulder.
He rode hard into the night.
Tahen started after him.
Clara caught his arm.
"No."
Tahen turned.
"We need the papers."
"And we need Ross alive."
That stopped him.
Mercer was brought inside.
The young rider shook visibly.
"I can help."
Clara looked at him.
"You laughed when Boone threatened me."
His face dropped.
"I know."
"You hunted Keta."
"I didn't touch him."
"You rode with the men who did."
Mercer swallowed.
"I know."
"Why should I trust you?"
"You shouldn't."
Clara hadn't expected that.
Mercer looked toward the broken window.
"But I know how Boone watches Ross. I know where the men are posted. And I know Boone's leaving tonight for Carrion Canyon."
Tahen stiffened.
"Why?"
Mercer pointed to Thomas's letter.
"Because what's written at the bottom isn't the biggest secret."
Clara unfolded the letter.
The final line had been interrupted after:
His name is—
Mercer said, "Thomas didn't finish because he didn't know the man's real name yet."
"Who?"
Mercer's face tightened.
"The man paying Boone."
"Tell me."
Mercer looked toward Tahen.
Then back at Clara.
"It's someone Marshal Ross trusts."
Clara felt the room narrow.
"Who?"
Mercer opened his mouth.
A rifle cracked outside.
The window beside him shattered.
Mercer dropped.
Clara hit the floor.
Tahen dragged her behind the table.
Another bullet struck the wall.
Outside, a horse thundered away.
Tahen's riders pursued.
Clara crawled to Mercer.
Blood spread across his shirt.
He was alive.
Barely.
She pressed cloth against the wound.
"Stay with me."
Mercer's eyes fluttered.
"The canyon."
"What about it?"
He whispered, "Boone... meeting him."
"Meeting who?"
Mercer tried to speak.
Clara leaned closer.
"Who is Boone meeting?"
His lips moved.
A name escaped.
So soft Clara almost missed it.
May you like
When she understood, her hand went still.
Because the man Mercer named was the same man who had signed Thomas McKe's death certificate.
