Chapter 4 - The Tracks Beyond the Riverbed
Keme slept for twelve hours.
When he woke, he ate as though he expected every meal to be his last.
Aayoka sat beside him, occasionally touching his shoulder simply to reassure herself he was real.
Elias kept his distance.
He understood reunions.
He also understood how quickly they could become goodbyes.
When Keme was strong enough, they questioned him.
Three weeks earlier, Rourke and his men had attacked a small wagon party near Dry Creek.
Not for money.
Not initially.
The settlers had accidentally discovered Rourke moving stolen Army rifles south.
Rourke could not allow them to reach Prescott.
So he killed them.
Then he altered the scene.
Arrows.
Moccasin tracks.
Items deliberately left behind.
Evidence designed to point toward Apache raiders.
Tala had witnessed part of the attack from a ridge.
Rourke saw her.
The chase began.
Aayoka's group scattered while trying to protect Tala.
Keme had later been captured but escaped when one of Rourke's horses went lame.
“Why keep Tala alive?” Jeb asked.
Keme answered.
Aayoka translated.
“She hid something.”
“What?”
Keme shook his head.
He didn't know.
Elias did.
Evidence.
Tala had taken something from the attack site.
Something Rourke needed.
That afternoon, Elias rode alone to a high ridge.
Aayoka followed.
“You should stay with Keme.”
“He sleep.”
Elias looked toward the distant mountains.
“We need Prescott.”
Aayoka's face tightened.
“No.”
“If Rourke killed settlers and blamed your people, we need the law.”
“Law help Rourke.”
“You don't know that.”
She looked at him.
“You were law.”
The words landed harder than she intended.
Elias nodded.
“Yes.”
“You kill boy.”
“Yes.”
“Law say good.”
“Yes.”
“You say bad.”
Elias looked away.
Aayoka had found the contradiction he had spent years trying not to examine.
The law had cleared him.
His conscience had not.
“So why trust law?” she asked.
“I don't.”
That surprised her.
“I trust evidence. And I trust that Rourke is afraid of it.”
Aayoka looked toward the horizon.
“Prescott dangerous.”
“So is running forever.”
She understood that sentence completely.
That night, Keme woke screaming.
Aayoka held him until he calmed.
He had remembered where Tala was being held.
An abandoned stage station near Black Canyon.
Elias knew the place.
They could reach it in two days.
Prescott could wait.
They would get Tala first.
The journey became harder as the terrain rose.
Keme rode with Jeb.
Aayoka rode behind Elias.
By the second day, her fear of him had diminished enough that she held his waist when the trail became steep.
Neither mentioned it.
Near Black Canyon they discovered smoke.
Elias dismounted.
“Stay here.”
Aayoka immediately followed.
He gave her a look.
She returned it.
He surrendered.
Together they crept toward the old station.
Two guards.
Three horses.
One wagon.
Elias studied the building.
“Back door?”
Aayoka pointed toward a narrow ravine.
She and Keme had passed the station years earlier.
There was a cellar opening behind it.
Jeb created the distraction.
He rode openly toward the front, shouting that his horse had gone lame.
While the guards argued with him, Elias and Aayoka slipped through the ravine.
They found the cellar.
Inside was an elderly woman.
Hands bound.
Face bruised.
Alive.
“Tala.”
Aayoka rushed to her.
Tala stared at Elias.
Fear flashed.
Aayoka spoke quickly.
The older woman's expression changed.
Elias cut her ropes.
Then gunfire erupted outside.
“Time to go.”
They escaped through the ravine.
Jeb followed minutes later.
One bullet had torn through his sleeve but missed his arm.
“You owe me a shirt,” he told Elias.
They rode hard until darkness.
Only then did Tala reveal what Rourke wanted.
From inside her clothing, she removed a small leather ledger.
Elias opened it.
Names.
Dates.
Payments.
Army rifle serial numbers.
Cattle brands.
And several officials in Prescott.
Jeb leaned closer.
“That's why he isn't afraid of the law.”
Elias turned pages.
Then stopped.
One name made his blood run cold.
Harlan Pike.
Samuel Pike's father.
Beside the name were payments from Rourke stretching back years.
Elias stared.
Samuel's father had not merely blamed him for his son's death.
He had been doing business with Silas Rourke.
A folded paper fell from the ledger.
Elias opened it.
A letter.
The handwriting belonged to Harlan Pike.
Elias recognized it from the angry notes he had received after Samuel died.
The letter was dated two weeks before Samuel's death.
Rourke—
The boy has discovered the shipments. He says he'll tell Ward. Handle it before he ruins us.
Elias read the sentence twice.
Samuel had not been a drunken boy randomly carrying a knife.
He had been trying to expose something.
Maybe he had approached Elias that night.
Maybe the knife had not meant what Elias thought it meant.
The memory returned.
Samuel stumbling from the alley.
Blood already on his shirt.
A knife in his hand.
Elias shouting.
Drop it!
Samuel turning.
The gunshot.
For years Elias had believed his bullet killed Samuel.
But suddenly he remembered something he had buried.
There had already been blood.
Before Elias fired.
He looked at Tala.
“Did you know Samuel Pike?”
Tala did not understand.
Aayoka translated the name.
Tala's eyes widened.
Then she said something.
Aayoka turned toward Elias.
“She knows.”
“Knows what?”
Aayoka listened.
Her expression changed.
“She says Samuel was helping her people.”
Elias could barely breathe.
“How?”
More words.
Then Aayoka delivered the sentence that tore open every memory Elias had spent years trying to bury.
“Samuel Pike was already dying when you shot him.”
Elias stared at her.
Aayoka continued softly.
May you like
“Rourke stabbed him first.”
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