Chapter 5 - Silver Creek’s Cruel Tongues
Naira stared at the metal tag until the riders disappeared.
Three years.
Tomas had lived at least three years beyond the day she had been told he died.
Her knees weakened.
Elias caught her elbow.
She pulled away—not from him, but because she needed to remain standing by herself.
“He was alive.”
“Yes.”
“Three years.”
“Yes.”
“What did they do to him?”
Elias couldn't answer.
Naira turned toward the cabin.
“I need to go to town.”
“Why?”
“Records.”
“Military records won't be at Crawford's.”
“Church records might.”
Elias understood.
Deaths.
Burials.
Travelers.
Names.
By midday they were inside the small Silver Creek church.
Reverend Samuel Pike was nervous when Naira showed him the tag.
“I remember Tomas.”
“Did you see him after Red Mesa?”
“No.”
“Did anyone ask about him?”
Pike hesitated.
Elias noticed.
“Reverend.”
Pike sighed.
“Captain Voss came here two years after Tomas disappeared.”
Naira's hands tightened.
“Why?”
“He wanted the burial register.”
“For whom?”
“I don't know.”
“You gave it to him?”
“He had authority.”
Elias's voice hardened.
“He wasn't Army anymore by then.”
Pike looked ashamed.
“I didn't know.”
He retrieved an old ledger.
Several pages had been removed.
Naira stared at the torn binding.
“What was there?”
Pike shook his head.
“I truly don't remember.”
Outside, whispers followed them.
Apache widow.
Soldier.
Trouble.
At the trading post, a woman deliberately moved her child away from Naira.
Elias saw.
Naira continued walking.
Then someone said, “Cursed woman should've stayed in the desert.”
Elias stopped.
Naira touched his arm.
“No.”
He looked at her.
“You told me words have been hurting me for years,” she said. “Don't let them decide who you become.”
Elias slowly relaxed.
That surprised both of them.
Back at the cabin, they examined the tag.
There were scratches around its edge.
Not random.
Marks.
Naira counted them.
“Thirty-six.”
“What?”
“Thirty-six cuts.”
Elias turned it over.
“Months?”
“Three years.”
They looked at each other.
Tomas had been counting time.
The realization transformed the tag from evidence into a message.
That night, Elias remembered something.
“There was a prison camp.”
Naira looked up.
“Where?”
“Unofficial.”
Her expression hardened.
“What does unofficial mean?”
“It means nobody wanted records.”
Elias spread a rough map across the table.
“North of Red Mesa. Mining territory. Army sometimes held scouts, deserters, suspected smugglers.”
“Without trial?”
“Yes.”
“Was Tomas there?”
“I don't know.”
“But Voss knew about it.”
“Yes.”
Naira touched the map.
“Then we go.”
The journey would take two days.
They packed before sunrise.
As Naira secured the cabin, she looked back.
The place had been her refuge for five years.
For the first time, she wondered whether refuge had slowly become another word for prison.
They rode north.
At sunset, they camped beneath sandstone cliffs.
Elias took first watch.
Near midnight, Naira woke to find him staring into the fire.
“You don't sleep.”
“Sometimes.”
“Not tonight.”
“No.”
She sat beside him.
“What happened in the war?”
Elias's eyes remained on the flames.
“Too much.”
“That's not an answer.”
“No.”
She waited.
Eventually he spoke.
“I followed an order once. Families were still inside.”
Naira didn't move.
“We were told the settlement was supplying Confederate irregulars. We burned storehouses.”
His voice tightened.
“The fire spread.”
Naira understood what he wasn't saying.
“Children?”
Elias closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
Silence stretched.
“That's why you left?”
“Not immediately.”
That confession was worse.
“I stayed. Told myself one terrible day didn't define a man.”
He looked at her.
“Then there was another terrible day.”
Naira stared into the fire.
“And another?”
“Yes.”
She nodded slowly.
“At least you stopped.”
“Too late.”
“Maybe.”
He looked surprised.
Naira continued.
“But if every person who ever did wrong decided they were permanently useless, only cruel men would remain to change anything.”
Elias had no response.
At dawn they continued north.
Near afternoon, they found the remains of the prison camp.
Collapsed barracks.
Rusting wire.
Abandoned mine shafts.
Naira walked among the ruins.
Then she stopped beside a wall.
Names had been carved into the timber.
Dozens.
Initials.
Dates.
Marks.
Her fingers moved over them.
Then froze.
T.N.
Below it were thirty-six vertical scratches.
Exactly like the tag.
Beneath them was one final carving.
A single word.
NAIRA.
She pressed both hands against the wall.
Elias stood behind her.
Tomas had been here.
Alive.
Thinking of her.
Waiting.
But beside his name was another inscription.
One Elias recognized immediately.
VOSS KNOWS WHERE THEY TOOK US.
May you like
And suddenly the mystery became larger.
Tomas hadn't been the only prisoner who disappeared.
