Three short notes, followed by one long, rising tone: A white man approaches under a flag of peace.
The peaceful rhythm of the camp shifted instantly into disciplined readiness. Women shepherded small children into the brush shelters; hunters melted silently into the thickets along the canyon trail with their carbines and bows; and Chief Whitehawk emerged from his council lodge, his walking staff in hand, his face settled into a mask of grim authority.
Ethan slung the new bow over his shoulder, adjusted the gun belt around his hips, and walked with Tahzay and Ayana toward the northern gateway.
Coming down the switchback trail was a solitary rider mounted on a sturdy army mule. He wore the blue flannel shirt and slouch hat of a civilian scout, but pinned to his vest was a copper badge, and tied to his saddle horn was a five-foot ash pole flying a clean square of white canvas.
Ethan recognized the rider as he drew closer: it was Joe Hawkins, a veteran civilian scout who had ridden dispatch for Fort Grant for fifteen years.
Hawkins reined in his mule twenty paces from the gateway, keeping his hands resting openly on the saddle horn, well aware of the rifle barrels glinting in the rocks around him. He pushed his hat back with his thumb, spitting a stream of dark tobacco into the red dust.
"Howdy, Walker," Hawkins called out, his gravelly voice echoing off the stone walls. "Heard you were dead, then heard you were married to a chief’s daughter, then heard you were running the whole Apache nation from a hole in the rocks."
"Don't believe everything you hear in the border saloons, Joe," Ethan answered, stepping out into the open path with Ayana at his side. "What brings Fort Grant out to the Devil's Ribs?"
Hawkins reached into his leather dispatch bag and drew out a thick packet wrapped in oilcloth, bound with official red government tape. His weathered face was grim, lacking its usual sarcastic humor.
"Captain Baylor sent me," Hawkins said, dropping his voice into a low, serious tone. "He’s got trouble brewing at the territorial capital, Walker. Big trouble. And it’s riding straight for this valley."
Chief Whitehawk’s council lodge was cool and dark against the midday sun, but inside, the air was as heavy and suffocating as the moments before a desert thunderstorm.
Joe Hawkins sat on an empty wooden pack crate near the fire, sipping bitter black tea from a tin cup that Ayana had provided. The scout had removed his hat, revealing a bald crown crisscrossed by old sabre scars from border skirmishes along the Rio Grande. Between his boots lay the oilcloth packet, now sliced open, revealing a stack of official legal notices bearing the black eagle seal of the United States District Court at Prescott.
"Jason Vance didn't stay in that guardhouse for three weeks," Hawkins said, shaking his head with bitter disgust. "His lawyers filed a federal writ of habeas corpus with Judge Miller in Prescott. Claimed Captain Baylor exceeded his military authority by arresting a civilian without a civil warrant, and that holding him was an unconstitutional suspension of civil law."
Ethan leaned forward, his right hand tightening into a fist against his knee. "Baylor caught him with forged federal orders and thirty thousand dollars in direct bribes, Joe! The ledger was in his desk!"
"The ledger disappeared, Ethan," Hawkins said flatly, looking up from his tea.
Ethan froze. Across the fire, Chief Whitehawk and Ayana stared at the scout, waiting for the translation of the white man's words.
"What do you mean, disappeared?" Ethan demanded, his voice dropping into a dangerous rasp.
"Two weeks ago, while Baylor was out on patrol along the Gila, a deputy federal marshal rode into Fort Grant carrying a signed court order from Prescott demanding all civilian evidence seized by the military," Hawkins explained, his eyes tired. "The post adjutant—a fresh-faced lieutenant named Reynolds—handed the ledger and the dispatch case over to the marshal under formal military receipt. The deputy rode out the gate... and that was the last anyone saw of him. Three days later, his horse was found wandering near the Gila with an empty saddle, and the dispatch case was floating in the river, completely gutted. Not a scrap of paper left."
"They destroyed the evidence," Ayana said in English, her voice trembling with cold fury as she understood the scout's words. "The serpent has swallowed its own tail."