They crawled through the drainage tunnel one by one. The passage sloped down, forcing Elias to push with his boots and elbows. Behind them, voices grew louder. Someone discovered the open cistern and shouted. A gunshot cracked against the stone, and dust sifted from the ceiling.
The tunnel ended at a thorn-covered slope above the ravine. Elias emerged first, tore his sleeve, and rolled into the brush. Mateo helped Raina through, then pulled the mule’s lead rope from his belt and used it to haul the pack over the edge. They had lost the easy route back to the basin, but they had gained something more valuable than a witness’s promise: documentary proof that the company had forged its claim.
From the orchard came the sound of men breaking into the cistern. Elias looked down at the ledger under his shirt.
“Now we know what they are willing to do to keep the truth buried,” he said.
Mateo scanned the ridge. “And now they know we have found it.”
They set off toward Mercy Crossing, taking the narrow trail through the scrub. The town lay six miles east, and the sun was climbing. Somewhere between them and the courthouse waited Silas Rook’s men, armed with warrants, money, and the certainty that ordinary people could be frightened into silence.
Elias had spent most of his life believing that a man needed only to defend his own fence. By midmorning, he understood that the fence had never been the boundary of his responsibility.
Mercy Crossing had been built where the wagon road met the railway spur, and its prosperity depended on making travelers believe that the town was kinder than the land around it. The main street had a hotel, a church, two saloons, a bank, a telegraph office, and a courthouse painted white each spring. Beyond the last storefront, the company’s water tower rose above the rooftops like a warning.
Elias and the others entered through the east road shortly after noon. They had left the mule with a farmer who owed Mateo a favor, and they kept the ledger hidden beneath Elias’s coat. Raina’s face was pale from pain, but she refused to stop. Mateo walked a few paces behind them, his eyes moving from windows to alleys to the men gathered outside the saloon.
People recognized the riders and went quiet. Some stepped off the boardwalk. Others watched with the wary interest of people who had learned that trouble was safest when it happened to someone else.
“We need the sheriff,” Elias said.
“We need a doctor first,” Raina replied.
They went to Ada Bell’s clinic, a two-room building behind the church. Ada was a widow in her forties who had treated half the basin and buried more people than she liked to count. She examined Raina’s wound without asking questions, removed the old dressing, and frowned at the angry skin around the bullet track.
“You’ve been riding on this for days?”
“Not all the time,” Raina said.
“That is not an answer I accept from patients.”
Ada cleaned the wound and prepared fresh bandages. While she worked, Elias explained only what was necessary: Raina had been shot, the company was pursuing her, and they needed to reach the courthouse before anyone could destroy a record.
Ada’s hands paused at the word “record.”
“Did you find the ledger?” she asked quietly.
Elias stared at her. “How do you know about it?”
“Because my husband helped Nathan Shaw make a second copy. He died before he could tell me where he hid it.”
Mateo moved toward the door and checked the street. “Can you testify?”
Ada tied the bandage with a firm pull. “I can tell the court what my husband told me, but hearsay will not be enough. The ledger and Nathan himself are what matter.”
“We found his orchard ransacked,” Raina said. “He may be hurt.”
Ada’s expression tightened. “Then you have less time than you think. Recorder Bell has been telling people that the old agreement never existed. He has already scheduled a meeting with Judge Harlan to certify the company’s new water claim.”
“Can he do that without a hearing?” Elias asked.
“He can try. He has spent years making the rules bend in his direction.”
They left the clinic through the back door. Ada gave them a small packet of medicine and a warning to keep Raina from reopening the wound. Then she sent a boy to find the sheriff, though she did not promise he would come.
At the courthouse, a crowd had gathered beneath the white columns. Silas Rook stood on the steps in a dark suit, speaking to merchants and ranchers as though he were offering them a gift. He was a handsome man in the polished way of a portrait, with silver at his temples and a smile that never quite reached his eyes.
“The basin needs investment,” Rook declared. “A proper water system. Reliable channels. A railway depot. We cannot allow old superstitions and disputed scraps of paper to keep honest families in poverty.”
Several men nodded. Elias recognized one of them as a rancher who had sold his southern pasture to the company the previous winter. Another was the banker’s son, whose father’s name appeared in the ledger.
Rook saw Elias and stopped speaking.
“Mr. Mercer. I wondered when you would come to town.”
“I came to ask the court to preserve a record.”
“Of course you did. You’ve been misled by people who want to prevent progress.”
“I have a ledger showing your company filed a false deed.”
The crowd shifted. Rook’s expression remained pleasant, but his eyes hardened.
“An accusation like that can ruin a man’s reputation. I advise you to choose your words carefully.”
“I chose them before I left home.”
Rook descended one step. “Give me the ledger, and I will see that this misunderstanding ends quietly. You’ll receive a fair price for your ranch. The injured woman will be taken to a proper doctor. Your friends can return to their homes.”
“And the water?”