"Nobody will care about a horse."
"They'll care if you start a massacre."
"That's the point."
Ethan's hand moved toward his gun.
Mercer raised his pistol.
"Don't."
A gust of wind moved through the rocks.
For one second, nobody moved.
Then Ethan kicked dust into Mercer's face.
He fired.
Ethan rolled behind a boulder.
Two shots followed.
Ethan waited.
Mercer shouted.
"Get him!"
Ethan came around the other side and struck one man with the butt of his revolver.
The second ran.
Mercer fired again.
Ethan shot the pistol from his hand.
Mercer stared at his empty fingers.
"You could have killed me."
Ethan approached.
"I wanted you alive."
"Why?"
"So you can tell the truth."
Mercer laughed.
"You think truth matters?"
Ethan looked down at him.
"It matters when enough people hear it."
He tied Mercer's wrists.
But when he returned to the valley, the damage had already been done.
The company riders had left.
Whitmore had disappeared with them.
And Tomas was nowhere to be seen.
Then Ethan noticed blood on the ground.
His stomach tightened.
"Tomas?"
No answer.
The Man Behind the Railroad
They found Tomas three hundred yards from the spring.
He was alive.
A bullet had grazed his shoulder.
Ethan knelt beside him.
"You should have stayed behind the trees."
Tomas smiled weakly.
"I am old."
"You're not dead."
"That is what I said."
Ethan helped him sit up.
"What happened?"
"They took the judge."
"Where?"
"West."
Ethan looked toward the horizon.
Tomas caught his arm.
"Do not chase them."
"I have to."
"No."
"They're going to use him."
"Yes."
"Then I have to stop them."
Tomas shook his head.
"You think the railroad is the enemy."
"It isn't?"
"The railroad is only a road."
Ethan listened.
"The men behind it are the danger."
Tomas explained what he had learned from an informant inside the company.
Silas Vane had secretly arranged for the railroad survey to pass directly through Dry River.
The railroad company believed the land belonged to Frontier Water and Cattle.
If Vane secured the spring, he could sell the property to the railroad for ten times what he had paid.
But there was more.
The company intended to force several small ranches into selling.
Cedar Ridge was one of them.
Ethan felt something cold settle in his chest.
"They want my ranch."
"They want all of it."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Would you have listened?"
Ethan sighed.
"No."
Tomas smiled.
"Exactly."
They returned to Cedar Ridge that evening.
Mara was waiting.
She saw the blood on Ethan's shirt.
"What happened?"
"Tomas was shot."
She looked at the Apache chief.
"Are you all right?"
"I've had worse."
Mara turned to Ethan.
"And?"
"They're coming for us."
"I know."
"No. You don't."
He showed her the survey.
Then he explained the plan.
Mara listened in silence.
When he finished, she walked to the gun cabinet.
"You'll need more than one rifle."
Ethan smiled.
"You planning to fight?"
"I've lived on this ranch longer than you."
She handed him a rifle.
"I've earned the right."
That night, Ethan discovered something else.
Inside his father's old desk was a hidden compartment.
Mara had never seen it.
Ethan found a packet of letters.
All from Silas Vane.
The earliest was twenty years old.
Samuel Cole had apparently known about Vane's scheme long before.
One letter contained a confession.
Vane had bribed a territorial official to alter land records.
Another mentioned the railroad.
The final letter was dated two weeks before Samuel's death.
Ethan read it twice.
Then he understood.
His father's death might not have been an accident.
Samuel had been found beneath a collapsed section of a barn.
Everyone had called it a structural failure.
But the letter suggested otherwise.
Vane had threatened him.
Ethan's hands shook.
Mara read over his shoulder.
"You think he killed Father."
"I don't know."
"But?"
"I think he tried."
A sound came from outside.
Horse hooves.
Mara extinguished the lamp.
They waited.
Three riders stopped outside the ranch.
A voice called:
"Ethan Cole!"
Ethan stepped onto the porch.
Silas Vane sat in the moonlight.