“You took your time.”
Ethan stopped.
Briggs was seventy, perhaps older. A crooked scar crossed his left cheek. His white beard hid most of his mouth.
“You knew I was coming?”
“I knew Clara would eventually learn. And Clara has never been good at carrying secrets alone.”
Ethan pushed inside.
Clara followed.
Briggs walked slowly toward his chair.
His back clearly hurt.
Clara had been bringing soup to him twice a week for nearly a year.
Now she stared at him like a stranger.
“You signed the statement,” she said.
Briggs lowered himself carefully.
“Yes.”
“You told Gideon my father killed Thomas.”
“I told him what I saw.”
Ethan stepped forward.
“What did you see?”
Briggs looked at him.
For a moment something strange passed through the old man’s eyes.
Grief.
Recognition.
Almost tenderness.
It angered Ethan.
“Answer me.”
Briggs leaned back.
“I saw Daniel Harmon fire his revolver at Thomas Callaway.”
“Did he hit him?”
“Yes.”
“Did my father die?”
A pause.
“I did not see him die.”
“Where did he go?”
“I cannot tell you.”
Ethan kicked the leg of a small table.
A cup fell and shattered.
Clara flinched.
Briggs did not.
“You men and your promises,” Ethan snapped. “Twenty years of lies because someone made a promise.”
Briggs’s expression sharpened.
“Promises are sometimes the only thing standing between a child and a grave.”
Ethan froze.
“What child?”
Briggs looked away.
“Who was in danger?”
No answer.
“Was it me?”
Still silence.
Clara crouched near Briggs.
“Please.”
The old man looked at her.
“My father is being blackmailed. Ethan believes his father was murdered. Gideon Rourke is trying to force me into marriage.”
Briggs closed his eyes.
“I know.”
“Then help us.”
“I am.”
Ethan laughed bitterly.
“By giving Rourke a murder statement?”
Briggs reached for his cane.
“You think because you see one move on a checkerboard, you understand the game.”
“I understand that Daniel shot my father.”
“Do you?”
“You said it.”
“I said he fired at him.”
“And hit him.”
“Yes.”
“Then what am I missing?”
Briggs stood with difficulty.
“Everything.”
Ethan moved toward him.
Briggs suddenly caught Ethan’s wrist.
His grip was astonishingly strong.
“Listen to me.”
Ethan stared.
“Silas Rourke did not build his ranch by buying land.”
Briggs’s voice changed.
“He built it by stealing water.”
Clara stood.
“Father’s journal mentioned survey markers.”
Briggs nodded.
“Silas moved them. Changed records. Paid clerks. When settlers failed after losing water, he bought their land for nothing.”
“And my father discovered it.”
“Yes.”
“What happened at Miller’s Canyon?”
Briggs released Ethan.
“Find the old Callaway line shack.”
Ethan frowned.
“It burned down.”
“Not all of it.”
“When?”
“Before sunset.”
“Why?”
“Because Gideon knows his father left more than money behind.”
Ethan’s pulse quickened.
“What am I looking for?”
Briggs’s gaze held his.
“Your father’s last page.”
The remains of the line shack stood beneath pines five miles northwest of the Callaway ranch.
Ethan had not visited since boyhood.
Fire had taken the roof years earlier, leaving blackened beams and half a stone chimney.
He and Clara arrived just after noon.
“What did Briggs mean?” she asked.
“No idea.”
They searched for an hour.
Nothing.
Ethan was ready to quit when Clara noticed three stones beneath the hearth had been mortared differently.
They pried them loose.
Behind them sat a rusted tin box.
Ethan’s hands shook as he opened it.
Inside lay folded survey maps, receipts, copies of land patents—and six journal pages.