Perhaps forty.
There were pale lines at the corners of his eyes and a weariness in his face that had nothing to do with the heat.
"I wanted to make sure they didn't send someone after you."
"They usually wait until dark."
His expression sharpened.
"Usually?"
Mara regretted the word immediately.
"That isn't your concern."
"No," he agreed. "I suppose it isn't."
She turned away.
He made no attempt to stop her.
That surprised her.
Most men who offered help in Red Hollow expected payment in gratitude, obedience, or something worse.
Caleb simply stood beside his horse.
After a moment, Mara looked back.
"Why did you help me?"
"Because two armed men were threatening someone who wasn't armed."
"People do that here every day."
"I noticed."
"Then you must be new."
"Not exactly."
She studied him.
"Have you been to Red Hollow before?"
"A long time ago."
"How long?"
"Seventeen years."
Something passed across his face when he said it.
A shadow.
A memory.
Mara had learned to recognize both.
"Then you should know what kind of town this is."
"It wasn't much better when I left."
"Why come back?"
Caleb looked toward the western mountains.
"Someone died."
Mara's expression softened despite herself.
"I'm sorry."
"So am I."
For a while, neither spoke.
The wind moved through the dry grass.
A hawk circled above the ridge.
Then Mara adjusted her satchel.
"I don't have anything to offer you."
"I didn't ask for anything."
"People always ask eventually."
Caleb considered that.
"Then perhaps I ought to leave before I disappoint you."
A reluctant smile touched her mouth.
It disappeared almost immediately.
She began walking again.
This time Caleb did not follow.
He watched until she reached the bend in the road.
Then he mounted his horse and turned toward the cemetery.
The graveyard stood on a low hill west of town.
Its wooden crosses leaned at different angles, and many of the names had been worn away by years of wind.
Caleb dismounted beside a newer stone.
SAMUEL MERCER
1834–1887
Beloved Father. Faithful Friend.
He stared at the inscription.
"Faithful friend," he murmured.
There were many things his father had been.
Faithful had not always been one of them.
Caleb knelt and placed a small bundle of wildflowers beside the grave.
He had spent seventeen years imagining what he would say when he finally saw Samuel Mercer again.
He had imagined anger.
Questions.
Accusations.
Perhaps forgiveness.
But his father had died before any of those conversations could happen.
And now the only thing Caleb could offer was silence.
He remained there until the sun began to sink.
Then he reached inside his coat and withdrew a folded letter.
The paper was worn from repeated handling.
He had read it dozens of times during the journey from Colorado.
Caleb,
If this reaches you, I am either dying or already gone.
There is something you must know about the night at Black Mesa.
What you were told was a lie.
I helped make it one.
The truth is hidden where your mother used to keep the winter seeds.
Do not trust Horace Bell.
And whatever you do, find the Tolan family before Voss does.
Your father.
Caleb read the letter again.
Then he folded it carefully.
He had spent seventeen years believing his father had betrayed him.
Now the old man had left behind a confession that might prove the betrayal was far greater than Caleb had imagined.
The sound of approaching hoofbeats interrupted his thoughts.
A rider climbed the cemetery hill.
He was a thin young man with a crooked nose and a faded green neckerchief.
He stopped ten feet away.
"You Mercer?"
Caleb rose.
"Depends who's asking."
"Got a message."
"From whom?"
The rider tossed a folded paper onto the ground.
"Don't know. Just told to deliver it."
Caleb waited until the rider had turned his horse and descended the hill.
Then he picked up the paper.
There were only seven words.
Your father should have stayed buried.
Beneath them was a small drawing.
A black circle crossed by three lines.
Caleb's breath caught.
He knew that mark.
He had seen it carved into the stock of a rifle seventeen years earlier.
On the night six people died at Black Mesa.
On the night his younger brother vanished.
And on the night Caleb Mercer was blamed for a crime he had never committed.
He looked down toward Red Hollow.
The town was beginning to glow with lantern light.
Somewhere among those buildings was a man who remembered exactly what had happened.
A man who had been waiting seventeen years for Caleb to return.
And perhaps, Caleb realized, a man who had just discovered that Mara Tolan was still alive.
Mara lived in a small adobe house beside a dry creek, three miles east of Red Hollow.
The house had belonged to her maternal grandmother.
Its roof sagged slightly over the kitchen, one shutter hung crooked, and the front steps had been repaired so many times that no two boards matched.
But there were flowers in clay pots beneath the windows.
A vegetable garden struggled stubbornly behind the house.
And beside the door stood a young cottonwood tree that Mara had planted with her brother when they were children.
It was the only place in the territory where she felt she could breathe.
When she returned that evening, the front door was open.
She stopped.
The door had been closed when she left.
She remembered closing it.
She remembered turning the key.
Now it moved gently in the wind.
Mara set her satchel beneath a bush.
Then she took a small knife from her boot.
"Who's there?"
No answer.
She approached the house from the side, keeping close to the wall.
Inside, something scraped against the floor.
Her pulse quickened.
She stepped through the kitchen entrance.
The room had been searched.
Drawers hung open.
Dishes lay broken across the floor.
Her grandmother's woven blanket had been pulled from its chest and trampled into the dirt.
A man stood beside the hearth.
He was searching beneath a loose stone.
Mara recognized him.
Silas Rook.
A hired gun who sometimes worked for Sheriff Voss.
"Looking for something?" she asked.
Rook turned.
For an instant, surprise crossed his face.
Then he smiled.
"Evening, Miss Tolan."
"Get out."
"Now, that's not very friendly."
"You're in my house."
"Door was open."
"You broke the lock."
"Old houses have a way of falling apart."
Mara raised the knife.
Rook looked at it with amusement.
"You planning to use that?"
"If I have to."
He straightened slowly.
"You're making this harder than it needs to be."
"What do you want?"
"Something that doesn't belong to you."
"Everything in this house belongs to me."
"Not everything."
He glanced toward the hearth.
Mara followed his gaze.
The loose stone.
Her grandmother had always warned her never to disturb it.
Even as a child, Mara had been curious.
But her grandmother's expression whenever the subject arose had been enough to silence her questions.
Rook noticed her reaction.
"There it is," he said softly. "You do know."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
He moved toward her.
"Let's not play games."
Mara stepped backward.
Rook advanced.
"You have something Mr. Bell wants."
"Then Mr. Bell can come and ask for it himself."
"He already asked."