"For a while."
"Did you like it?"
"No."
"Then why join?"
He tied the bandage.
"Because seventeen years ago, I needed somewhere to go where nobody knew my name."
Mara studied him.
"You really believed your brother was dead?"
Caleb stopped.
For a moment, she thought he would refuse to answer.
Then he sat back against the rock.
"Jonah was thirteen when Black Mesa happened."
Mara waited.
"He was a stubborn boy. Always asking questions. Always getting into things he shouldn't."
A faint smile crossed Caleb's face.
"He used to follow me everywhere. If I rode to the north pasture, he followed. If I went hunting, he followed. Once, I found him sleeping in the hayloft because he thought I was leaving for California and didn't want to miss the trip."
"What happened to him?"
Caleb looked toward the dark canyon.
"That's what I've spent seventeen years trying to understand."
He was silent for a long time.
Then he continued.
"The night of the killings, my father told me to ride to Black Mesa and meet a survey party. He said they needed protection."
"Protection from whom?"
"He didn't say."
Caleb rubbed his hands together.
"When I arrived, the camp was already burning. Six people were dead. The wagons had been overturned. I found Jonah's hat beside the creek."
Mara felt a chill.
"No body?"
"No."
"Then why did you believe he was dead?"
"Because Sheriff Voss told me he'd found him."
Caleb's jaw tightened.
"He said Jonah had been buried with the others."
"Did you see the grave?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because Voss arrested me before sunrise."
Mara stared at him.
"For murder?"
"Six counts."
"But you hadn't killed anyone."
"That didn't matter."
"What happened?"
"My father testified that I had been at Black Mesa."
"That only proves you were there."
"Voss had witnesses who claimed they'd heard me threaten the survey party."
"Were they lying?"
"Every one of them."
"Why?"
Caleb looked at her.
"Because somebody paid them."
The wind moved through the canyon.
Mara drew his coat tighter around her shoulders.
"How did you escape?"
"An old deputy named Amos Finch."
"Why did he help you?"
"Because he knew the evidence was false."
"What happened to him?"
Caleb's expression darkened.
"He was found dead three weeks later."
Mara looked away.
Another name.
Another life swallowed by Red Hollow.
"Do you think Jonah survived?"
Caleb stared at the stars.
"I don't know what to think anymore."
She hesitated.
Then said, "My grandmother never lied to me."
He turned toward her.
"Never?"
"Not about things that mattered."
"What did she say about Jonah?"
"Only that he survived Black Mesa. She told my mother there were people who would kill to keep that secret."
"Did she know where he went?"
"I don't know."
"Did she leave anything else?"
Mara thought about the wooden box.
The photograph.
The key.
Then she remembered something.
"There was a name."
Caleb leaned forward.
"What name?"
"My grandmother used to say it when she thought nobody was listening."
"What was it?"
"Saint Agnes."
Caleb frowned.
"A church?"
"Maybe."
"Where?"
"I don't know."
He sat very still.
Then his eyes narrowed.
"There's an abandoned mission west of the San Pedro River."
Mara looked up.
"Saint Agnes?"
"It used to be called that."
"How far?"
"Two days on horseback."
"Then that's where we go."
Caleb shook his head.
"Not yet."
"Why?"
"Because Voss will expect us to run."
"Isn't that what we're doing?"
"We're surviving."
"What's the difference?"
He looked toward the eastern horizon.
"Running means he chooses where we go. Surviving means we choose what happens next."
Mara considered that.
"And what do you suggest?"
"We find someone who knew your grandmother."
"Most of them are dead."
"Not all."
"Who?"
Caleb reached inside his coat and removed the old photograph.
Seven men stood beside a mining wagon.
Their faces were faded, but several were still recognizable.
Samuel Mercer.
Gideon Voss.
Horace Bell.
And four others.
Caleb pointed to the man standing at the far left.
"Do you know him?"
Mara leaned closer.
The man had a thick beard and wore a dark vest.
She shook her head.
"Should I?"
"His name was Nathaniel Crowe. He worked as a territorial surveyor."
"Worked?"
"Officially, he died in 1872."
"Officially?"
Caleb looked at her.
"I saw him alive three years ago."
Mara's eyes widened.
"Where?"
"In a mining settlement north of Tucson."
"Are you certain?"
"He recognized me."
"What did he do?"
"Ran."
She studied the photograph again.
"Then we find him."
"That's the idea."
Mara looked toward the dark canyon.
"Why would he help us?"
"He might not."
"Then why risk it?"
Caleb folded the photograph.
"Because frightened men make mistakes."
Mara considered the words.
Then she asked the question that had been growing inside her since the land office.
"Why are you doing this?"
Caleb looked at her.
"Doing what?"
"Helping me."
"Because Voss is trying to kill you."
"He was trying to kill me before you arrived."
Caleb said nothing.
"You could leave," she continued. "You could ride north. You could disappear again. Nobody would blame you."
He looked away.
For a long time, only the wind answered.
Then he spoke.
"When I was nineteen, I watched six people die because I trusted the wrong men."
"You didn't kill them."
"No."
He met her eyes.
"But I walked away afterward."
"You were accused of murder."
"I was afraid."
"Anyone would have been."
"Maybe."
He looked toward the mountains.
"I've spent seventeen years telling myself that leaving was the only choice I had."
Mara waited.
"Then I came back and saw you standing in that street."
His voice grew quieter.
"Everybody was watching. Nobody was helping."
She remembered the crowd.
The silence.
The deputy's hand on her arm.
"And you decided to help?"
"I decided I was tired of being one of the people who walked away."