The ambulance halted directly in front of the territorial courthouse—a two-story structure of sun-dried adobe with an American flag drooping limp in the dead heat above the timber porch.
Sitting on a cane-bottomed chair under the shade of the courthouse awning was Charles Brennan.
The former deputy looked like an empty shell of the man who had cornered Sarah against the counter three months before. He was gaunt, his cheeks sunken and yellow from the lingering fever of gangrene. His right sleeve was pinned neatly to the breast of his dirty linen shirt, ending in a rounded stump where his wrist had been taken off by the doctor's saw. His left hand gripped an ash walking stick, and his pale, watery eyes darted with frantic, cornered terror as the cavalry halted before him.
Beside Brennan sat Territorial Judge William Albright, a portly man with silver spectacles and a black broadcloth coat, holding a leather-bound docket in his lap.
Major Howard dismounted without haste, handed his reins to an orderly, and walked onto the courthouse porch. He did not tip his hat to the judge, nor did he look at Brennan.
"Judge Albright," Major Howard announced, his parade-ground voice carrying to every ear along the crowded street. "I have the honor to present Mrs. Sarah Mitchell, legally recognized widow of Thomas Mitchell, late of this district."
Sarah stepped down from the wagon, refusing the sergeant's offered hand. She walked up the wooden steps of the porch, her high deerskin moccasins silent upon the pine planks. She stopped three paces from Brennan’s chair.
Brennan shrank back against the adobe wall, his breath coming in shallow, wheezing hitches. "Judge... she’s out of her mind..." Brennan rasped, his voice trembling violently. "She’s been living with the hostiles... she’s turned renegade... you can’t take her word over a sworn deputy..."
"You are no longer a deputy, Mr. Brennan," Judge Albright said coldly, his face dark with profound distaste. He held up a thick packet of official documents bearing the blue wax seal of the Territorial Governor. "This dispatch arrived by military courier from Tucson three hours ago, accompanied by an order of immediate arrest signed by Federal Marshal Wilcox."
The judge turned his spectacles upon Sarah, his expression softening into one of grave, solemn respect.
"Mrs. Mitchell, Major Howard’s sworn affidavit has been corroborated by the two Mexican trackers who accompanied Dutch Carpenter's party. They were apprehended at the border and have confessed to the entire conspiracy. They testified that Charles Brennan promised them two hundred dollars each from the proceeds of your husband's claim to burn your cabin and drive you into the mountains to die."
A collective murmur of outrage broke out among the gathered miners and teamsters in the street. Men who had looked away when Sarah walked past in her widow’s weeds now glared at Brennan with open, murderous disgust.
"Lies!" Brennan screamed, struggling to stand, his walking stick slipping in his trembling left hand. "All lies! I was serving the law! I was trying to secure the district!"
"You were serving your own greed, sir," Judge Albright declared, slamming his leather docket down onto the pine table beside him. "The territorial mining syndicate has rescinded its purchase of the Mitchell section. By executive decree of the Governor, the deed to the San Pedro claim, along with the full mineral patent on the northern ridge, is hereby restored and transferred in perpetuity to the sole custody of this child."
The judge pointed toward the cradleboard in Sarah’s arms.
Sarah looked down at Brennan. The former deputy was shivering as though seized by an ague, staring up at her from the floor of the porch with the pathetic, sniveling terror of a man who knew he would spend the remainder of his broken days behind the iron bars of the territorial penitentiary at Yuma.
Sarah felt no triumph, no desire for vengeance. She simply reached into her deerskin dress and pulled forth Thomas’s silver pocket watch.
She opened the case. The steady, unbroken tick-tick-tick was clearly audible in the dead silence of the porch.
"Thomas built our home with his bare hands, Brennan," Sarah said, her voice clear, calm, and ringing with absolute finality. "He gave his bread to men who had nothing. He died with clean hands. You tried to steal his work and you tried to murder his son. But the mountains remember what you forgot."
She turned her back on him, dismissing him from her life forever.
"Marshal," Judge Albright said, gesturing to two deputies who stood waiting by the courthouse door with iron shackles. "Take the prisoner inside. He will be transported under military guard to Yuma on tomorrow’s stage."