Chapter 3: THE SECRET HIS FATHER KEPT
Chaska explained the story piece by piece.
In 1857, two years before the deaths Eli remembered, several families entered into a private arrangement unlike anything common in the territory.
Some families were Apache.
Others were Mexican settlers.
Several were Anglo ranchers.
They shared one essential dependence.
Water.
A dependable underground spring ran beneath a long strip of the valley extending from the northern mesas toward the creek south of Eli’s ranch.
During wet years, no one cared much about ownership.
During dry years, control of that spring could decide which families remained and which disappeared.
Most assumed the water source originated on government land.
A surveyor discovered otherwise.
The primary access lay beneath several privately held parcels.
Instead of allowing one family to control the source, four representatives created a trust.
No single owner would possess the water.
No parcel could be transferred in a manner that destroyed the shared access.
It was an unusual agreement.
Perhaps legally vulnerable depending upon who interpreted it.
And powerful men despised it.
Samuel Mercer, Eli’s father, had served as one of its witnesses.
Eli stared at Chaska.
“What was my father doing at a meeting like that?”
“He spoke Spanish.”
Eli almost denied it.
Then he remembered his father fluently cursing broken equipment in Spanish.
“He also spoke some Apache,” Chaska added.
That was something Eli had never known.
“He helped translate between people who had little reason to trust the same authorities.”
Serina pushed the silver half-seal toward him.
“The agreement was authenticated using two pieces that fit together. One remained with the valley families. Your father kept the other.”
Eli swallowed.
“Where is his piece?”
“That,” Waya said, “is part of why Voss is interested in this ranch.”
Eli stared at her.
“You believe my father hid it here?”
“We think he hid it before he died.”
“He died from fever.”
Nobody replied.
Their silence spoke first.
Eli’s eyes sharpened.
“What have you not told me?”
Chaska slowly drew breath.
“When we investigated records, we could find no physician’s report connected to the deaths of your parents.”
“Most people out here never saw a physician.”
“We did find burial records.”
Something cold moved through Eli.
“What records?”
“Your mother’s death was registered three days earlier than your father’s.”
“That fits a fever outbreak.”
“The cause listed for her was illness.”
Eli waited.
“And my father?”
Chaska hesitated.
“Gunshot.”
For several seconds Eli did not move.
It seemed as though his body had forgotten breathing.
Then he laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
“You have the wrong man.”
“We hoped we did.”
“You are wrong.”
Serina took a folded copy from her satchel.
Eli refused to reach for it.
Waya opened it instead and laid it on the table.
Most of the writing meant nothing to him.
One line did.
Samuel Mercer.
August 18, 1858.
Cause of death: gunshot wound.
Witness statement: unavailable.
Eli’s vision narrowed.
For twenty-one years he had believed his father died from the same sickness as his mother.
He remembered a closed coffin.
Adults refusing to allow him to see the body.
He remembered being told the fever had made it unsafe.
At twelve years old, grief had made him willing to accept anything that allowed the next hour to arrive.
“Who told me?” he whispered.
No one answered.
They did not have to.
Gideon Pratt.
Not the old white-bearded Gideon who crossed the field for coffee each morning.
A younger Gideon.
Thirty-seven at the time.
Samuel Mercer’s closest friend.
The man who had arranged the burials.
The man who had found Eli temporary shelter afterward.
The man who had sat at Eli’s table almost every morning for years.
Eli rose so suddenly that his chair fell.
Waya moved between him and the door.
“Get out of my way.”
“No.”
“Waya.”
“You are angry.”
“My father was s.h.o.t and the man next door has spent twenty-one years telling me he died from fever.”
“Yes.”
“Move.”
“No.”
Eli’s fist tightened.
Waya remained still.
Chaska rose from the table.
“If Gideon wanted to hurt you, he had two decades of opportunity.”
“That does not make him truthful.”
“No.”
Eli’s eyes shone with something harsher than simple anger.
“Then what does?”
Chaska’s voice softened.
“Nothing.”
The answer stopped him.
“We are not asking you to trust Gideon. We are asking you not to decide why he did something before you know what happened.”
Eli stared toward the door.
Then at the burial record.
Then at the silver seal.
“Why did Serina have this in 1869?”
Her face changed.
Only slightly.
Enough for Eli to see.
“The bundle in the canyon,” he said.
Serina nodded.
“My mother gave me the seal after soldiers raided our winter camp. We were taking it north to relatives.”
“And those riders were following you because of it?”
“We did not understand that at the time.”
“Comanche.”
Waya’s expression hardened.
“They were not Comanche.”
Eli became very still.
“I saw them.”
“You saw men dressed to appear Comanche.”
Memory shifted.
American boots.
The posture of one rider.
A saddle decorated with brass hardware.
A voice shouting in English as Eli disappeared into the canyon.
He had forgotten that.
Or chosen not to remember it.
Chaska spoke quietly.
“Years afterward, Waya found one of those riders.”
Eli turned toward Waya.
Her eyes were hard.
“He had become careless. He was employed as security for a land business.”
“For Voss?”
“His father.”
The room seemed to move under Eli’s feet.
Chaska rested both palms on the table.
“ The men following us through that canyon were hired riders. They wanted the seal. They were not raiders. ”
Eli looked at Serina.
“You were carrying evidence.”
“Yes.”
“And I had no idea.”
“No.”
“Why did you not tell me?”
“We spoke almost no Spanish. You barely knew us. We had also been warned that anyone searching for the seal might be connected to those who wanted it destroyed.”
Eli gave a bitter laugh.
“So for ten years I thought I rescued three strangers.”
“You did rescue three strangers.”
“I rescued a piece of metal.”
Chaska’s answer came sharply.
“No.”
Eli looked at her.
“You rescued us.”
Silence settled.
She held his gaze.
“The seal was important. Our lives were more important.”
Something changed inside Eli’s face.
He sat again.
Serina refolded the burial record.
Waya returned to the southern window.
A moment later she went rigid.
Her head tilted.
“What is it?”
Waya raised one hand.
Everyone listened.
Beyond the ranch came the distant sound of multiple horses.
Fast.
Waya looked toward the ridge.
“Four riders.”
Chaska looked down at the contract.
Serina closed the wooden case.
Eli stood.
“Voss?”
Waya continued watching.
“No.”
She paused.
“His men.”
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