Chapter 2: THE MAN WHO CHOSE A GHOST
Aldrick Gault learned the ambush had failed shortly after sunrise.
He was shaving.
His deputy, Creel, stood outside the bedroom until Gault finished.
The choice was deliberate.
Men had lost employment for interrupting Gault while he dressed.
Others had lost far more over lesser offenses.
Gault carefully wiped the razor clean.
“You are telling me Roark survived.”
“Yes.”
“And the envelope?”
“He still has it.”
Gault set the razor beside the wash basin.
“What went wrong?”
“The first shot took down the horse. Bell's men forced him into the rock cut exactly as you instructed. He was wounded.”
“So?”
Creel swallowed.
“Someone helped him.”
Gault looked up.
“Who?”
“An Apache woman.”
For the first time, an emotion crossed Gault's face.
Not fear.
Recognition.
Creel noticed it immediately.
“Do you know her?”
“No.”
The denial came too quickly.
Creel had spent six years serving Aldrick Gault.
He knew the different shapes of his employer's lies.
That had been one.
Gault dried his hands.
“Send additional men.”
“Back to Arroyo Seco?”
“To every road that leads into Maricopa Wells.”
Creel hesitated.
“What happens if Roark opens the envelope?”
Gault turned his eyes toward him.
“If Roark opens it, your problem will become considerably larger than mine.”
Creel felt cold despite the heat already gathering outside.
“Sir?”
Gault stepped close enough for Creel to smell the shaving soap.
“Those papers do more than threaten my business. They show how the business was created.”
Creel suddenly understood why four men had been sent into the arroyo.
And why four would no longer be sufficient.
Mara woke Caden before sunrise.
The cave was washed in dim blue light.
“Can you ride?”
“No.”
She handed him a cup of coffee.
“You can ride.”
Caden drank.
“You have an unusual way of asking.”
“We go south.”
“Maricopa Wells is east.”
“Which is exactly why they'll watch the eastern road.”
She was right.
Caden disliked how often that was beginning to happen.
By sunrise, they were traveling through country Caden had never seen despite ten years of drifting across Arizona.
Mara moved without uncertainty.
She found water where Caden saw only stone.
She found shade where he saw empty country.
She led them through hidden breaks in ridges that looked impassable until she simply rode into them.
Slowly, Caden understood what should have been obvious earlier.
She had not accidentally found him in Arroyo Seco.
She had known where he would be.
He waited until midday before confronting her.
“You followed me from Redstone.”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“Since you left.”
“And you still let them shoot my horse?”
Mara turned sharply in the saddle.
“I was half a mile behind you.”
“Convenient.”
Anger entered her face.
“I reached you before they did.”
Caden looked away.
He recognized unfairness when it came from his own mouth.
“Sorry.”
Mara said nothing.
They kept riding.
Near sunset, they reached an abandoned stage station.
Part of the roof had collapsed years earlier, but one room remained mostly intact.
Inside, Mara uncovered a sack of beans, ammunition, bandages, and a water skin beneath a loose floorboard.
Caden watched.
“You knew those were here.”
“Yes.”
“Who put them there?”
She did not answer.
Caden crouched beside the supplies.
Something else lay beneath them.
A folded scrap of paper.
His name was written across it.
CADEN.
He opened it.
There were only three lines.
If you are reading this, they found you.
Do not trust the sheriff in Maricopa Wells.
I'm sorry.
—Hale
Caden read the note once.
Then twice.
Then again.
His anger cooled into something harder.
“Hale knew.”
Mara remained quiet.
“He knew the ambush was waiting.”
“Yes.”
“And you knew.”
“Yes.”
Caden stood too quickly.
Pain ripped across his ribs.
He ignored it.
“You watched me ride straight into it.”
“I followed because I knew.”
“That doesn't improve things.”
“I could not stop you at Redstone.”
“Why not?”
“Hale was being watched.”
“By Gault?”
“Yes.”
“You could have found me afterward.”
“If I had approached before the arroyo, Gault's men would have known someone else understood both the route and the envelope. They would have changed their plan.”
Caden stared at her.
“So I was bait.”
“No.”
“You can call it something nicer if that helps.”
“I came because I intended to keep you alive.”
“After the trap started.”
“I could not stop the first shot.”
“But you knew it was coming.”
“Yes.”
The honesty of the answer hurt more than another excuse would have.
Caden turned away.
It was absurd.
He barely knew her.
Yet some part of him had wanted to believe her rescue had been simple.
One stranger sees another in danger.
One decision.
Help.
Nothing concealed.
Nothing complicated.
He should have known life better.
Everything became complicated eventually.
Everyone concealed something.
Maybe Jesse had been right that the desert was honest.
People certainly were not.
“Hale gave you that envelope because Gault ordered him to,” Mara said.
Caden looked back.
“Then why does Hale also want it delivered?”
“Because Hale has spent six years helping Gault ruin families one signature at a time. Perhaps he finally grew tired of the man he saw in the mirror.”
Caden unfolded the note again.
“What exactly is inside the envelope?”
“A federal land order.”
“For those twenty-three families?”
Mara nodded.
“How do you know?”
“I've seen a copy.”
“Where?”
“From the man waiting for it in Maricopa Wells.”
“The federal agent?”
“Yes.”
“You know him?”
“Yes.”
Caden held her gaze.
“What is his name?”
Mara looked away.
“Why does that matter?”
“Because you suddenly don't want to say it.”
“His name will not change the road ahead.”
“That wasn't my question.”
She began arranging ammunition.
Caden caught her wrist.
Mara froze.
His grip was not hard.
Still, the room changed instantly.
“His name,” he repeated.
She pulled free.
“When we reach Maricopa Wells, he can tell you himself.”
Something about her answer disturbed him.
Caden studied her face.
“Mara.”
She turned.
“Do I know this man?”
For the first time since their meeting, he saw genuine fear in her eyes.
Not fear of him.
Fear of what the question might uncover.
Before she could answer, a horse whinnied outside.
Mara killed the lamp.
Bootsteps approached.
Caden drew his revolver.
Three shadows crossed the ruined doorway.
A voice called, “Roark?”
Caden aimed into the darkness.
“Depends who's asking.”
“Brixton Hale.”
Caden's finger tightened.
Hale stepped into the moonlight with his hands raised.
He looked ten years older than the man Caden had seen at Redstone.
“I deserve whatever you're thinking about doing.”
Caden hit him.
The punch sent Hale crashing against the wall.
Mara stepped between them before Caden could strike again.
“Enough.”
“No,” Caden said. “Not even close.”
Hale wiped blood from his mouth.
“I knew.”
Caden gave a bitter laugh.
At least the man had finally found the courage to tell the truth.
“You sent me toward four rifles for fifteen dollars.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Hale glanced toward Mara.
She shook her head.
“Tell him.”
Hale shut his eyes briefly.
“When Gault ordered me to hire you, I was told to pick a man no one would miss.”
Caden's expression hardened.
“I figured that part out.”
“But I chose you for another reason too.”
“What reason?”
Hale looked directly at him.
“Because somebody in Maricopa Wells has spent ten years looking for you.”
The ruined station became perfectly silent.
Caden stopped breathing.
“What?”
Hale slowly reached inside his coat.
He brought out an old photograph.
Creased.
Faded.
He held it toward Caden.
Two young men stood outside a saloon.
Both dusty.
Both grinning.
One was Caden.
The other had an arm thrown casually over his shoulders.
Jesse.
The photograph had been taken in Prescott.
Three weeks before the night Jesse died.
Caden's fingers began to shake.
“Where did you get this?”
“From the federal agent.”
Caden turned toward Mara.
Her expression gave away nothing.
He looked at Hale again.
“Who is he?”
Hale did not answer.
Caden grabbed the front of his shirt.
“Who is waiting for me in Maricopa Wells?”
Mara spoke sharply.
“Not here.”
Caden spun toward her.
“You knew about this.”
“Yes.”
“Then who is he?”
Outside, a horse snorted.
A whistle sounded in the darkness.
Hale went pale.
“That isn't one of mine.”
Mara ran to the broken doorway.
Shapes moved along the moonlit ridge.
Six riders.
Possibly seven.
The argument ended immediately.
“Rear exit,” Mara said.
Hale shook his head.
“The roof came down over it.”
“Then make another.”
A bullet punched through the doorframe.
Caden ducked.
Another round shattered a bottle behind him.
Mara fired once through a broken window.
A rider disappeared from view.
Caden shoved a heavy table sideways for cover.
Hale kicked at rotten boards along the rear wall.
“Here!”
They crawled through the opening as the front door burst inward.
Three horses waited outside.
Hale tossed Caden the reins of a gray gelding.
Caden grabbed his coat.
The envelope remained inside.
Then they rode into the dark.
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