Chapter 2 - The Line in the Dust
The sun sank behind the jagged peaks of the Black Range, plunging the canyon into a deep, bruised violet shadow. Inside the cabin, the only light came from the orange glow of the iron stove where a pot of black coffee bubbled softly.
Nuna hadn’t spoken since Enapay left. She sat with her knees pulled up to her chest on the cot, wrapped in a faded Navajo blanket Jedediah had given her on her first night. Her eyes were fixed on the rough-hewn floorboards where a knot in the pine resembled a twisted eye.
Jedediah poured two tin cups of coffee, walked over, and placed one on the small crate they used as a table. He didn't push her. He sat across from her on the straight-backed wooden chair, wrapping his calloused hands around his own warm cup.
“He’s not going to give up,” Nuna said finally, her voice sounding hollow, scraped raw by hours of silent terror.
“I know,” Jedediah replied.
“Enapay is the best tracker in our band. If he went back empty-handed today, it’s only because he knew you had the drop on him with that rifle. Next time, he won’t ride alone. He’ll bring half the village, or he’ll wait until I step outside alone.” She looked up, her dark eyes flashing with sudden, bitter clarity. “You should have let him take me, Jedediah. You saved me from the vultures just to drag yourself into a blood feud.”
“I didn’t pull you out of the dirt to hand you back to a firing squad,” Jedediah said evenly. “And it ain't a blood feud yet. It’s a disagreement over property lines and old superstitions.”
“It’s not superstition to them,” Nuna snapped, her voice rising. “When the well went sour after the copper miners upstream washed their ore, the medicine man said the earth was angry because a daughter of the tribe had broken ancient laws. I was unmarried, I walked alone near the sacred spring, and I didn't bow my head when the elders spoke. That was enough to make me the vessel for every bad thing that happened.”
She stood up abruptly, pacing the small confines of the cabin until her shoulder brushed against the copper wire spool sitting on the work table.
“They don’t care about the truth,” she whispered, touching the glittering coil. “They just needed someone to blame so they wouldn't have to look at the white men fouling the water upstream. If I stay here, Enapay will come back. He will burn this cabin down around your ears, and he won’t lose a wink of sleep over it.”
“Then we fix it,” Jedediah said.
Nuna stopped pacing and stared at him. “Fix it? How do you fix a curse, Jedediah? How do you talk sense into men who believe the wind carries poison?”
“We don’t talk to the council,” Jedediah said, standing up to face her. “We find out why that water went bad. The telegraph line runs right past the old territorial mining camp three miles north. I’ve been meaning to check the relays there anyway. If those miners dumped acid or tailings into the main aquifer, the whole valley knows it—not just your people. Once there’s proof it was human hands and not some ancient ghost, Enapay’s excuse for hunting you falls apart.”
Nuna’s expression shifted from disbelief to cautious skepticism. “The miners won't talk to you. They hate outsiders messing with their telegraph wires, and they despise anyone who associates with Apaches.”
“They don’t have to like me,” Jedediah said, reaching for his canvas coat hanging by the door. “They just have to answer a few questions about where they emptied their vats last month.”
Before Nuna could argue further, a sharp, metallic ping rang out from the corner of the room where the telegraph apparatus sat wired to a heavy battery.
Jedediah froze.
The brass sounder clicked twice, paused, and then tapped out a rapid, erratic rhythm. It wasn't the standard maintenance code from the Silver City depot. It was a broken, stuttering sequence—short, long, short—repeated three times.
An emergency signal from Relay Station Four, ten miles up the line toward the mountains.
Jedediah strode across the room and pressed his ear close to the brass key as it clattered out another fragment.
“What is it?” Nuna asked, stepping close, her shoulder brushing his arm.
“That’s not an automated line check,” Jedediah said, his face tightening. “That’s old Miller at Station Four. And he’s signaling under duress.”
“How do you know?”
“Because he’s using the old military override code,” Jedediah muttered, his eyes narrowing as he read the dots and dashes in his head. “The code we used to use when the supply wagons were ambushed. He’s saying cut the line.”
Before he could finish translating the final tapped letter, the telegraph needle went completely dead, the steady electrical hum dying into absolute, heavy silence.
May you like
Jedediah looked at Nuna. The trip to the mining camp to save her reputation had just been upstaged by something far more immediate—and far more dangerous—waiting ten miles up the trail.
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