Chapter 16 - The Chicago Syndicate
Elias kept his Winchester trained on Vance while Mara stepped around the boulder. She picked up the heavy iron pick Vance had dropped, wedging the point beneath the bent copper hasp.
With a sharp grunt of effort, she levered her weight down. The old rivets tore through the rusted tin with a sharp screech, and the lid popped open with a heavy thud.
Inside the chest lay no gold sovereigns, no stacks of greenbacks.
It was filled to the brim with neatly bound bundles of parchment, wrapped in oiled silk to protect them from the subterranean damp, each packet tied with red ribbon and stamped with official purple wax.
Mara reached in, lifting the top bundle. She pulled loose the ribbon, her brow furrowing as she unfolded the heavy bond paper under the lantern light.
"What is it?" Elias asked, his eyes never leaving Vance's face.
"It's a deed," Mara whispered, her voice faltering as she read the copperplate handwriting. "No... not a deed. A territorial option. Signed six months ago in Santa Fe."
"Read the name of the grantee," Vance muttered, his grin widening into a grotesque mask of satisfaction. "Tell him who owns the ground he's standing on."
Mara's eyes scanned down the page. "The Continental Overland & Cattle Corporation. Chicago, Illinois."
Elias felt the air leave his lungs. Continental Overland was not a local outfit. It was the massive railroad and land syndicate that had been swallowing ranches across New Mexico and Wyoming for five years, backed by eastern capital and private security forces that made Vance’s gang of rustlers look like petty thieves.
"I was just their range manager," Vance said, his voice dropping into a low, spiteful drawl. "They paid me two dollars for every head of scrub stock I ran off these pastures, and five hundred dollars for every smallholder deed I cleared from the county registrar. You think you beat me? I was on their payroll, Burke. And this valley was sold to them before you ever bought your first registered bull."
Mara flipped through the other documents in the chest. "These aren't just for Elias's ranch," she said, her voice shaking with discovery. "This is every homestead between the pass and the river. They have options on the water rights for the entire watershed. If these are filed with the territorial clerk, no one can draw a bucket of water from the San Pedro without paying them a lease."
"And they haven't been filed yet," Elias said, his mind racing to connect the pieces.
"They're waiting for the railway line to be surveyed through the pass next spring," Vance said, leaning his head forward, his eyes gleaming with malicious triumph. "That's why the papers were in this chest. Once the survey was certified, Harshaw—their regional attorney in Tucson—was supposed to come out and register the whole package at once. But you two had to stick your noses into my business."
"And what was your cut?" Mara demanded, thrusting the papers in front of his face. "You burned my father's fence, drove his herd into the river, and left us to starve so you could be a hired hand for men three thousand miles away?"
Vance’s grin faded, replaced by an ugly, bitter snarl. "I was going to be their general superintendent for the entire Arizona territory! Three thousand acres deeded in my name, and fifty dollars a month for life! Men like your father were dirt, girl! Dirt that stood in the path of the tracks!"
"You're a thief who sold out his own neighbors for a brass collar," Elias said, disgust thick in his throat.
"Maybe," Vance spat. "But Harshaw knows where these papers are. If I don't meet his stage at the crossing on Friday, he comes here with twenty Pinkerton guards and a federal court order that will make your marshal look like a schoolmaster. You haven't saved your valley. You've just made sure they'll crush you twice as hard."
A long silence settled over the mine shaft. The water dripped into the dark pool nearby, sounding like the ticking of an indifferent clock.
Mara looked down at the bundles of parchment in her hands. The red ribbons hung loose, dangling like threads of dried blood over the soot-stained rock.
"What do we do with them?" she asked, turning her gaze to Elias.
Elias looked at the chest, then at Vance. For weeks, they had believed Vance was the dragon they had to slay—the single root of all the violence, terror, and misery that had fallen upon their lives. But Vance was only the hired axe. The hand that swung it was half a continent away, holding contracts that could withstand any local jury.
"We take Vance down to the wash," Elias said quietly. "We put him in irons with the others. And then we take this box directly to Marshal Cole."
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"Cole can't fight a Chicago corporation," Vance laughed bitterly. "The circuit judges are on their dinner list."
"Maybe they are," Elias said, stepping forward and grabbing Vance by his collar, hauling the older man roughly to his feet. "But the papers are in this valley tonight. And so are we."
