Chapter 2 - The Stranger at the Fork
The light broke over the peaks like a bruise—purple and bruised-red along the eastern limestone before turning the high grass a pale, shivering silver.
Clay and Kea crouched behind a screen of scrub oak fifty feet above the trail fork, watching the man below.
He wasn’t Silas Crowe. He sat on an inverted nail keg near a dead fire pit, wearing a faded Union cavalry blouse with the brass buttons torn off and a slouch hat pulled low over his eyes. Between his knees rested a heavy Sharps buffalo rifle, its long octagonal barrel catching the early sun. A gray mule tied to a stunted cedar nibbled listlessly at a patch of dry bunchgrass.
“You know him?” Kea whispered, her breath brushing Clay’s ear.
“Never saw him,” Clay said, squinting through the morning haze. “Looks like a drift man. Too old for the cavalry, too slow for the outlaws down in Sonora. Might be a scout out of Fort Huachuca, or he might just be a vulture waiting to see whose boots come up empty.”
The stranger didn't turn around, but his voice carried up the gulch clear as a church bell in winter.
“You can come down out of the brush, Mercer. My hip’s too stiff to turn around, and I reckon your side’s too sore to spend the morning crawling through cactus.”
Clay froze, his hand tightening on his revolver. He looked at Kea. She gave a small, almost imperceptible nod—not of fear, but of cool calculation—and shifted her grip on her rifle.
“Stay here till I signal,” Clay muttered.
He stood up from the scrub oak, keeping his shoulders square and his right hand clear of his holster, and walked down the shale slope until he hit the flat trail twenty paces from the keg.
The man tilted his head back. His face was a map of old alkali burns and deep weather creases, his left eye clouded with a cataract that turned it milky-blue. A thick gray mustache drooped over a mouth that looked like it hadn't smiled since the Appomattox surrender.
“Clay Mercer,” the old man said, spitting a dark stream of tobacco juice into the dirt. “Heard you went to ground after the fever took your folks. Didn't figure on you dragging yourself back out of the dirt just to run guns for an Apache girl.”
“I’m not running guns, and I’m not asking for company,” Clay said, stopping ten feet out. “You’ve got the advantage of knowing my name, old man. I don't know yours.”
“Folks call me Eli. Used to ride salt-line out of Fort Bowie before the Army decided my horse wasn't worth the oats.” Eli reached down slowly, picked up a tin cup of black coffee from the coals, and blew the scum off the top. “I ain't here to bushwhack you, Mercer. Silas Crowe passed through here four hours before dawn. He’s got four fresh riders from the Charleston road, and they’ve cut your tracks. They think you’re heading for the San Simon sink. But I reckon you’ve got more sense than that.”
Clay didn't relax his stance. “Why tell me?”
“Because Crowe’s running with a bad brand of cattle thieves now,” Eli said, his milky eye fixing on Clay with uncomfortable clarity. “They aren't just looking for the girl to collect a bounty down in Mexico. They’re cleaning out every independent ranch between here and the border, burning the shacks, and leaving the brands smeared so the marshals think it’s Apache raids. They killed old man Miller over on the Babocomari three nights ago. Took his horses, burned his barn, and left him tied to the wheel of his wagon.”
From the brush above, a sharp intake of breath told Clay that Kea had heard every word.
Miller was an old friend—a man who had traded flour for dried venison with Kea’s people every autumn for ten years.
“Miller was a peaceful man,” Clay said, his voice dropping into a register that made Eli shift his grip on the Sharps.
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“Weren't about peace, son. It’s about clearing the range,” Eli replied, setting his tin cup down. “The land syndicate out of Tucson wants every square foot of water rights from the Dragoon foothills to the river. Crowe is their dog. If you take that girl north into the high camps, you’re walking right into their patrol lines. And if you stay here, they’ll burn your cabin to the ground by sundown.”
Clay looked back up the trail toward the hidden ridge. He could see the dark blur of Kea’s shawl against the gray rock. She wasn't waiting for his signal anymore; she was already sliding down the bank, her moccasins making no more sound than a shadow falling across stone.
