Chapter 3 - The Weight of the Brand
Kea stepped out beside Clay, her Winchester held across her body at the low ready. She didn't look at Eli; she looked down at the dead fire pit, her eyes tracking the boot prints in the soft caliche ash.
“That’s not Crowe’s boot,” she said, pointing a finger at a deep, square-heeled imprint near the mule’s hoof.
Eli blinked his good eye, surprised by her sudden appearance, then nodded slowly. “Smart girl. That’s a Pinkerton shoe. Or at least someone wearing store-bought heels from Kansas City. Crowe’s got a white-collar man riding with him—some slick-talking fellow from the land office who’s keeping the tally on every acre they clear.”
Clay felt the blood rise behind his ears—a cold, steady anger that had nothing to do with the bullet wound in his side and everything to do with the four years he had spent trying to stay invisible while men in parlors stole the territory out from under him.
“They want the valley clear,” Clay said.
“They want it empty,” Eli corrected. “They want the title deeds reverted to public domain so the railroad syndicate can buy the whole watershed for ten cents an acre. Your ranch, Mercer? You never filed your patent down at the district office after the county seat moved to Tombstone. Your land’s sitting on public tract ninety-four. All Crowe’s got to do is burn you out and file a preemptive claim.”
Clay stared at the old scout. The cabin he had built with Rose—the timber he had hauled six miles by ox-cart, the floorboards where Ben had taken his first clumsy steps before the fever took him—wasn’t even legally his anymore. The county clerk had changed the rules while Clay was too busy burying his dead to walk into town with twenty dollars in gold.
Kea looked up at Clay, her face unreadable in the morning sun. “You stayed because of the graves,” she said quietly. “You thought if you stayed, they wouldn't disappear.”
“I stayed because I didn't care about anything else,” Clay answered without looking at her.
Eli picked up his Sharps, levered himself up from the nail keg with a grimace of pain in his left knee, and spat into the embers. “Well, you better start caring about the living, Mercer. Because Crowe’s party split at the creek. Three went down toward your place to burn the outbuildings and draw you out. The other two—along with that city fellow—are riding up the dry wash toward the high spring where your cattle are watering.”
Clay’s head snapped up. “My spring? That’s where the calf crop is.”
“That’s where they’re waiting for you,” Eli said, hoisting his rifle onto his shoulder. “They know you can't run north without water for your horses, and they know you won't let your stock die in the dust. They’re setting an anvil, Mercer. And you and the girl are the iron.”
Kea didn't hesitate. She turned to her mare, checked the cinches with three quick, practiced jerks of her fingers, and swung into the saddle.
“We don't go to the spring,” she said, her voice hard as flint.
“If we don't, the calves die of thirst by tomorrow noon,” Clay said.
“Let them die,” Kea said, looking straight into his eyes. “Or let the men waiting at the spring think we’re running north. If we take the upper ridge over the rimrock, we drop down behind them before they even know the cabin is burning.”
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Eli let out a dry, rattling cough that sounded like gravel sliding down a chute. “That’s a hard ride, miss. Three miles of vertical slate where a goat would break a leg.”
“I’ve walked it since I was ten,” Kea said. She looked at Clay. “Are you coming with the rancher who stayed behind, or the man who carried me four miles with a hole in his ribs?”
