Yes. Voss wants the rifle, the halves, the deed. Yes. If I give him the deed, he burns it. My father's name with the And if I don't, the boy dies.
It's not necessarily, said Guan. They turned. She stood at the edge of the Aoyo, rifle across her shoulder, a glint in her eye. Part mischief, part entirely dangerous. Voss took Nalin's pouch.
He found the tin copy and tested it. He knows what a child's forgery looks like. She shrugged. So, we give him a good one. You can forge it.
I am 22. Nalin is 14. I will do it better. Stared. A strange warm feeling spread through his chest.
Terrifying. Wonderful. The first hope he had felt since the fire. That's insane. Yes.
That's brilliant. Also, yes. They worked all day Saturday in a ruined miner's shed. Guan with a hammer. Wade with a file.
Dakaya with a lantern and long silent looks. A tin pan became a disc. A nail became a chisel. By afternoon, two small half circles lay gleaming on a flour sack. Scratched dull down to the last mark.
Wade slid one into the rifle's hidden panel. Pressed it shut. Click. He kept the other in his coat. Then he opened the leather case, lifted out the deed, folded it flat, slid it inside his shirt against his ribs, warm, hidden, because a man who has found out his godfather signals the enemy by lamplight, learned something about where not to keep things.
The case was empty. Wade thought about that. Then he dug in his pocket and found a crumpled slip of paper, a feed store receipt. The single time Garrett Voss's friends had let him buy anything. Paid in full, the only piece of paper in Wade's life that had ever made him proud.
He laid it inside the case, closed it, sealed the bronze clasp. "What is that for?" said Guan. "A man who wants paper badly enough will never look at it twice. " "That is a terrible plan. " "It's the best I have.
The real halves wrapped in a handkerchief lay on the flour sack between them. " Tea picked them up, weighed them in his palm. I will carry these, he said. I was going to, said Guan. A man watching for tricks looks at the hands holding the fake.
Not at the old man by the fire. He tucked the handkerchief inside his shirt. Then, from a small pouch at his belt, he took a short bronze pin and a flake of black glass, thin as a leaf, and folded them into the cloth beside the halves. "What are those?" said Wade. An old man superstition.
"For a door I hope you never need to open. " Wade looked at him. The old man looked back, calm, gray, unreadable, and Wade filed it. Same as always. Dry fork lay 12 mi northwest.
A split in the earth where two dead creeks once met. A stone barn with no roof, a broken windmill, and a campfire. He rode in at sunset, alone, the rifle across his saddle, his hands visible, his heart doing something it had never done before, which was beating faster than his horses. Behind him, a/4 mile off, two figures lay flat on a dark ridge. A young woman with a rifle, an old man with a bleeding shoulder.
The eight riders stood in a ring around the fire, each in a black hat, and in a folding chair beside the flames, sipping coffee from a china cup, sat a silver-haired man in a spotless white linen suit. Not a speck of dust on him. In the middle of the desert, Harland, said, Garrett Voss warmly. You came. I said I would.
You did not say anything. You received a note. I like to be a fine quality. Dismount. We have coffee.
I'll stand. Wade's eyes swept the circle. Eight plus Callaway against the barn wall, plus one small shape on the ground by the wagon wheel bound. Hunched. Wade's hearts stopped.
Nalin. The boy lifted his head bruised. Lips split. One eye swollen shut, but the other eye was bright and wild and furious, and it found Wade's face, and it grinned. That is not funny.
It's a little funny. It is a little funny. Voss chuckled. A delightful child. We have enjoyed him immensely.
Let him go. After Voss stood, brushed a speck from his lapel, walked slowly to the horse, and held out his hand. May I? Wade looked at the polished nails, the gold ring, and thought of every fence his father ever mended this man had stolen. He passed down the rifle.
Voss took it almost reverently, ran a thumb along the carved stock, circle line, three small marks. "Jonas," he said softly. "You stubborn old goat. Don't say his name. I knew him better than you did, boy.
Show me how it opens. Nalin did not move, I asked politely. Mr. Callaway has not. Callaway shifted against the barn. Bored, patient, Nalin looked at Wade, and Wade, without a word, gave him the smallest nod, a tiny dip of the chin.
The kind a man gives when he is trusting a 14-year-old with the whole world. They cut the boy loose, handed him the rifle, and Nalin with bound wrists and a swollen eye and a face like a wolf cub pressed his thumb along the lower mark. Click. A small scratched dull disc fell into his palm. Voss leaned in hungry.
And the other half right here, said Wade. He drew the second tin disc from his coat, tossed it underhand. Voss caught it, held both together. They met edge to edge. A whole bronze-l lookinging circle with a tiny keyhole in its center.
And for one long beautiful moment, Wade thought it had worked. Voss was smiling, turning it to the fire light, his thumb stroking the surface. Then the thumb paused. The smile thinned. Mr. Harland, do you know what your father made these from?
Wade said nothing. Bronze cast, a foundry in Santa Fe. They have a weight you do not forget. And three pin pricks near the rim. He told me once they were for luck.