Kane slid in last and set her back against the wall beside the opening shops. Ready? Show him, Yona. Yona went to the back of the first chamber to a place where the floor was swept clean in a circle and a flat stone sat in the center. She knelt worked her fingers under its edge and lifted it.
Beneath it was a hollow and in the hollow a bundle wrapped in smoked deer skin tied with sinew. She brought it into the candle light and unwrapped it like it might break. Hides five of them thin as paper scraped smooth and painted. I thought they were pictures at first. Then I saw ridges, rivers, mountains drawn as lines of little peaks, trails marked with dots, and here and there, scattered across every hide, a small sign painted in blue, like a bird with its wings spread, or a cloud with rain falling out of it.
Maps, maps. Yona traced one of the blue signs with her fingertip. Here, under this drywash, water running under the sand all year, here under this messa, a spring that rises in a cave and never fails. Here, here, here. Her finger moved across the hide, touching blue sign after blue sign.
Every water this country hides. Where your people see only death and dust. I sat back on my heels and I saw it all at once. The way you see a whole valley when you crest a ridge. The railroad.
They looked at me. There's a line coming. Everybody in Tucson knows it. Survey crews out all spring. A locomotive needs water every 40 miles or it dies on the track.
And through this country there isn't any. Not that anybody knows about. I touch the hide gently. Whoever owns these owns the line. Owns where the towns go.
Where the cattle graze. Where the next 40,000 people live or don't. He doesn't buy gold with these. He buys the territory. Now you understand.
Rock. Tavana's voice was very low. And now you understand why he hung us instead of killing us. Gold he could find with dynamite and time. This he can only find with us in Puit.
Who? The man in Tucson. AP. I held up the letter. My chief.
I'd bet my last dollar there's a land company in a nice brick building on Congress Street with his name nowhere on the paper and his hand all over it. Wesley had gone very quiet in the corner. My brothers. They were hauling for the survey crews. That was the contract.
Supplies for the railroad men. He swallowed. They saw something, didn't they? Out on that road, maybe. Or maybe they were just in the way of a good story.
Kane's voice from the crack. Sharp. They come. Boots on gravel outside. Voices.
Ror's voice. Close now. They're in the rock somewhere. Get the powder up here. Powder.
Isha was at the opening beside Kane. Tavana. They have a box. Two men carry it. Is there another way out?
Dashka was already moving toward the back of the cave holding the candle high. The old way. Through the grandfathers. It is long. It is not for strangers.
I'll take not for strangers over dynamite. Tavana grabbed my arm, her face close, the candle light in her eyes. Listen, water doesn't belong to the man who fences it, Marshal. It belongs to the ones who know where it sleeps. You understand?
If we die in here, these must not go out that door in his hands. Promise me. I promise. Not a lman's promise. A man's.
Is there a difference? Tonight? Yes. Then a man's. She held my eyes one more second. then let go.
Y was rolling the maps back into their skin. Isha was at the crack watching. Kane was backing toward us. Yet, Isha, come. Isha came.
Yet stopped. Turned back toward the crack because Wesley was still there, slumped against the wall by the opening, his shoulder bleeding through again, trying to get up and failing. I have him. Yona. No, she was already there.
Hauling him up by his good arm, pushing him toward us. He staggered three steps and fell into Kane's arms and Ya turned to follow. A hand came through the crack. A big white hand with a ring on it. It caught Yona by the hair and yanked and she went backward into the rock opening with a cry that cut off short.
Yona. Kane fired through the crack. Missed or hit rock. Dashka lunged. Too late.
Through the narrow black gap, I saw a lantern light outside. Ror's face in it, smiling. One arm locked around Yon's throat. A deputy beside him with a short fuse already hissing in his hand. Thank you, my dear.
One will do, uncle. Yona's voice was strangled, but clear. Do not back all of you, unless you want to be under it. He tossed something into the crack. It hissed.
Sparked, rolled down. Get back. I grabbed Tavana and threw her toward the back of the cave, and we went down on the stone with the maps between us. Kane dragging Wesley. Dashka shielding the candle.
Isha screaming her sister's name. The world turned white. Then it turned to thunder. The ground lifted and dropped. Stone came down from the ceiling in a rain.
Dust so thick I couldn't tell if my eyes were open. The roar went on and on and on. Rock falling on rock. The whole mountain grinding its teeth. Then quiet.
The kind of quiet that has weight. The candle was out. Somebody was coughing. Somebody was weeping. I felt Tavana's hand find my face in the dark, checking I was alive, then fall away.
Where the crack had been, where the starlight and lantern light had been a moment ago, there was only rock, solid, tons of it, no light, no air moving, no yon. And from somewhere on the other side of that wall of stone, faint as a voice in a dream, Ror laughing. Isha found the candle by feel and Dashka found a match by miracle. And the little flame came back up out of the dark like a held breath let go. Five faces in it.
Mine. Tavana's Kane's white with dust. Dashka's Isha's wet and Wesley's behind them gray and shaking. Five, not six. Isha went at the fallen rock with her bare hands, tearing at it.