Let him go, and I'll come quietly." The fort commander was a thin man with wire-rimmed glasses and the permanent expression of someone who'd bitten into something sour. His name was Captain Morrison, and he listened to Ethan's offer with barely concealed amusement. "You think we're going to honor a deal with a murderer?" Morrison asked.
"I think you're a military officer who gave his word, unless that doesn't mean anything anymore." Morrison's smile faded. "You killed Colonel Vance, a decorated officer and a personal friend." "Vance murdered my family and burned my home. If that's decorated behavior, then you've got bigger problems than me."
"Your family died in an Apache raid. That's documented." "Your documentation's a lie, and you know it." Morrison stood abruptly. "I should hang you right now, save the territory the cost of a trial.
But you won't." "Because you want me to stand trial. You want the spectacle, the headlines, the warning to anyone else thinking about resisting." Ethan leaned forward. "So let's stop wasting time.
I'm here. Let the boy go and do whatever you're going to do." Morrison stared at him for a long moment, then he nodded to a guard. "Bring the prisoner." They brought Kael in 5 minutes later.
His face was bruised, his hands bound, but he was alive. When he saw Ethan, his eyes went wide. "Do not do this," Kael said in broken English. "Not for me." "Too late, kid."
Ethan looked at Morrison. "Let him go." "After you're secured." They chained Ethan's hands and feet, locked him in a cell, and only then did they release Kael outside the fort with a canteen and a warning never to come back. Ethan sat in the dark cell and wondered if he'd just made the worst decision of his life, or the first good one in years.
The cell was 8 feet by 6, carved from stone, with a single barred window too high to reach and too narrow for a man to fit through even if he could. Ethan sat on the wooden bench that served as both seat and bed, listening to the sounds of the fort settling in for the night. Boots on wooden planks, voices calling passwords, the jingle of a horse's bridle somewhere in the distance. He'd been in worse places. During the war, he'd spent 3 weeks in a Confederate prison camp where men died standing up because there wasn't room to fall down.
This was luxury by comparison. But it was still a cage. And somewhere beyond these walls, Ayla was carrying his child into an uncertain future while he sat here waiting to hang. The thought should have terrified him. Instead, it brought a strange kind of peace.
He'd made his choice, walked into this knowing the likely outcome. For once in his life, he'd chosen something other than survival or revenge. He'd chosen to protect someone who trusted him. That had to count for something. Morning came gray and cold.
A guard brought thin gruel and water, sliding it through a slot in the door without speaking. Ethan ate mechanically, forcing the tasteless mush down because his body needed fuel even if his mind didn't care. Around midmorning, Captain Morrison appeared outside the cell, flanked by two guards. ""On your feet, Cross."" Ethan stood. The chains on his ankles rattled. Morrison studied him through the bars.
"I've been reviewing the records. It's interesting, there's no official documentation of you anywhere. No military service records, no land claims, nothing. It's like you didn't exist until 5 years ago." "Maybe I didn't."