The Spring Between Us

Chapter 71: The Name He Gave

We got to the cellar door and it was open.

The lock was on the floor and the hasp was bent and there was blood on the stone step, and the four warriors who had been on the door were in the passage with their hands tied behind their backs and their faces grey.

Sten got the ropes off the first one. "Who?"

The warrior spat blood on the stone. "Four men. Not wolves. They came through the kitchen door and down the back stairs and they had iron bars and they were not soldiers. They spoke like the town."

"The town?"

"Not the town that came up the road. The other kind. The company kind." The warrior looked up. "Luna. They took the Council man."

Silas was gone.

I stood in the cellar door with a lantern and looked at the empty cell and the broken lock and the blood on the step.

"Sten," I said. "Get the horses. Get every warrior in both packs. Get the town up. The Council man is in a wagon on the canyon road and he is not going to the capital. He is going east."

"How do you know he is going east?"

"Because the tank went east and the ore went east and the railhead is east and the pump is east. He is not going to the Council with a charge of murder hanging on him. He is going to the railhead at Green River and he is going to get on a train and be in Denver by morning." I turned. "Cal. Find Owen. Tell him the company men have taken the Council man and they are on the canyon road going east. Tell him to bring the town and the horses and the doctor and every man who can ride."

Cal went. I went up the stairs and out into the yard and the yard was full of wolves and lanterns and horses and the whole canyon was coming awake.

Hank was at the gate with his horse.

"The east road," he said. "It goes down the canyon and along the river and there is a bridge at the bottom where the company road crosses. If they get over that bridge they are on company ground and we cannot follow them."

"Then we catch them before the bridge." I got up on my horse. "How far?"

"Twelve miles. Maybe less. They had a wagon and a start of ten minutes."

I turned the horse. "Then we do not trot. We run."

We ran. We went down the canyon road at a gallop with the lanterns swinging and the whole canyon behind us, the packs and the town and the doctor and Owen with his clipboard still under his arm, and the moon was down and the road was a pale ribbon under the stars and the horses went flat out and did not stop.

We caught them at the bridge.

The wagon was on the bridge and it was jammed across it, and there were four men on the bridge and they had rifles and they were standing behind the wagon and Silas was on the seat of the wagon with his hands still in irons. The four men had their rifles up and the horses were down and there was a fallen horse in front of the wagon with a broken leg and it was screaming.

I pulled up my horse a hundred yards back and held up my hand and the whole canyon stopped behind me.

"Sten," I said. "Take twenty warriors and go round the east side of the bridge. Berik, take twenty and go round the west. Cal, take the town and go up on the rocks above the bridge and do not let them see you until I give the word. And do not draw a sword until I tell you."

They went. Hank was beside me.

"Four men with rifles," he said. "If we rush that bridge they will shoot the horses and they will shoot us."

"Then we do not rush the bridge." I got down off my horse. "Give me the paper. The one Elias gave us. And the first volume."

He gave them to me. I put them inside my jacket and walked out onto the road alone with my hands up.

The four men on the bridge turned their rifles on me.

"I am the Luna of the Kızıltaş pack," I said. "I am not armed and I am coming to talk."

The man on the left shouted something and Silas turned on the seat of the wagon and looked at me over his shoulder.

"Let her come," he said.

I walked to the bridge. The fallen horse was screaming and one of the men went and put a bullet in its head and the screaming stopped and the river went on under the bridge.

I stopped ten feet from the wagon.

"Envoy," I said. "You are in irons on a company wagon with four company men and a rifle on the bridge. The whole canyon is behind me and it is on both sides of this bridge and it is on the rocks above it. So before anybody does anything they will regret, I am going to say a thing and then I am going to give you a choice."

Silas looked at me. His silver hair was not combed and his coat was torn and his wrists were red under the irons and he looked at me with his pale blue eyes and did not say anything.

"Elias died tonight," I said. "He died in the Çöl pack house with his hand in mine and he told me everything. He told me about the porch light and the paper and the cup and the night my mother died. And he told me the name of the man who ordered it." I took the paper out of my jacket and held it up. "And this is the order. Your hand, your seal, my mother's name, the rogue's name, and the sum you paid. It has been in a box under Ruth's floor for four weeks and it is going to the Council at the autumn gathering and it is going to be read out in the open hall."

Silas looked at the paper.

"You have nothing," he said. "That paper is a forgery. The Council will say so."

"The Council has suspended you and confined you and the Council will read the paper and the Council will look at the graves and the Council will look at the first volume." I put the paper away. "And here is the choice. You can come back up that canyon road with me in irons and stand in the open hall at the autumn gathering and answer for what you have done. Or you can stay on this bridge with your four company men and your rifles and the whole canyon around you, and I will tell the autumn gathering that the Council envoy was killed by company men while trying to escape, and the Council will believe it, because it is what they will want to believe."

Silas's face changed.

"That is not a choice," he said. "That is a threat."

"It is a choice." I put my hands down. "And there is one more thing. The man in the wagon with the irons on his wrists has been taking water and ore out of this canyon for twenty years and has been paying wolves to look the other way and has been writing reports that said the packs were savages. He has not put his hands on anyone. His father did the killing and he has been finishing his father's work and he knows it. And he is going to stand in the open hall and say so." I looked at him. "So which is it, envoy? The hall or the bridge?"

Silas looked at me for a long moment. Then he turned to the man on his left and said something very quietly. The man lowered his rifle.

"Tell your wolves to come down off the rocks," Silas said. "I will go back up that road with you. But I am going to say one thing in the open hall that you will not like, Luna, and you should know it now. I did not kill your mother and I did not order her killed. Ruth did that on her own and she told me so the morning she rode down the mesa road to die." He looked at me. "You are going to hang me for a murder I did not do, and the wolf who did it is already in her grave."

I stood on the bridge with the river going under it and the whole canyon on both sides of it and the man in the wagon looking at me.

"No," I said. "I am going to hang you for what you did do. The water and the ore and the lies and the town and the graves and the twenty years. And Ruth is not going to be hanged for anything, because she is dead, and because she rode down that mesa road and put her own neck in it and because she left a box under her floor with your name in it." I turned. "Sten. Take him."

They took him off the wagon. The four company men put their rifles down and the warriors took them and tied them and put them on the horses. And we went back up the canyon road at a walk with a Council envoy in irons and four company men and the whole canyon behind us and the moon coming up over the eastern rim.

We put Silas in the cellar and four warriors on the door and I went into the hall and sat down at the long table with the first volume and the pact and the stone and the paper.

Hank came in and sat down beside me.

"Derya," he said. "The name. The name Elias gave you."

"He gave me the name of the man who ordered it." I looked at the paper on the table. "It is Silas. It has always been Silas. The father and the son and the paper and the cup and the porch light." I put my hand flat on the paper. "But there is a thing I have been thinking about since the bridge. Silas said Ruth did it on her own. And Silas does not put his own hands on anyone. And Ruth was frightened of him and she kept the paper to hold over him." I looked up. "So who put the rope on my mother's wrists?"

Hank was quiet. Then he said, "The rogue."

"The rogue is in a cell in this hall and she has confessed to three ropes. But she said the Council man paid her. And Silas says he did not." I got up. "So I am going to go down to that cell tonight and I am going to ask her a question I have not asked her yet."

"What question?"

"Who gave the order," I said. "Not who paid. Who gave the order."

I went down to the cell.