Silas did not attack immediately.
That would have been too simple.
He fired twice from the ridge, let everyone see him, then disappeared among the trees.
“He wants fear,” Nia said.
Jonah stood beside her behind a wagon.
“He’s doing a respectable job.”
“He wants us wondering where he will appear.”
“Also working.”
Nia glanced at him.
“You could try being helpful.”
“I rode seven days. My helpfulness is exhausted.”
Despite herself, she smiled.
Men from the agency organized watches.
A nearby military detachment sent several soldiers.
Sheriff Mercer’s telegram had already warned them Silas might come.
By nightfall, armed guards surrounded the settlement.
Yet Silas had vanished.
No tracks could be followed after reaching the rocky ridge.
“He could leave,” one official said.
Nia shook her head.
“He will not.”
Jonah looked at her.
“Why?”
“Because this was never only about money.”
She knew Silas better than anyone there.
To him, her escape had become humiliation.
Harlan was dead.
The records had been recovered.
His network was collapsing.
Men were giving testimony.
Silas had lost control of everything.
Nia remained the living proof that he could be defeated.
“He needs me afraid again,” she said.
Jonah’s expression hardened.
“He’s going to be disappointed.”
For two days nothing happened.
On the third night, a storage shed caught fire.
While everyone rushed to contain the flames, Silas entered from the opposite side.
He took Tala.
Nia discovered her aunt missing minutes later.
A note had been pinned to Tala’s door with a knife.
COME ALONE TO THE OLD MISSION RUINS BEFORE SUNRISE.
NO SOLDIERS.
NO CARRIAN.
Nia stared at the note.
Jonah read it over her shoulder.
“No.”
She turned.
“You said people decide for themselves.”
“I regret teaching you that.”
“This is my aunt.”
“And exactly what he expected.”
“He will kill her.”
“He might kill her anyway.”
Nia recoiled.
Jonah hated himself for saying it, but he continued.
“That’s what Silas does. He makes you believe obedience guarantees safety. It doesn’t.”
Nia’s eyes filled with angry tears.
“What would you do?”
“If he had Margaret?”
The question silenced him.
Jonah looked toward the darkness.
“If I answered honestly, I’d probably do something stupid.”
“Then do not ask me to be wiser than you.”
Fair.
Painfully fair.
Jonah rubbed a hand over his face.
“We need another plan.”
The old mission ruins stood six miles east.
Stone walls.
Collapsed chapel.
Dry well.
Several approaches.
Nia knew Silas expected her to hide help nearby.
He would watch for riders.
So they did something else.
Nia went alone.
At least that was what Silas saw.
Jonah left three hours earlier on foot.
Two soldiers approached from the south through a ravine.
Others remained much farther away, beyond the ridge.
Nia rode toward the ruins just before dawn.
She carried no visible rifle.
Only Jonah’s small revolver hidden beneath her coat.
She dismounted.
“Tala?”
Silas appeared behind the chapel wall.
Her aunt sat nearby with her hands tied.
Silas held a rifle.
“You came.”
“Let her go.”
Silas smiled.
“You sound different.”
“I am different.”
“No. People don’t change.”
“You should hope they do.”
Silas laughed softly.
“You think Carrian saved you?”
Nia looked directly at him.
“No.”
That answer surprised him.
“He opened a door. I walked through it.”
Silas’s smile faded slightly.
“I escaped you before I ever met Jonah.”
Silence.
“You didn’t save yourself. You got lucky.”
“Then why did you travel hundreds of miles looking for me?”
His face hardened.
Nia knew she had struck the truth.
Silas needed her to believe he still had power.
If she did not fear him, he became what he actually was.
One frightened, aging man holding a rifle.
“Untie my aunt.”
“Come here first.”
“No.”
Silas raised the weapon toward Tala.
Nia’s pulse exploded.
“Come here.”
She took one step.
Then another.
From behind the ruined chapel, Jonah watched.
Every instinct screamed at him to fire.
He had a clear view of Silas’s shoulder.
Not enough.
Silas was too close to Tala.
Nia moved nearer.
“Stop,” Silas said.
She stopped.
“Take off the coat.”
Nia froze.
Jonah’s body went rigid.
Silas smiled.
“Looking for weapons.”
Nia removed the coat.
The hidden revolver fell into the dust.
Silas laughed.
“There she is.”
He stepped forward.
“The same woman who ran barefoot through snow.”
Nia looked at him calmly.
“No.”
Silas frowned.
“That woman thought escaping you was the end of the story.”
“And now?”
“Now I know it was the beginning.”
Tala suddenly kicked backward.
Her heel struck Silas’s knee.
He shouted.
Nia dove for the revolver.
Silas grabbed her hair.
She twisted and drove an elbow into his chest.
The rifle fired.
Stone shattered.
Jonah came over the wall.
“Silas!”
Silas turned.
Jonah hit him before he could raise the rifle again.
Both men crashed into the dirt.
Nia crawled to Tala.
She cut the ropes.
Behind them, Jonah and Silas fought.
Silas was stronger than Jonah expected.
Desperation gave him strength.
He struck Jonah’s old bullet wound.
Jonah staggered.
Silas grabbed the rifle.
Nia raised the revolver.
“Stop.”
Silas turned.
For the first time, Nia had a weapon pointed directly at him.
He smiled.
“You won’t.”
Nia remembered Harlan saying the same thing.
“You still don’t understand me.”
Silas lifted the rifle.
Nia fired.
The bullet struck the weapon, knocking it from his hands.
Silas stared.
Jonah tackled him again.
This time soldiers appeared along the ridge.
“Hands!”
Silas looked around.
Every exit was blocked.
He could run nowhere.
For several seconds, Nia thought he might choose death over surrender.
Then his shoulders dropped.
Soldiers seized him.
Iron shackles closed around his wrists.
Nia stood watching.
Silas looked at her.
“You think this fixes what happened?”
Nia considered the question.
“No.”
He smiled.
Then she continued.
“But you don’t get to decide what happens next.”
His smile disappeared.
They took him away.
Nia watched until he vanished over the ridge.
She expected triumph.
Instead she felt tired.
Deeply, wonderfully tired.
The kind of exhaustion that comes after carrying something too long and finally putting it down.
Tala touched her shoulder.
“It is finished.”
Nia shook her head.
“No.”
Jonah approached.
His lip was bleeding.
His coat was torn.
Nia looked at him.
He gave her a tired smile.
“Now?”
Nia understood.
Silas being captured was not the ending.
Surviving was not the ending.
Freedom meant there had to be something after survival.
Something chosen.
She reached for Jonah’s hand.
“Now we decide what begins.”
Silas Crowe eventually stood trial along with several associates identified through the ledgers.
Foster Kells survived and testified.
So did others.
The proceedings lasted months.
Nia gave testimony.
When she finished, she walked outside into sunlight and found Jonah waiting.
“You didn’t have to wait.”
“Yes, I did.”
“Why?”
“I promised myself lunch.”
She rolled her eyes.
“You are impossible.”
“I’ve heard.”
But something remained unsettled between them.
Nia’s relatives were north.
Jonah’s cabin was south.
Neither wanted the other to abandon a life simply to prove love.
One evening they sat beside the river near the agency.
Nia spoke.
“What if I return with you?”
Jonah’s heart reacted before his voice did.
“For how long?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then come for as long as you want.”
“And if I leave again?”
“I’ll hate it.”
Nia looked surprised by his honesty.
Jonah continued.
“But the door will still open.”
Her eyes filled.
She touched his face.
Jonah went still.
Nia whispered, “When I first came to your cabin, I offered you the only thing I thought I had left to bargain with.”
“I remember.”
“You refused.”
“Yes.”
“I did not understand why.”
“And now?”
“Now I do.”
She kissed him.
Softly.
No desperation.
No bargain.
No debt.
Jonah closed his eyes.
Three years earlier he had believed the part of him capable of loving someone had been buried beneath two wooden crosses.
He had been wrong.
Love had not died.
It had simply gone silent.
And now, beside a river under an open western sky, it spoke again.