CHAPTER SIX Ask Me Again #2
Belief was not mercy. It could not be offered merely because Jude’s grief made Gideon ache. If he believed, it had to survive scrutiny from men determined to call every truth affection had corrupted.
He looked beneath the remaining floorboards.
Something metallic caught the light near the foundation wall.
Gideon reached between two beams.
His fingers closed around a brass corner.
“Help me move this.”
A burned roof beam lay across the object. Gideon gripped one end while Jude took the other. Their cuffed wrists crossed between them.
“On three,” Gideon said.
“You never wait for three.”
“Neither do you.”
They lifted on two.
The beam rolled aside.
Beneath it lay a shattered wooden survey box bound with tarnished brass. A bullet had split the lid near its lock. One side was blackened by fire, but the box had been protected beneath the collapsed floor.
Jude stared at it.
“Noah’s.”
“You’re certain?”
“He carved that.”
A small compass rose marked the lid. The lines had been cut unevenly, and one point extended farther than the others.
“He carved it when we were boys,” Jude said. “Claimed every mapmaker needed a proper box.”
Gideon lifted it carefully.
The wood gave beneath his fingers.
Inside lay a brass compass with cracked glass, three pencils reduced to charcoal, and a leather field book burned along one edge.
Jude reached for the book, then stopped.
“May I?” he asked.
The question struck Gideon with unexpected force.
These were Jude’s brother’s possessions. Yet Gideon held the authority and Jude still asked before touching them.
“They belong to you,” Gideon said.
“Not according to the evidence inventory.”
“This box was never entered into evidence.”
Jude took the field book.
He opened it with both hands as far as the cuff allowed.
Several pages had been destroyed. Others were stuck together from water damage. But the middle survived.
Columns of names and numbers filled Noah’s careful handwriting. Claim references. Survey coordinates. Water allotments.
Some entries were marked in red.
Jude turned another page.
A folded map lay inside.
Gideon opened it across the least damaged floorboard. The map showed Dry Mercy, the surrounding ranches, and a network of springs extending north toward Harrow land. Red circles marked seventeen water sources.
Lines had been drawn from each spring to deed numbers written in the margins.
Gideon recognized six ranch names from Harrow’s holdings.
Jude pointed toward one circle. “That was Bell water.”
Another. “Vega.”
Another. “Quinn.”
“All transferred to Harrow,” Gideon said.
“After their owners died.”
“Before.”
Jude looked at him.
Gideon found the dates. “These deeds were recorded eleven days before the fire.”
“How?”
“Forged signatures.”
“Or signatures obtained under threat.”
Gideon searched the box again.
Beneath the compass lay a sealed envelope addressed to Federal Judge Horace Ainsley in Santa Reina. One corner had burned away, but the writing remained legible.
He opened it.
Judge Ainsley,
My field survey confirms that August Harrow has altered boundary stones and obtained fraudulent control over seventeen registered water claims. The enclosed map identifies the affected properties. Copies of the original filings do not match the territorial record.
I believe Clerk Edmund Vale has altered the record books under Harrow’s direction. Marshal A. Cutter has been informed of the discrepancies and has refused an investigation. Two ranchers who provided testimony have since disappeared.
If I do not arrive in Santa Reina by the twentieth—
The final lines had burned away.
August Harrow.
Named directly.
Amos Cutter identified by initial and position.
Not enough for conviction. Noah’s complete ledger remained missing. The original deeds were not present. Much of the field book had been destroyed.
But it was evidence.
Physical evidence concealed at a murder scene the sheriff claimed did not exist.
Gideon read the letter a second time.
Jude watched him.
“What does it prove?”
“That Noah knew about the fraud.”
“And Harrow.”
“He names Harrow.”
“And Cutter.”
“He identifies Marshal A. Cutter as refusing an investigation. That is not proof Cutter participated.”
“The kill order is.”
“The kill order proves someone used his cipher.”
“You said it couldn’t be copied.”
“I said it could not be copied precisely.”
Jude stood abruptly.
The chain jerked Gideon’s wrist.
“So there will always be another explanation.”
“Until evidence eliminates it.”
“My brother was murdered.”
“I know.”
“No, you know he is buried here. You know Harrow stole land. You know Cutter ordered us dead. But knowing me appears to require a standard of evidence God himself couldn’t satisfy.”
Gideon rose.
They stood on opposite sides of Noah’s grave, connected by the chain.
“I am trying to build a case that survives people calling me compromised.”
“Are you?”
“Yes.”
“Because you nearly kissed me?”
The words struck cleanly.
Jude continued before Gideon could answer.
“Because you held me naked last night? Because you put your hands in my hair and looked at me as if wanting me had become an injury you needed to hide?”
Gideon’s face burned.
“That is precisely why evidence matters.”
Jude’s anger faltered.
Gideon stepped closer.
“If I walk into Santa Reina and say I believe you because I held you through the night, Harrow wins. Cutter calls me corrupted. Rusk calls you a seducer. Every mark on that map becomes something I invented to save a man I wanted.”
The chain hung between them.
“I will not let them use what is happening between us to bury your brother a second time.”
Jude stared at him.
Wind passed through the ruined schoolhouse.
At last Jude looked away.
“What is happening between us?” he asked.
Gideon could have answered with duty.
He could have said nothing was happening.
Both would have been lies.
“I don’t know,” he said.
Jude’s gaze returned.
“But it is not nothing,” Gideon added.
The anger left Jude slowly.
He sat beside Noah’s grave.
Gideon sat with him.
For several minutes, neither spoke.
The black gelding shifted near the well. Somewhere beyond Dry Mercy, thunder murmured against the mountains, too distant to threaten another storm.
Jude placed Noah’s field book on his lap.
“I didn’t bury him,” he said.
Gideon waited.
“I told you I held him.”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t tell you how long.”
Jude’s thumb moved over the burned leather cover.
“The schoolhouse was already burning when I arrived. Smoke came through the roof. Isaac Bell was dead near the door. Matthew lay across him. Rafael and Thomas were against the far wall.”
Jude looked toward the place where the floorboards had burned away.
“Noah was alive where the grave is now.”
His voice had flattened, not from a lack of emotion but from too much of it.
“He was sitting with his back against the wall. There was blood beneath him. So much I thought it belonged to all five men.”
Gideon remained still.
“I dropped my rifle and went to him. He looked at me and smiled.”
Jude’s mouth twisted.
“Smiled. He had two bullets in him, and he smiled because his little brother had come.”
The final word broke.
Gideon’s hand closed around the chain.
Jude continued.
“He asked whether I remembered the song our mother sang when storms frightened us. I told him to save his strength. Said I would get him to a doctor.”
A tear moved down Jude’s face.
He did not wipe it away.
“He knew. I knew. But I kept talking about the doctor because if I stopped, we would both have to admit I had arrived too late.”
Jude’s free hand dug into the earth covering Noah’s grave.
“He told me Harrow took the ledger. Said the field notes were safe. Told me to find Judge Ainsley.”
“What else?”
“He said he was sorry.”
“For what?”
“Leaving me alone.”
Jude’s fingers closed around wet soil.
“I was angry with him for saying it. Told him he wasn’t going anywhere. Called him a coward.”
His shoulders began trembling.
“He died while I was still angry.”
Gideon moved closer.
Jude did not appear to notice.
“Harrow’s riders returned before I could carry him out. They were laughing outside. I took my rifle and fired through the window. Hit one. Maybe two. They set the roof alight.”
Jude’s hand went deeper into the dirt.
“I left Noah there.”
“You were outnumbered.”
“I left him.”
“You were trapped inside a burning building.”
“I promised I would come back.”
“You survived.”
“I ran.”
The last word opened something.
Eight months of grief broke through Jude at once.
He struck the grave with his fist.
Once.
Again.
Gideon caught his wrist before the third blow.
Jude turned on him.
“Let me go.”
“You’ll break your hand.”
“Let me go!”
Gideon released him immediately.
The action startled them both.
Jude stared at his freed wrist, then at the steel still connecting his other hand to Gideon.
Gideon kept his palms open.
“I’m not restraining you.”
Jude’s breath came hard.
“You already are.”
“Yes.”
The admission entered between them without defense.
Jude’s anger collapsed.
He bent forward over Noah’s grave, both shoulders shaking.
Gideon did not touch him.
Not yet.
“May I come closer?” he asked.
Jude nodded.
Gideon moved beside him.
“May I hold you?”
Another nod.
“Say it.”
“Yes.”
Gideon wrapped both arms around him.
Jude resisted for half a breath, then turned and seized Gideon’s coat in both hands. He pressed his face against Gideon’s chest.
The force of his grief drove them backward into the dirt.
Gideon held him through it.
Jude’s tears soaked the front of his shirt. His body shook with sobs he tried and failed to silence. Gideon placed one hand at the back of his head and the other around his waist, protecting the bruised ribs and bandaged side.
“I left him,” Jude said again.
“You lived.”
“I didn’t want to.”
Gideon’s hand tightened in his hair.
The truth revealed itself.
Jude had not surrendered because he trusted the law.
Not entirely.