Elias appreciated that answer.
Evidence mattered.
Mara walked toward the map.
"Someone now searches again."
Elias looked at the copper disk.
"Why?"
She pointed to the year written beside Nathaniel's map.
Nearly twenty years earlier.
"Maybe Barton never found what he needed."
Elias remembered the increasingly generous purchase offers.
Suddenly they looked different.
He rode into Silver Creek that afternoon.
Not with three hundred riders.
That would have created panic immediately.
Dosela kept almost everyone outside the settled valley.
Mara came with Elias.
So did five witnesses.
Even that was enough.
By the time they reached town, several men were already standing outside the saloon holding rifles.
Sheriff Amos Reed stepped from his office.
"Elias?"
"I'm fine."
Reed looked at Mara.
Then the riders behind her.
"I heard your ranch was surrounded."
"It was."
Several people murmured.
Elias raised his voice.
"They weren't attacking."
A man near the feed store shouted,
"Then what were hundreds of Apache doing there?"
A new voice answered before Elias could.
"Intimidation."
Charles Barton walked from the hotel.
He was fifty-nine.
Tall.
White hair carefully trimmed.
Gray suit despite the heat.
Elias had known him since childhood.
Barton looked at Mara.
Then the other riders.
"This is exactly what I've warned everyone about."
Elias stared at him.
"What have you warned them about?"
"Increasing instability."
Barton gestured north.
"Armed groups gathering near ranch property. Water disputes. Cattle disappearances."
Too smooth.
Too prepared.
Elias suddenly remembered the wording in San Aurelio's last purchase letter.
Given increasing concerns regarding security and reliable water access...
Almost identical.
Elias reached into his coat and unfolded Nathaniel's map.
Barton saw it.
For less than a second, his expression changed.
That was enough.
Elias noticed.
So did Sheriff Reed.
"Recognize this?" Elias asked.
Barton recovered.
"Should I?"
"My father's."
"Then probably not."
"Your name is written on it."
Silence.
Barton smiled faintly.
"Nathaniel and I worked together often."
"On underground springs?"
Another pause.
"I don't remember."
Mara stepped forward.
"You remember."
Barton finally looked directly at her.
"And you are?"
"Mara."
"That explains very little."