“No.”
“Len Morris is dead.”
“Rosa is dead.”
Crowe’s face remained calm.
“Rosa?”
Elena watched.
“You do not know her?”
Crowe’s lawyer intervened.
“This is not a hearing.”
Elena ignored him.
“You brought two women into warehouse and only remember one?”
Crowe’s eyes sharpened.
Caleb noticed.
Reeves did too.
“Who was Rosa?” the marshal asked.
Elena answered:
“My cousin.”
“Where is her body?”
Elena looked at Crowe.
He said:
“I have no idea.”
Elena turned to Reeves.
“Then search south warehouse.”
Crowe’s lawyer objected instantly.
“On what authority?”
Reeves said:
“Maybe none yet.”
Vale relaxed.
Reeves continued:
“But Captain Pierce has authority to account for missing federal weapons.”
Pierce nodded.
Crowe’s smile vanished.
The first search began at dawn.
Caleb rode with the marshal.
Elena wanted to.
Her fever returned.
Joseph refused.
She fought him until Rose arrived.
Caleb had not met Rose before.
Elena’s mother appeared with the witness group at sunrise.
One look from the older woman ended an argument that Joseph had been losing for fifteen minutes.
Elena stayed.
Caleb was impressed.
“Your mother?”
Elena glared.
“Ride.”
He did.
Crowe’s south warehouse stood inside a fenced freight compound near an abandoned mine road.
The three government wagons were gone.
Of course.
But the ground kept stories longer than men expected.
Army wheels left distinctive tracks.
Wide.
Heavy.
Captain Pierce’s sergeant identified them.
Crates had been stored.
Marks remained.
Broken packing straw.
One splintered box lay behind the building.
Stamped:
U.S. PROPERTY — SPRINGFIELD ARMORY.
Crowe’s lawyer said:
“Old.”
Pierce looked at him.
“Crate pattern issued this year.”
Silence.
Inside the office, shelves had been emptied.
Fireplace ash contained half-burned paper.
Reeves recovered several pieces.
One showed the number 117.
The shipment manifest Elena stole listed wagon 117.
Caleb exhaled.
Not enough alone.
Enough with everything else.
Behind the warehouse, a shallow grave was found.
Caleb did not watch them uncover it.
Elena later identified Rosa by a silver bracelet.
Crowe stopped calling her imaginary.
The second body was Len Morris.
Shot.
Ballistics meant little in that era beyond caliber and circumstance.
But position and witness evidence contradicted Pike’s accusation that Elena had murdered him during escape.
A stable boy named Luis Vega finally spoke.
Fourteen years old.
Terrified.
He had seen Pike shoot Morris accidentally while firing toward Elena.
He had also seen Pike shoot Rosa.
Why had Luis remained silent?
Crowe paid his father.
His family lived in Crowe housing.
His mother bought food at Crowe’s store on credit.
Truth was expensive.
Caleb remembered Henry Moss’s pregnant wife.
Again.
Courage did not arrive equally priced.
Marshal Reeves took Luis’s statement privately.
Promised federal protection if possible.
Did not promise miracles.
Caleb respected that too.
The missing wagons were found two days later inside an abandoned silver mine.
Empty.
The rifles had been moved.
Where?
That became the next race.