Chapter 4 - Justice in the Dust
The standoff outside the white house felt suspended in time. The morning sun beat down mercilessly, casting long, stark shadows across the dusty yard where Isidora stood with the knife blade trembling against Elena’s throat.
"You're bluffing," Isidora choked out, sweat beading on her forehead, her knuckles white around the pearl handle of the knife. "You're just a drifter. No one cares about a nobody girl!"
"Maybe not yesterday," Cruz said, his voice a low, steady rumble that commanded the space around them. "But yesterday is gone. Look behind you, Mrs. Reyes."
Isidora instinctively flicked her eyes toward the road for a fraction of a second.
It was all the opening Cruz needed.
With blinding speed, Cruz cleared leather. The heavy Colt barked once—a deafening roar that shattered the morning silence. The bullet didn't hit Isidora; it struck the blade of the knife right where it met the handle, shattering the steel into a dozen jagged pieces and tearing the weapon violently out of her grip.
Isidora shrieked, dropping her mutilated hand, stumbling backward and releasing Elena entirely.
Elena collapsed into the dirt, coughing, gasping for air, her hands clutching her bruised throat.
Before Isidora could recover her balance or scream for help, Cruz was across the yard. He holstered his revolver, grabbed Isidora by the collar of her dress with one iron hand, and shoved her hard against the rough wooden wall of the house, pinning her fast.
"You're done, Isidora," Cruz said, his voice like grinding millstones. "The game is over."
By then, the sound of the gunshot had drawn a crowd. Half a dozen miners, led by Héctor Moreno holding a heavy iron wrench, came running down the road, followed closely by Father Baltasar, who looked as though he were walking to his own execution.
The townspeople stopped at the edge of the property, staring in stunned silence at the tableau before them: Isidora pinned to the wall, Elena huddled in the dirt gasping for breath, and the hard-eyed cowboy standing guard over both of them.
"Isidora Paredes," Héctor muttered, his eyes falling on Samuel Reyes's ledger lying in the dust. "By God... that's Sam's book."
"She killed him," Elena rasped out, her voice cracked and raw as she pushed herself up onto her hands and knees. "She... she tampered with his gear. And she tried to kill me because I found the proof."
Father Baltasar stepped forward, his face pale, his hands trembling as he clutched his rosary beads. He looked at Isidora, then at the fallen ledger, and finally at Elena. The crushing weight of his own complicity seemed to break him right there in the dust.
"May God have mercy on us all," the priest whispered, crossing himself with a shaking hand. "I... I knew something was wrong. I suspected it in my heart, but I took her money. I closed my eyes."
"Your eyes aren't closed anymore, Father," Cruz said without looking at him. "Pick up that book. And someone go find the circuit judge in Chihuahua and tell him there's a confession waiting in Barranca Colorada."
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Isidora thrashed against Cruz's grip like a trapped animal, her face contorted in vicious, ugly rage. "You can't do this to me! I own this land! I am a respectable woman! You're listening to a lying, worthless girl—!"
"Shut your mouth," Cruz growled, tightening his grip until she gasped. "You spent three years trying to turn her into an animal. Turns out, you were the beast all along."
