Chapter 15 - Elias Chooses a Side
Marshal Cole wanted Elias to remain at the ranch.
Elias refused.
“You need someone who knows the north valley.”
“I have maps.”
“Maps don’t show winter washouts.”
“I have deputies.”
“They don’t know Carter.”
The marshal frowned.
“You do?”
“No.”
Clara spoke from behind them.
“But Amos does.”
Rusk nodded.
Cole looked at him.
“You’re under investigation too.”
“I know.”
“You admit falsifying commercial records?”
“Yes.”
“Assisting theft?”
“Yes.”
“Bribery?”
Rusk hesitated.
“Yes.”
The marshal seemed surprised.
“You’re making my job easier.”
“Trying something new.”
Cole almost smiled.
Elias saddled.
Clara approached.
“I’m going.”
“No.”
She raised an eyebrow.
He sighed.
“I know. Tired argument.”
“Yes.”
“Still correct.”
“No.”
“Clara, this isn’t checking flour.”
“My husband’s killer is with Carter.”
“That is exactly why you shouldn’t come.”
“That is exactly why I will.”
He stepped closer.
“You have Nell.”
She flinched.
“Do not use my daughter to make my choices for me.”
“I’m trying to keep her mother alive.”
“So am I.”
They stared at each other.
Then Elias nodded.
“Stay with the marshal.”
“Fine.”
“Fine?”
“I can compromise.”
“You’re terrifying.”
“Good.”
Nell hugged Clara before departure.
This time she did not beg.
“Come back.”
“I’ll do everything I can.”
Nell nodded.
Then she handed Clara Samuel’s pocket watch.
“It’s yours.”
“You keep it.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Papa should go too.”
Clara closed her fingers around it.
The party rode north.
Marshal Cole.
Two deputies.
Elias.
Clara.
Amos.
Tom.
Daniel, despite everyone telling him no.
“Someone has to ignore instructions professionally,” he said.
The pass lay twelve miles away.
They found Carter tracks halfway.
Six horses.
One wagon.
Heavy.
“Powder,” Amos said.
Snow thickened.
They rode faster.
Near dusk, they reached the rail survey camp.
Empty.
Tents cut.
Equipment smashed.
A surveyor lay injured but conscious near a stove.
“Carter,” he whispered.
“Where?” Cole asked.
“Pass.”
“How much powder?”
“Too much.”
They continued on foot because terrain narrowed.
The pass was a steep cut between stone walls.
Rail engineers wanted to blast a shelf through the western side.
If Carter detonated explosives improperly, he could trigger a rockslide massive enough to block construction for years.
They spotted the wagon.
Levi stood beside it.
Carter was higher on the slope.
Cole called out.
“Federal marshal!”
Levi fired.
Everyone took cover.
Cole shouted, “Jeremiah Carter! You are under arrest!”
Carter laughed from above.
“For what?”
“Fraud. Interstate theft. Bribery. Conspiracy.”
“Impressive.”
“Come down.”
“No.”
Elias whispered to Tom.
“There’s a goat path east.”
Tom nodded.
“I know.”
Cole overheard.
“No heroics.”
Elias looked at him.
“We don’t have time.”
A fuse burned near the wagon.
Clara saw it.
“Marshal!”
Cole fired toward the ground near Levi, forcing him behind rock.
Elias and Tom moved east.
Daniel followed.
“Daniel!” Clara hissed.
Too late.
Amos grabbed her.
“Stay.”
She shook him off.
“No.”
“Clara.”
“Levi killed Samuel.”
“And that means what?”
“That I’m done letting other people decide what his death means.”
She moved low toward the wagon.
Not toward Levi.
Toward the fuse.
Snow could extinguish it if she reached it.
Levi saw.
He aimed.
Amos stepped into view.
“Levi!”
The man turned.
Rusk shouted, “You remember me?”
Levi laughed.
“The old bookkeeper.”
“You killed Samuel Whitmore.”
Clara stopped.
Levi’s face changed.
“Did I?”
“You cut the axle.”
“Which one?”
Rusk hesitated.
Levi smiled.
“That’s the joke, Amos.”
Clara listened.
“I cut both.”
Rusk went pale.
“You knew.”
“I saw your little switch.”
Samuel had never had a chance.
Whichever wagon he drove, Levi had sabotaged both.
“Carter told you to frighten him.”
“Samuel threatened the whole operation.”
“You murdered him.”
Levi shrugged.
“I solved a problem.”
Clara felt something inside her go cold.
For years she imagined the answer would bring rage.
Instead it brought clarity.
Samuel had not died because Clara failed him.
Not because he drove carelessly.
Not because weather turned.
A cruel man made a choice.
The guilt belonged there.
Not with her.
Never with Nell.
Levi raised his gun toward Amos.
Clara ran.
Not at Levi.
At the fuse.
She threw herself down and buried the burning cord under snow.
Smoke hissed.
Levi shouted.
A gunshot cracked.
Amos fell.
Clara crawled behind the wagon.
“Amos!”
He clutched his shoulder.
Alive.
Cole’s deputies advanced.
Levi ran uphill.
Straight toward Carter.
Above them Elias appeared on the ridge.
“Carter!”
Jeremiah turned.
For a moment the two men faced each other.
The rancher whose land he had tried to steal.
The businessman who had spent years hollowing it out.
Carter held a second fuse.
“You think you won?”
Elias said nothing.
“You think exposing your father’s crimes saves his name?”
“No.”
That answer surprised Carter.
Elias continued.
“I’m not trying to save his name.”
Clara heard from below.
“I’m trying to save what he should have protected.”
The ranch.
The people.
The truth.
Carter sneered.
“You choose strangers over your own blood?”
Elias glanced toward Clara.
Toward Amos.
Toward Tom and Daniel.
Then back at Carter.
“I choose the living.”
Carter lit the fuse.
Elias moved.
They collided.
Not a dramatic brawl.
Two exhausted men struggling on ice.
The fuse rolled.
Tom kicked snow over it.
Levi appeared behind them.
Daniel tackled him badly but effectively.
Both slid ten feet.
Marshal Cole reached them.
Within seconds Levi was disarmed.
Carter stopped fighting when he realized everyone else had.
He lay in snow breathing hard.
Elias stood over him.
Carter laughed.
“You’ll lose the ranch anyway.”
“Maybe.”
“The debt exists.”
“Parts of it.”
“You can’t prove everything.”
“No.”
“Then what did you gain?”
Elias looked down the valley.
“Enough.”
Carter spat blood from a bitten lip into the snow.
“Enough for what?”
Elias answered.
“To stop living afraid of your books.”
Marshal Cole handcuffed him.
Clara sat beside Amos.
The bullet had passed through soft tissue near his shoulder.
Painful.
Not fatal.
He looked at her.
“Did he say it?”
“Who?”
“Levi.”
“Yes.”
Rusk closed his eyes.
“I’m sorry.”
Clara nodded.
“I know.”
This time the words meant something different.
Not forgiveness.
Maybe the beginning of it.
Samuel’s pocket watch rested against her chest.
For the first time in six years, Clara could think of her husband without also imagining the ravine.
He had been a man.
A father.
Stubborn.
Kind.
Too brave perhaps.
But not merely a victim of an accident.
Truth did not return him.
Nothing could.
Yet it returned something to Clara.
May you like
The part of herself that had been waiting beside that frozen road.
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