Chapter 8 - The Trail of Oil in the Snow
The threatening note changed Ironwood.
Lucien doubled night watches.
Jeb organized patrols.
Josephine protested only when Lucien tried assigning Billy to follow her between buildings.
"I do not require a bodyguard."
Billy looked relieved.
Lucien did not.
"You received a threat."
"So did the smokehouse."
"The smokehouse isn't my wife."
The words came naturally.
Too naturally.
Silence followed.
Josephine looked at him.
Lucien cleared his throat.
"In the legal sense."
"Naturally."
Jeb turned away quickly.
Josephine suspected he was smiling.
Three nights later, fresh snow covered Ironwood.
At sunrise, Josephine walked toward the smokehouses and stopped.
Tracks.
Boot prints.
They circled the fourth chamber.
Lucien arrived moments later.
"Nobody touch anything."
The prints led toward the equipment shed.
Then behind it.
There, hidden beneath stacked timber, they found a small wooden box.
Inside were rags.
Matches.
And a nearly empty kerosene bottle.
Jeb cursed.
"Again."
Lucien examined the snow.
The tracks came from the bunkhouse.
Josephine's stomach tightened.
They followed them.
Every print was clear.
All the way to the rear door.
Twenty-two men gathered outside.
Lucien looked at them.
"No one leaves."
He compared boots.
One pair matched closely.
They belonged to Carter Mills.
Carter turned pale.
"I didn't do anything."
Lucien stared.
"Your prints."
"My boots."
"Same thing."
"No!"
Carter pulled them off.
"Look."
One sole had been repaired with three square nails.
The tracks outside showed round nails.
Someone had used boots similar to his.
Josephine crouched by the tracks.
"These prints are too deliberate."
Lucien looked at her.
"What?"
"They walk directly from the bunkhouse to the box."
"So?"
"No wandering. No hesitation. Whoever did this wanted them found."
Jeb frowned.
"Framing Carter."
"Likely."
Carter exhaled.
Lucien looked at every man.
The saboteur was getting bolder.
Or more frightened.
That afternoon, Josephine found something else.
The kerosene bottle had a paper label.
Most had been soaked away.
But one handwritten inventory number remained.
She carried it to Lucien.
"Can we trace this?"
"Maybe."
The Bitter Creek Mercantile marked bulk orders.
Horace Weller confirmed the number the following day.
The bottle came from Red Hollow's twelve-can purchase.
This was real evidence.
Not proof Crowe personally ordered sabotage.
But proof Red Hollow kerosene had been hidden at Ironwood.
Lucien wanted the sheriff.
Josephine agreed.
Sheriff Amos Bellamy was a slow-speaking man with a scar beside his left eye.
He examined the bottle.
"Could've been stolen."
"From Crowe?" Lucien asked.
"Could've."
"By someone who then rode twenty miles to burn my smokehouse?"
"Could've."
Lucien leaned forward.
"You always this useful?"
Bellamy sighed.
"Hatcher, I arrest Crowe without more than an oil bottle and he'll own my badge by breakfast."
Josephine understood.
"You need the person carrying it."
"Or payment records. Letters. Witness. Something."
Edwin Marr.
Walter's warning returned to her.
Crowe's agent.
They found his room above the old feed store.
Empty.
The landlord said Marr had left two days earlier.
"For where?"
"Didn't say."
Josephine searched the room with Bellamy's permission.
Nothing.
Then Lucien noticed scratches on the stove pipe.
He removed a loose panel.
Inside were paper fragments.
Most were receipts.
One listed a payment to C.M.
Jeb frowned.
"Carter Mills."
Josephine shook her head.
"Too easy."
Another receipt carried initials.
W.P.
Walter Pritchard.
That matched his confession.
Then a third:
J.R. — $75
Lucien went still.
Jeb Rust.
Josephine looked at him.
Jeb had worked at Ironwood longer than almost anyone.
Had helped save the smokehouse.
Had invested wages.
Had defended Josephine.
But the initials were unmistakable.
They returned to Ironwood without telling the others.
Lucien called Jeb into the office.
Josephine placed the receipt on the desk.
Jeb stared at it.
"What is this?"
"Your initials," Lucien said.
Jeb looked up.
"You think I work for Crowe?"
"Tell me why your initials are in his agent's room."
Jeb's face changed.
He sat down.
"Because I took his money."
Lucien looked as if someone had struck him.
Josephine said nothing.
Jeb continued.
"Last summer."
"For what?" Lucien asked.
"Information about the north herd."
"Why?"
Jeb's eyes dropped.
"Poker."
Lucien stared.
"I owed money."
"Seventy-five dollars?"
"More."
Jeb rubbed his face.
"Marr offered to clear it if I told him cattle numbers."
Lucien's voice became low.
"What else?"
"Nothing."
"Don't lie."
"I'm not."
"Smokehouse?"
"No."
"Oil?"
"No."
"Switched shipments?"
"No!"
Jeb stood.
"I was stupid. I sold cattle numbers. That's it."
Lucien stepped forward.
Josephine moved between them.
"Sit."
Both men looked at her.
"I said sit."
To her surprise, both did.
Josephine asked Jeb details.
Dates.
Locations.
What Marr asked.
How often.
The answers came quickly.
Consistently.
Then Jeb remembered something.
"Marr asked about the old south road."
"When?" Josephine said.
"September."
"Before I arrived?"
"Yeah."
"Why?"
"He wanted to know whether wagons could reach the cookhouse without passing the main barn."
Lucien's face hardened.
The route used by the smokehouse saboteur.
"What'd you tell him?"
"Truth. Road's washed out in spring but usable by fall."
Jeb looked sick.
"I didn't know."
Josephine believed him.
Lucien wanted to.
That was harder.
Jeb removed his hat.
"If you want me gone, I'll leave."
Lucien didn't answer.
Jeb placed his bunkhouse key on the desk.
Then walked toward the door.
Lucien spoke.
"Leave the key."
Jeb stopped.
His shoulders dropped.
Then Lucien continued.
"You'll need it tonight."
Jeb slowly turned.
Lucien's expression remained hard.
"You betray me again, we're finished."
Jeb nodded.
"Fair."
"And you pay back the seventy-five."
"I already spent—"
"To Ironwood."
Jeb almost smiled.
"Also fair."
After he left, Josephine looked at Lucien.
"You trusted him."
"Still do."
"After that?"
"Less."
She understood.
Lucien sat quietly.
"How many people around me did Crowe buy?"
Josephine leaned against the desk.
"People aren't cattle."
"What?"
"You keep thinking Crowe owns them because he paid them."
She tapped the receipt.
"Walter confessed. Jeb confessed. Neither burned the smokehouse."
"So who did?"
Josephine looked again at the receipts.
A fourth line had been written in a different hand.
No initials.
Only a date.
January 28 — final work.
Josephine felt something tighten in her stomach.
January twenty-eighth.
Four days before the loan matured.
"What does final work mean?" Lucien asked.
"I don't know."
But Josephine knew one thing.
Whoever Crowe had been paying had not finished yet.
The fire had failed.
The spoiled shipment had failed.
The threats had failed.
And according to the hidden receipt, the most dangerous move against Ironwood had already been scheduled.
January twenty-eighth.
May you like
They had nineteen days to discover what it was.
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