Chapter 4 - What Thomas Hid in the Lining
Deputy Rusk entered the third floor carrying a revolver.
Hannah stopped breathing.
Caleb’s hand closed around hers.
A second man followed.
Earl Baines, one of Vane’s collection agents.
“Vane said the widow found something,” Baines muttered.
Rusk kicked aside a broken crate.
“Then we find it first.”
Hannah felt Caleb shift.
She tightened her grip on him.
No.
He understood.
For all his size, Caleb could move quietly.
He reached behind them and picked up a small piece of fallen brick.
Then tossed it across the room.
It struck the opposite wall.
Both men turned.
Caleb moved.
He pulled Hannah through a narrow opening where part of the wall had collapsed.
They climbed down old support beams to the second floor.
Hannah’s dress caught.
Caleb tore it free.
Above them Rusk shouted.
“Stop!”
Caleb lowered Hannah through a broken window onto a shed roof.
She slid.
He caught her.
They reached the ground just as Baines appeared above.
A gunshot split the morning.
The bullet struck wood well behind them.
Caleb placed himself between Hannah and the window.
“Run.”
This time she obeyed.
They reached the horses and rode.
Only when the abandoned mill disappeared behind the ridge did Hannah realize she was laughing.
Caleb stared at her.
“What?”
“I don’t know.”
“You were shot at.”
“I noticed.”
“That generally doesn’t make people laugh.”
“I spent forty dollars on you yesterday. Since then I discovered my husband investigated bank fraud, found a secret ledger, climbed from a third-story mill while pregnant, and was shot at by the deputy sheriff.”
Caleb considered that.
“Fair.”
Hannah laughed harder.
Then she began crying.
Caleb said nothing.
He merely rode beside her until the tears stopped.
At the homestead, Lucy was safe.
Mrs. Bell had no idea anything had happened.
Hannah thanked her, took Lucy, and waited until the woman was gone before showing Caleb Thomas’s notebook again.
“The key.”
Caleb placed it on the table.
Small brass.
No markings except the number seventeen.
Hannah searched the notebook.
On the final page she found a sentence written sideways along the margin.
Seventeen keeps the originals safe.
“Bank box?” Caleb guessed.
“Gideon owns the bank.”
“Then Thomas wouldn’t put evidence there.”
“Train station locker?”
“Red Willow doesn’t have seventeen lockers.”
Hannah stared at the number.
Then remembered.
“The courthouse.”
Caleb looked up.
“What?”
“The basement record room. Thomas took me there once when we registered our deed. There are numbered deed cabinets.”
“Seventeen?”
“I don’t know.”
They could not simply walk into the courthouse.
Not while Deputy Rusk controlled the door.
For the next three days, Hannah pretended nothing was wrong.
Caleb repaired the roof.
She baked bread.
Lucy gained strength.
And every afternoon Gideon Vane rode slowly past the homestead.
Never stopping.
Just watching.
Meanwhile, Caleb began earning money.
He split wood for neighboring farms.
Repaired a wagon axle for Mr. Bell.
Broke two untrained horses for a rancher named Jacobs.
By the fourth evening he placed twelve dollars on Hannah’s table.
She stared.
“What’s this?”
“Mortgage.”
“No.”
“Hannah.”
“I bought freedom, not an employee.”
“You bought six months.”
“And released you.”
“You can argue after the farm is safe.”
She pushed the money back.
He pushed it forward.
They continued until Lucy began crying.
Caleb picked her up.
Hannah stared at the twelve dollars.
“How much can you make in five days?”
“Enough.”
“You cannot know that.”
“No.”
“Then why say it?”
“Because sometimes people need certainty more than truth.”
Hannah’s eyes narrowed.
“Do not ever do that with me.”
Caleb nodded.
“All right.”
He was quiet.
Then added, “We probably cannot make enough.”
She threw a dish towel at him.
He smiled.
That night, Hannah dreamed of Thomas.
He stood beneath the cottonwood tree wearing the coat.
She could not see his face.
Only the brass key in his hand.
When she woke, Caleb was outside.
Sitting beside Thomas’s grave.
Hannah watched from the porch.
Eventually she walked to him.
“You knew him better than you’ve told me.”
Caleb looked at the headstone.
THOMAS MERCER
BELOVED HUSBAND
1838–1886
“Yes.”
“How much better?”
Caleb rested his arms on his knees.
“Enough that I owe you the truth.”
He told her what had happened in Black Pine Pass.
Two winters earlier, Caleb had been trapped beneath fallen timber after an avalanche destroyed his hunting shelter.
Thomas found him.
He could have continued toward Red Willow.
Instead he stayed.
For two days Thomas kept Caleb alive.
Shared food.
Built a fire.
Dug through frozen timber.
When Caleb asked why a stranger would risk his life, Thomas answered:
Because my wife would be ashamed of me if I didn’t.
Hannah looked away quickly.
“That sounds like him.”
“When I recovered, Thomas told me what he was investigating.”
“Why you?”
“Because I lived outside town. Vane couldn’t buy me.”
“Can he buy everyone else?”
“Nearly.”
Hannah understood.
“Thomas asked you to help.”
“Yes.”
Caleb tracked shipments.
Names.
Men employed by Prairie Continental.
He discovered Vane had been acquiring farms through fraudulent defaults.
Thomas collected original loan notes and deed copies.
Then something went wrong.
“He sent me away,” Caleb said.
“Why?”
“He said someone knew.”
“When?”
“Four days before he died.”
Hannah’s throat tightened.
“Did you see him after?”
Caleb stared at the grave.
“Once.”
“Where?”
“Miller’s Ridge.”
Hannah turned sharply.
“That is where he died.”
“Yes.”
The word barely came.
Hannah felt cold anger rise.
“You were there?”
“When?”
“The night he died.”
She stepped away from him.
“You were with my husband and never told anyone?”
“I found him after the accident.”
“Alive?”
Caleb’s silence answered.
Hannah’s face drained.
“He was alive?”
“For a little while.”
She struck him.
The sound cracked across the field.
Caleb did not move.
Hannah stared at her own hand.
Then struck him again.
“You let me bury him believing he died alone!”
“I promised him.”
“I don’t care!”
Her voice broke.
“Did he say my name?”
Caleb swallowed.
“Yes.”
That destroyed her anger.
Hannah sank beside the grave.
“What did he say?”
Caleb’s voice became rough.
“He said you were going to be angry because he hadn’t fixed the porch step.”
A laugh tore through Hannah’s crying.
Of course.
Of all things.
The porch step.
“What else?”
Caleb looked at her.
“He said if there was a heaven, he hoped they had decent coffee.”
She laughed again.
Cried harder.
Then Caleb said, “And he told me you were pregnant.”
Hannah froze.
“I didn’t know yet.”
“He did.”
“How?”
“He suspected.”
Hannah covered her mouth.
Thomas had known.
Maybe only guessed.
But he had known.
Caleb continued.
“He said if he didn’t make it home, I was to protect you from Vane without bringing danger to your door.”
“That’s why you stayed away?”
“Yes.”
“Until now.”
Caleb looked toward the cabin where Lucy slept.
“Until I had nowhere else to go.”
Hannah studied him.
“And Lucy?”
His expression closed.
“Not tonight.”
She wanted to demand more.
Instead she looked at Thomas’s grave.
For six months she had believed grief was empty space.
Now she understood grief could hide rooms.
Secrets.
Promises.
Lives she had never known existed.
Caleb rose.
Before leaving, he said, “Thomas’s death wasn’t an accident.”
Hannah stared up at him.
“What?”
“I couldn’t prove it.”
“Who?”
“I never saw the rider who chased him into the ridge.”
“But you know.”
Caleb’s eyes turned toward the distant town.
“Yes.”
Hannah followed his gaze.
Red Willow sat beneath the setting sun.
May you like
And in the center of town, barely visible from the hill, stood Gideon Vane’s bank.
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