Chapter 5 - The Letter Under the Flour Tin
The road opened four days later.
By dawn Harlan had harnessed the sleigh.
Josephine came outside carrying her mother's sewing box beneath one arm.
Harlan frowned.
“What's that?”
“My luggage.”
“You packed one box?”
“I spent twenty-six years owning things chosen by other people.”
She climbed into the sleigh.
“I've decided I don't need many of them.”
Harlan looked at her for a long moment.
Then he smiled.
“Good answer.”
The journey to Black Pine took most of the day.
Josephine had expected a mining camp.
Instead she discovered a growing mountain town with two churches, a bank, a schoolhouse, a hotel, several shops, and streets churned brown by wagons and melting snow.
People stared when Harlan drove through.
Not at Josephine.
At him.
“Harlan?”
“Yes?”
“Why is everyone looking at you?”
“I don't visit often.”
“Clearly.”
An elderly man outside the blacksmith shop lifted his hand.
Harlan nodded.
A woman hurried two children across the street.
Josephine noticed.
“They're afraid of you.”
“Some are.”
“Why?”
“Rumors travel faster downhill.”
“What rumors?”
“That I'm dangerous.”
“Are you?”
Harlan considered.
“To people cutting corsets off frightened women?”
He glanced over.
Josephine smiled.
“No.”
They stopped outside a large white boarding house.
A brass sign read:
NORA WHITCOMB — ROOMS & MEALS.
Josephine's heartbeat accelerated.
Before Harlan could knock, the door opened.
A woman in her late fifties stood there.
Gray hair.
Sharp blue eyes.
Flour on her apron.
She looked at Josephine.
The color disappeared from her face.
“Eleanor.”
Josephine swallowed.
“No.”
The woman covered her mouth.
“Of course not.”
Tears filled her eyes.
“You're Josephine.”
“You knew my mother?”
Nora Whitcomb reached forward.
Then stopped herself.
“May I?”
Josephine nodded.
Nora hugged her.
Josephine stood stiffly at first.
Then something broke.
She held the older woman tightly.
“You have her eyes,” Nora whispered.
Harlan looked away to give them privacy.
Inside, Nora locked the door.
“I wondered if that letter would ever reach you.”
Josephine placed the brass key on the table.
“What does this open?”
Nora sat slowly.
“A box your mother left with me.”
“Where?”
Nora looked toward the kitchen.
“Under a flour tin.”
Josephine remembered the note.
Black Pine. Whitcomb. Flour tin.
Nora led them into the pantry.
She moved a fifty-pound flour container.
Beneath it was a floorboard with a small iron ring.
Harlan lifted it.
A compartment appeared.
Inside sat a wooden lockbox.
Josephine inserted the key.
Click.
The lid opened.
Documents filled the interior.
Letters.
A bankbook.
Property deeds.
A photograph.
Josephine picked up the photograph first.
Her mother stood beside another woman.
Nora.
They were young.
Laughing.
Happy.
Josephine's eyes burned.
Nora touched the picture.
“We were friends before either of us married.”
“What happened?”
“Your mother met Gideon.”
Nora's mouth tightened.
“I begged her not to marry him.”
Josephine lowered her eyes.
“She thought love could soften ambition.”
“Did he love her?”
“In his way.”
Nora looked toward the documents.
“But he loved money more.”
Harlan lifted one paper.
“What is this?”
Nora leaned closer.
“A land deed.”
Josephine read the name.
ELEANOR MARIE HARPER BELL.
Below it was a description of nearly eight hundred acres west of Black Pine.
She stared.
“My mother owned this?”
“Her father gave it to her.”
“But my father said it was sold.”
“He lied.”
Nora pulled out another document.
“Your mother discovered Gideon was trying to borrow against the property. She transferred ownership.”
“To whom?”
Nora looked at Josephine.
“To you.”
Josephine stopped breathing.
“When?”
“Six weeks before she died.”
Harlan read the deed.
“Josephine was fourteen.”
“Which meant Gideon controlled the property while she was a minor,” Nora said, “but he did not own it.”
Josephine's stomach turned.
“Then what happened when I became an adult?”
“Gideon should have transferred control.”
“He didn't.”
“No.”
Nora opened the bankbook.
“Instead he collected timber fees from sections of your land for twelve years.”
Josephine looked at the figures.
Thousands of dollars.
More money than she had ever imagined possessing.
“Why didn't you tell me?”
Nora's face crumpled.
“I tried.”
She retrieved several returned envelopes.
“All of these came back.”
Josephine recognized her father's handwriting across the fronts.
NOT AT THIS ADDRESS.
“She was there,” Harlan said.
Nora nodded bitterly.
“Every time.”
Josephine sat.
Her entire life rearranged itself in a single moment.
Her father had said she cost too much to feed.
Meanwhile he had been living on income from her property.
Agnes had told her no respectable dressmaker would waste expensive fabric on her.
Meanwhile Josephine could have purchased the dress shop.
Her brothers had mocked her dependence.
Meanwhile their educations might have been paid from her land.
“I wasn't poor.”
“No,” Nora whispered.
Josephine laughed once.
The sound was almost frightening.
“I wasn't a burden.”
“No.”
“My father made me believe I was.”
Nora reached across the table.
“Because a woman who knows her value is harder to control.”
Silence followed.
Then Harlan found another paper.
His face changed.
“What?”
He handed it to Nora.
Nora read it.
“Oh, Lord.”
Josephine stood.
“What is it?”
Harlan tried to answer.
Nora did first.
“Silas Vale has been buying the neighboring parcels.”
Josephine looked down.
A map showed her land surrounded on three sides by Vale Freight & Timber holdings.
“He needs your property,” Nora said.
“For what?”
Harlan pointed to a narrow valley running through Josephine's acreage.
“Railroad.”
Josephine stared.
“A survey route.”
Nora nodded.
“If the railroad takes that pass, your land becomes worth a fortune.”
Everything suddenly made terrible sense.
Vale had not wanted Josephine because nobody else would.
He had wanted her because marriage might give him access to her property.
Her father had known.
Possibly from the beginning.
A knock sounded downstairs.
Three slow knocks.
Nora froze.
“No guests today.”
Harlan moved toward the window.
He looked through the curtain.
His expression hardened.
“Who's there?” Josephine whispered.
Harlan turned.
“Your father.”
Josephine felt the floor disappear beneath her.
A second knock came.
Then Gideon Bell's voice traveled through the door.
“Josephine?”
Another knock.
“I know you're in there.”
Nora reached for Josephine.
But Josephine stepped away.
For the first time in her life, she did not feel like hiding from her father.
She picked up the deed bearing her name.
May you like
Then she walked toward the stairs.
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