Chapter 12 - Rebecca Rides Back to Town
They left Redstone the next morning.
Elias came with them.
He resisted at first.
Rebecca ended the argument.
“You’ve been hiding twenty years. You can hide after you testify.”
Elias stared at her.
Hannah laughed.
“She’s yours.”
“Apparently.”
The return journey felt longer.
Telegrams traveled ahead.
One to Thomas Reed.
One to Sheriff Kums.
One to the territorial marshal.
Rebecca wrote only:
KEEP PEOPLE OFF CHURCH STREET CELLARS. DO NOT LET HARLON NEAR OLD TUNNELS.
They reached Silver Junction during a snowstorm.
A reply waited.
From Kums.
HARLON RETURNED. CLAIMS REBECCA STOLE PROPERTY. TOWN DIVIDED. COME CAREFULLY.
Micah muttered.
“Man has nerve.”
Rebecca folded the telegram.
“Men like Harlon survive because nerve is cheaper than truth.”
They rode into Pine Hollow two days later.
Harlon stood on the mercantile steps.
He had returned wearing his finest coat.
Half the town gathered around him.
When Elias Mercer rode into the street, silence fell.
Harlon’s face emptied.
Elias dismounted.
“Hello, Harlon.”
Harlon recovered.
“You’re supposed to be dead.”
Elias smiled without warmth.
“Your father was disappointed too.”
Whispers spread.
Rebecca dismounted beside him.
Harlon looked at her.
“You’ve been busy.”
“You burned my house.”
“No proof.”
“You blew the tunnel.”
“No proof.”
“You stole my father’s home.”
“I collected lawful debt.”
Rebecca held up Silas’s account book.
“About that.”
She had found it among the money hidden beneath the window bench.
Her father kept meticulous records.
Every payment.
Every purchase.
Every debt.
According to Silas, he owed Harlon Puit eighteen dollars.
Not the one hundred eighty-seven Harlon claimed.
Rebecca turned toward the townspeople.
“My father’s house was taken for a debt Harlon multiplied ten times.”
Murmurs.
Harlon laughed.
“Your father’s private scribbles prove nothing.”
Delbert Marsh stepped forward.
“My freight books show Silas paid Puit sixty dollars in lumber credit last spring.”
Harlon’s expression tightened.
Widow Amory raised her cane.
“And I witnessed it.”
The blacksmith added, “So did I.”
Harlon looked around.
His control was slipping.
He pointed toward Elias.
“This man abandoned his property twenty years ago.”
Elias answered.
“I was forced off it by your father’s men.”
“Prove that.”
“I can.”
Elias opened a leather case.
Inside were affidavits from men in three territories.
One surviving freightman had admitted transporting Elias under guard.
Another had documented payments from Edwin Puit.
A former county clerk confessed to altering the record.
Kums stepped into the street.
“I can authenticate several signatures.”
Harlon stared.
“You.”
Kums nodded.
“Me.”
Rebecca watched townspeople shift physically away from Harlon.
Then Elias spoke louder.
“There is a more immediate problem.”
He described the tunnels.
The missing support beams.
The risk of collapse.
Harlon laughed.
“Old man’s fantasy.”
Elias pointed toward the mercantile.
“You have a cellar.”
“Yes.”
“North wall cracked?”
Harlon said nothing.
“Floor settling?”
Still nothing.
Elias turned to the blacksmith.
“Your rear foundation?”
The blacksmith frowned.
“Dropped two inches last spring.”
Elias looked toward Mrs. Talley.
“Boardinghouse kitchen door stopped closing?”
Her eyes widened.
“Yes.”
Harlon shouted.
“Coincidence.”
Then the ground moved.
A small tremor.
Nothing dramatic.
A bottle fell inside the mercantile.
People froze.
A second tremor followed.
Rebecca heard wood crack beneath the street.
Elias shouted.
“Everybody off Church Street!”
The town scattered.
The ground beneath an empty wagon collapsed.
One wheel disappeared.
Then half the wagon dropped into a hole.
Dust erupted.
People screamed.
Rebecca grabbed a child and pulled him back.
The collapse stopped.
A jagged opening remained.
Twenty feet below were old mine timbers.
Several had been cut.
Everyone looked at Harlon.
He went pale.
Kums approached him.
“You knew.”
Harlon stepped backward.
“You can’t prove—”
“The cut wood is stacked behind your warehouse,” Delbert said.
Rebecca looked.
He was right.
Timbers.
Old.
Blackened by mine dust.
Harlon turned and ran.
Kums chased him.
Two deputies followed.
Harlon disappeared inside the mercantile.
A gunshot sounded.
People dropped.
Rebecca’s heart stopped.
Kums stumbled back outside.
Blood darkened his sleeve.
Not fatal.
Harlon emerged from the rear door with a horse.
Rebecca grabbed Juno.
Hannah shouted.
“Rebecca!”
But she was already riding.
Harlon headed north.
Toward the valley.
Of course.
He still wanted the documents.
Or something in the mine.
Rebecca followed.
Snow flew beneath Juno’s hooves.
Behind her came Hannah.
Micah.
Delbert.
And eventually Kums, one arm tied against his chest.
Harlon reached the ridge first.
He vanished into the valley.
Rebecca saw smoke.
Not the shack.
The northern cliffs.
A smaller tunnel opening.
Harlon had known another entrance.
By the time Rebecca arrived, his horse stood outside.
She dismounted.
Hannah caught her.
“We wait.”
“For what?”
“Others.”
“He may destroy whatever’s left.”
“He may shoot you.”
Rebecca looked into the darkness.
Then a voice echoed from inside.
Harlon.
“Rebecca!”
She stiffened.
“I know what you want.”
Rebecca shouted back.
“What?”
“The truth about your father.”
Silence.
Harlon laughed.
“Silas Boon wasn’t as innocent as you think.”
Rebecca’s pulse quickened.
“Come in and I’ll show you.”
Hannah grabbed Rebecca’s sleeve.
“It’s a trap.”
Rebecca looked at her.
“I know.”
May you like
Then she took a lantern.
“And I’m tired of being the last person told the truth.”
