Chapter 5 - What Her Mother Never Told Her
Rebecca told herself she would not go.
She repeated it while repairing the burned lean-to.
She repeated it while feeding Juno.
She repeated it while reading Elias Mercer’s journal.
By nightfall, she had saddled the mare.
Blackwater Crossing sat fifteen miles east of the valley.
The abandoned mission stood beside an old military road, roof half collapsed, chapel bell long gone.
Rebecca arrived before noon.
She hid Juno among cottonwoods and approached on foot.
Her father’s rifle rested across her arms.
Nobody waited outside.
Rebecca circled the building.
One horse stood behind the mission.
Chestnut.
Old.
Female.
Rebecca’s heart began beating hard.
For one irrational second she thought of Belle, Hannah’s mare.
Impossible.
Belle would be far older now.
Rebecca entered through the side.
Dust covered the chapel floor.
Sunlight fell through holes in the roof.
A woman stood beside the ruined altar.
She was perhaps fifty.
Gray threaded her dark hair.
A scar ran from her left temple toward her ear.
She held no weapon.
“You came.”
Rebecca kept the rifle raised.
“Who are you?”
The woman looked at the gun.
“Your grandfather used to hold one exactly like that when he was frightened.”
Rebecca’s grip tightened.
“You knew Elias?”
“Yes.”
“Name.”
“Lydia Vale.”
Rebecca nearly fired by accident.
The woman did not move.
Rebecca stared at her.
The photograph.
Twenty years earlier.
Impossible, but not entirely.
The face was older.
The eyes were the same.
“You were in the picture.”
Lydia’s expression changed.
“You found it.”
“You left the button.”
Lydia touched her chest unconsciously.
There was no necklace.
“You found that too.”
Rebecca lowered the rifle slightly.
“Was the bundle yours?”
“Some of it.”
“Why was my name in a letter?”
“Because the letter was added after you were born.”
“Who added it?”
“Mara.”
“My great-aunt?”
Lydia nodded.
“Where is she?”
“Dead.”
Rebecca swallowed.
“When?”
“Fourteen years ago.”
“How?”
“Winter fever.”
Rebecca looked away.
Another relative she had never known.
“What happened to Elias?”
Lydia closed her eyes.
“I don’t know.”
“That’s what everyone says.”
“Because nobody saw him die.”
“Did Harlon Puit kill him?”
“Harlon was barely twenty.”
“His father?”
Lydia said nothing.
“That means yes.”
“It means I cannot prove it.”
Rebecca stepped closer.
“My mother disappeared six years ago.”
“I know.”
“You sent the letter?”
“Yes.”
“Is she alive?”
Lydia stared at her.
Rebecca felt anger rising.
“Answer me.”
“I believe so.”
The world narrowed.
Rebecca lowered the rifle entirely.
“You believe?”
“I saw Hannah five years ago.”
Rebecca’s knees weakened.
“Where?”
“Colorado.”
“What?”
“She used another name.”
“Why?”
“She was being followed.”
“By whom?”
Lydia looked toward the mission door.
“People tied to Puit.”
Rebecca almost laughed.
“Harlon Puit has spent twenty years chasing my family over a valley?”
“Not just a valley.”
“The creek.”
Lydia looked surprised.
“You read far.”
“What does he want?”
“Control.”
“Of water?”
“Of everything below it.”
Lydia walked toward a broken window.
“The north creek feeds three ranch valleys and the irrigation channel Pine Hollow depends on in dry summers. Elias’s patent included upstream rights.”
Rebecca thought of the journal.
If Puit controls the creek, he controls every ranch south of the ridge.
“Harlon’s father tried to buy the valley.”
“Yes.”
“Elias refused.”
“Yes.”
“Then he vanished.”
“Yes.”
“And the county map changed.”
Lydia turned.
“You understand quickly.”
“My family spent twenty years hiding because of paper.”
“No.”
Lydia’s voice hardened.
“Your family spent twenty years hiding because men were willing to hurt people to own what the paper represented.”
Rebecca looked down.
“Why didn’t my mother tell me?”
“She wanted you to have a childhood.”
“I was marched out of town under rifles yesterday.”
Lydia flinched.
“I heard.”
“You heard quickly.”
“I still have friends there.”
“Micah?”
Lydia smiled sadly.
“Micah never learned how to stop helping people.”
“Widow Amory?”
Lydia’s smile faded.
“You should ask her yourself.”
Rebecca studied her.
“Why didn’t you come to me before?”
“Because while Silas lived, he asked me not to.”
“Father knew you?”
“Yes.”
“Did everybody know more about my life than I did?”
Lydia had no defense for that.
Rebecca stepped away.
“Where is Hannah?”
“I don’t know now.”
“You said Colorado.”
“Five years ago.”
“Why didn’t she come home?”
“She tried.”
Rebecca turned.
Lydia reached into her coat.
Rebecca raised the rifle.
“Slowly.”
Lydia removed a folded letter.
“This came to me three years ago.”
Rebecca recognized the handwriting before touching it.
Her mother’s.
She knew the shape of Hannah’s H from old recipe cards.
Rebecca’s hands shook.
The letter was addressed to Lydia.
I cannot return while Harlon still watches Silas and Rebecca.
Tell Silas I am alive only if it will not put them in greater danger.
I found someone who remembers what happened to Father.
There is another copy of the patent.
Not in Pine Hollow.
Not in the valley.
I will come back when I can bring more than a story.
Rebecca stopped reading.
“She chose not to come home.”
“She chose not to bring danger home.”
“For six years.”
Lydia’s eyes softened.
“You are allowed to be angry.”
Rebecca folded the letter sharply.
“I don’t need permission.”
“No.”
“Does Father know she was alive?”
Lydia looked down.
Rebecca knew the answer.
“You told him.”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Three years ago.”
Rebecca felt betrayed by a dead man.
“He knew.”
“He knew she lived.”
“And he never told me.”
“He was afraid you would go looking.”
“He should have known I would have.”
“He did.”
Rebecca laughed once, bitterly.
“So everybody protected me until I had nothing.”
Lydia did not argue.
Rebecca walked toward the doorway.
“Wait.”
Rebecca stopped.
“The lockbox.”
She turned.
“What about it?”
“You found it?”
“Yes.”
“Do not force it open.”
“Why?”
“The wrong compartment can destroy what’s inside.”
Rebecca frowned.
“It has two locks?”
“More like two lids.”
“Where’s the key?”
Lydia stared toward the mountain range.
“Hannah had it.”
Rebecca’s chest tightened.
“Had?”
“She wore it around her neck.”
“Like a pendant?”
Lydia nodded.
Rebecca instinctively touched her wooden button.
Then she remembered something.
Her mother had given her the carved button six years ago.
Not before disappearing.
The night before.
Rebecca had always remembered it as an old childhood gift.
But Hannah had replaced the cord that night.
Rebecca had been half asleep.
Her mother had kissed her forehead and said the familiar words.
Keep it on you, girl.
Rebecca pulled the button from beneath her dress.
She examined it.
Two uneven holes.
Pine wood.
Nothing else.
Then Lydia whispered.
“Turn it sideways.”
Rebecca did.
A thin metal edge showed inside one hole.
Her breath stopped.
Lydia stared.
“Hannah gave it to you.”
Rebecca pressed her thumbnail against the seam.
The wooden button separated into two halves.
Inside lay a tiny iron key.
May you like
For six years Rebecca had carried the lockbox key over her heart.
And her mother had known exactly what she was doing.
