Chapter 11 - The Ledger in the Wall
They started down at sunrise.
Red rode with his hands bound.
Mercer and his two men followed.
Gideon stayed close to Hattie.
The journey was slow.
Snow had changed the trail.
Twice they dismounted to lead horses across dangerous stretches.
By afternoon, Hattie’s arm throbbed.
She refused to complain.
Gideon noticed anyway.
“We stop.”
“No.”
“Hattie.”
“If we stop every time something hurts, we’ll reach town by spring.”
“You were shot yesterday.”
“Grazed.”
“You keep saying that as though it changes anything.”
“It changes the size of the hole.”
Mercer laughed behind them.
Gideon turned.
“Something funny?”
“Your wife.”
Hattie smiled.
“He’s only just learning.”
They reached an abandoned trapping cabin before darkness.
Everyone crowded inside.
Red remained restrained in one corner.
Mercer began reading the letters more carefully.
Suddenly he frowned.
“These refer to a ledger.”
Hattie looked up.
“What ledger?”
“Lawson’s accounts.”
Red stopped moving.
Mercer noticed.
“So it exists.”
“No.”
Mercer smiled without humor.
“You were always terrible at cards when nervous.”
Gideon crouched near Red.
“Where?”
“Go to hell.”
Hattie took one letter.
It mentioned payment records.
Investor names.
Amounts.
A complete ledger would prove everything.
Not only Horace’s involvement.
Every fraudulent investment.
Every forged claim.
“Mary had it,” Red muttered.
Gideon stiffened.
“What?”
“She stole it.”
“When?”
“Before she got sick.”
Gideon looked toward Hattie.
Mary again.
The quiet Boston bride had been fighting a war without telling him.
“Where did she hide it?”
Red laughed.
“If I knew, I wouldn’t have spent nine years coming back.”
Hattie thought.
Mary hid things in the cabin.
The journal behind the fireplace.
Letters beneath the pine.
Where would she hide a ledger?
Somewhere Red would not think to search.
Somewhere Gideon might overlook.
Her words returned.
There are places in that cabin even you don’t know.
Hattie suddenly remembered something.
“The wall.”
Gideon looked at her.
“What?”
“The kitchen wall.”
She had noticed uneven boards while cleaning.
One section sounded hollow when struck.
At the time she assumed it was poor construction.
“The cabin was built before Mary arrived,” Gideon said.
“Did she repair it?”
“She did some work.”
“Then we go back.”
Mercer stared.
“We just spent a day coming down.”
“Yes.”
Gideon shook his head.
“Not tonight.”
Hattie glared.
“Morning.”
She accepted.
Barely.
That night, the small cabin became strangely peaceful.
Mercer’s men slept.
Red sulked.
Hattie sat near the fire.
Gideon joined her.
“You should sleep.”
“So should you.”
“I’m watching Lawson.”
“So am I.”
They sat together.
After a while Gideon spoke.
“Mary would have liked you.”
Hattie smiled faintly.
“I think I would have liked her.”
“I wish I had known what she was doing.”
“She was protecting you.”
“That should have been my job.”
Hattie looked at him.
“That is exactly the problem.”
He frowned.
“Marriage is not one person protecting the other while hiding everything.”
“I’m beginning to understand.”
“Good.”
She leaned her head against his shoulder.
Gideon became still.
Then relaxed.
His arm moved around her.
Hattie closed her eyes.
“You called me beautiful.”
“Yes.”
“Were you delirious?”
“No.”
“Snow blindness?”
“No.”
“Desperate from isolation?”
Gideon sighed.
“Hattie.”
She smiled.
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
She lifted her head.
Gideon looked at her.
“You really don’t know, do you?”
“Know what?”
“How I see you.”
Hattie’s humor vanished.
Most of her life, mirrors had been enemies.
Women’s magazines.
Shop windows.
Dressing rooms.
Even relatives.
Always comparison.
Always correction.
Gideon touched her cheek.
“I see the woman who walked into my dead house and made it warm.”
Her throat tightened.
“I see the woman who carries water when I tell her not to.”
“That sounds less romantic.”
“It irritates me.”
“Good.”
“I see the woman who faced a rifle with a skillet.”
“Excellent skillet.”
“I see courage.”
His thumb brushed her cheek.
“Strength.”
Hattie stopped breathing.
“And yes.”
He leaned closer.
“Beauty.”
She kissed him.
This time there was no hesitation.
No fear.
When they separated, Hattie whispered, “You are improving at conversation.”
“Don’t spread it around.”
She laughed quietly.
From the corner, Red groaned.
“Can you two stop?”
Hattie looked toward him.
“No.”
The next morning they rode back.
By afternoon they reached home.
Hattie went straight to the kitchen.
She tapped the wall.
Solid.
Solid.
Then hollow.
“There.”
Gideon pried away the board.
Inside was a narrow cavity.
He reached in.
His fingers closed around leather.
A book emerged.
Red’s face went white.
The ledger.
Hattie opened it.
Page after page.
Names.
Amounts.
Dates.
Claims.
Fraud.
Then she found Horace Miller.
Multiple payments.
Far more than she imagined.
Her uncle had transferred nearly every dollar from her father’s business.
But there was another entry.
One that stopped her.
Samuel Miller — $2,000 received.
Hattie stared.
Samuel Miller was her father.
“No.”
Gideon came closer.
“Hattie?”
“My father invested too.”
Her world shifted.
She had believed Horace alone stole the money.
But here was her father’s name.
Two thousand dollars.
A fortune.
Red smiled.
“Looks like your family had secrets too.”
Hattie looked toward him.
“Was my father involved?”
Red shrugged.
“Ask the ledger.”
But the book could not answer the question that suddenly mattered more than reclaiming a building.
Had Hattie’s father willingly invested in Red Lawson’s fraud?
Had Horace stolen anything at all?
Or had the story Hattie carried west been incomplete from the beginning?
The mountain had forced Gideon to confront his past.
Now it was Hattie’s turn.
May you like
And the truth about Samuel Miller was waiting in town.
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