Chapter 4 - Footprints Beneath the Snow
They left Edith Lyle’s house separately.
It was Wyatt’s idea.
Cora disliked it immediately.
“People already know we arrived together.”
“People know we’re married. They don’t know why we visited her.”
“And leaving separately makes us less suspicious?”
“It makes it harder to follow both of us.”
“You have clearly lived a more questionable life than I have.”
Wyatt almost smiled.
“You have known me twenty-four hours.”
“And already I’m concerned.”
He sent Cora toward the general store while he circled around the livery yard.
They reunited thirty minutes later outside town beneath a stand of cottonwoods.
“Were you followed?” Cora asked.
“No.”
“Neither was I.”
Wyatt looked unconvinced.
“What?”
“You looked behind yourself four times.”
“I was checking.”
“A person checking four times is advertising that she expects to be followed.”
“I’m a schoolteacher, not an outlaw.”
“Former schoolteacher.”
She glared.
Wyatt immediately looked regretful.
“Poor choice of words.”
“Spectacularly.”
They rode home mostly in silence.
Near the lower edge of Mercer property, Wyatt raised his hand.
Cora stopped.
“What?”
He pointed.
Tracks crossed the snow.
Fresh.
One horse.
Heading toward the house.
Wyatt dismounted.
Touched the print.
“Less than an hour.”
“Could be a neighbor.”
“Neighbors use the road.”
They followed the tracks through pine woods.
The rider had not gone directly toward the cabin.
He had circled behind it.
Wyatt’s expression darkened.
They reached the house at a gallop.
Martha Boone opened the door before Wyatt dismounted.
“They’re fine.”
He exhaled.
“Where?”
“Kitchen.”
Caleb and Seth sat at the table eating biscuits.
Wyatt went straight to them.
“Anybody come here?”
Caleb shook his head.
Seth said, “No.”
Martha folded her arms.
“Somebody rode the north fence maybe an hour ago.”
“You see who?”
“Too far.”
Wyatt went outside again.
Cora followed.
The tracks led behind the barn.
Then toward the woodshed.
Then directly beneath Cora’s upstairs window.
She looked up.
“He was watching the house.”
“Or checking who was inside.”
Wyatt crouched again.
Something glimmered near the footprint.
A cigarette end.
Hand-rolled.
Cora picked it up with a scrap of cloth.
Wyatt frowned.
“What?”
“Silas doesn’t smoke.”
“You noticed?”
“He visited the school monthly for tax collections. He hated smoke.”
“Then one of the others.”
“Possibly.”
Wyatt stared toward the mountain road.
“I’ll move the boys tonight.”
“No.”
His eyes hardened.
“We discussed this.”
“We discussed them being safer. We did not decide where safety is.”
“My brother’s ranch is forty miles north.”
“And if someone follows you there?”
“He won’t.”
“You sound very certain for a man whose house was just watched.”
Wyatt’s jaw tightened.
Cora softened her tone.
“Seth needs to tell us everything first.”
“He’s seven.”
“He is also the only witness who saw what happened.”
“He’s frightened.”
“I know.”
“Then stop pushing him.”
Cora stared.
“I am trying to protect him.”
“So am I.”
Neither spoke.
It was their first true argument.
Not the sharp banter of strangers.
Something more personal.
For the first time, Cora saw the fear beneath Wyatt’s anger.
His wife had died.
He had already lost one person he loved.
The possibility of losing one of his sons was not theoretical.
Cora exhaled.
“All right.”
Wyatt looked surprised.
“We wait until he chooses to speak.”
“Thank you.”
“But I want to see where the boys entered town that night.”
“That is not waiting.”
“I said I wouldn’t question Seth.”
Wyatt stared.
Cora raised an eyebrow.
“You married an inconvenient woman.”
“I’m noticing.”
After supper—which Cora wisely allowed Martha to prepare—she gathered the boys in the sitting room.
Not to interrogate them.
To teach.
She found a slate.
Chalk.
An old primer.
Caleb immediately became suspicious.
“What are you doing?”
“Your father married a teacher.”
“So?”
“So consequences were inevitable.”
Seth watched from the rug.
“I’m not doing school.”
“Excellent.”
He blinked.
Cora opened the primer.
“You can sit there learning nothing while Caleb humiliates you by solving every question first.”
Seth immediately crawled closer.
Caleb snorted.
Within fifteen minutes both boys were working.
Wyatt stood in the kitchen doorway.
Cora pretended not to notice him.
Caleb struggled when reading aloud.
His shoulders tightened.
He skipped words.
Then stopped.
“I can’t.”
“Yes, you can.”
“No.”
“You read the first half.”
“Badly.”
“Slowly.”
“Same thing.”
“No.”
Caleb looked at her.
“Slow is not stupid.”
His eyes dropped.
Cora pushed the book toward him.
“You know what stupidity is?”
“What?”
“Refusing to try because you are afraid somebody may watch you fail.”
Seth said, “That sounds like Caleb.”
Caleb shoved him.
Cora slapped the table lightly.
“Hands.”
Both stopped.
Wyatt disappeared from the doorway.
But not before Cora saw his expression.
Gratitude.
Later, after the boys slept, she found him splitting wood beneath lantern light.
“You know it is nearly ten.”
“I know.”
“Do you often attack trees at night?”
“Only difficult ones.”
Cora leaned against the post.
“I want to ask something.”
Wyatt continued chopping.
“Why did you stop sending Caleb to school?”
The ax paused.
“He came home with bruises.”
“What?”
“Older boys.”
“Why didn’t he tell me?”
“He told nobody.”
“How did you learn?”
“Seth bit one of them.”
Cora stared.
Wyatt finally smiled.
“That boy required stitches.”
“You should not look proud.”
“I’m not.”
“You are absolutely proud.”
The smile disappeared poorly.
Cora looked toward the dark house.
“Why were they hurting Caleb?”
“Reading.”
Her heart sank.
“They mocked him.”
Wyatt nodded.
“He begged not to return.”
“You should have told me.”
“I hardly knew you.”
“You could have spoken to the council.”
“I did.”
“And?”
“They said boys fight.”
Cora’s anger rose.
“I would have stopped it.”
“I know that now.”
There was something in his voice.
Something quiet.
Cora looked away first.
“Tomorrow morning I want to follow the route the boys used.”
Wyatt set the ax down.
“I’ll go with you.”
“I thought you wanted to move them.”
“I still do.”
“But?”
“But apparently I married an inconvenient woman.”
At dawn they followed the lower trail.
The route wound through trees and descended behind the abandoned church.
Near the edge of town, Wyatt found pony tracks preserved beneath a shallow drift where the sun had not reached.
Old tracks.
Three nights old.
Caleb and Seth’s.
Beside them were larger prints.
Boots.
Cora crouched.
“Someone followed them.”
Wyatt traced the prints.
The children’s tracks ran toward a narrow drainage ditch.
One set of boot prints followed.
Then stopped.
At the bottom of the ditch, beneath snow, Wyatt found blood.
Only a faint brown stain on ice.
Seth’s injured ankle.
“He fell here,” Cora whispered.
Wyatt’s face became rigid.
The boot prints continued along the ridge above the ditch.
Someone had been close.
Very close.
Cora followed them until they reached the school ruins.
Then the tracks disappeared beneath later traffic.
She turned.
Wyatt was staring at the old mission church.
“What?”
“The map.”
Cora remembered.
Henry Lyle’s note marked three locations.
School.
Mission.
Survey cabin.
They crossed the road.
The church had been abandoned for nearly twenty years.
Its front door hung crooked.
Inside smelled of dust, wet wood and mice.
Cora walked toward the front.
“Where children learn what adults forget.”
Wyatt looked around.
“This hasn’t been a school.”
“No.”
“But children did learn here once.”
“What?”
“Sunday lessons.”
She moved toward the old lectern.
Nothing.
Pews.
Nothing.
Behind the wall hung the remains of a faded scripture board.
Cora touched it.
Loose.
She pulled.
A small envelope dropped behind the panel.
Wyatt caught it.
Inside was a single piece of paper.
No deed.
No ledger.
Just five words written by Henry Lyle.
THE FIRST COPY IS FALSE.
Cora stared.
“What does that mean?”
Wyatt turned the paper over.
On the back was another message.
TRUST THE BOUNDARY STONES, NOT THE RECORD BOOK.
Outside, a branch snapped.
Wyatt blew out the lantern immediately.
Darkness swallowed them.
Hoofbeats approached.
Two riders.
Cora held her breath.
The horses stopped directly outside the church.
A man’s voice spoke.
“Vale said the teacher came here.”
Another answered.
“Then find what she found.”
Cora’s hand closed around Wyatt’s sleeve.
May you like
And for the first time since marrying him, Wyatt reached back in the darkness and closed his hand around hers.
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