Chapter 10 - Matilda’s Unfinished Letter
They returned to the Alder house in silence.
Leah went upstairs.
Graham stayed in the barn until darkness.
Silas found him repairing a harness that did not need repair.
“You angry at her?”
“Yes.”
“Because she waited to tell Matilda?”
“Yes.”
“Or because she scared you?”
Graham looked up.
Silas smiled.
“Thought so.”
“Go away.”
“You’ll thank me when I’m dead.”
“Unlikely.”
Silas sat anyway.
“People who live afraid don’t become brave all at once.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Silas stood.
“You might tell your face.”
Graham threw a leather strap at him.
Later, Graham entered the kitchen.
Leah sat at the table with Andrew’s scrap before her.
“I owe you an apology.”
She looked up.
“That was fast.”
“Silas became unbearable.”
“Useful man.”
“Occasionally.”
Graham sat opposite her.
“I was angry because everyone keeps telling me things years too late.”
“I understand.”
“You weren’t responsible for what happened before you met Mother.”
“I know.”
“And you helped her.”
“Yes.”
“I’m still allowed to dislike secrets.”
“That seems reasonable.”
They sat quietly.
Then Leah asked, “What is in Matilda’s second letter?”
“I haven’t opened it.”
“Why?”
“She wrote ‘after you know.’”
“Know what?”
“That’s the problem.”
Leah looked at him.
“Maybe you know enough.”
Graham removed the envelope from his coat.
He had carried it for days.
He broke the seal.
The letter inside was longer.
Several pages.
His mother’s handwriting became less steady toward the end.
Graham,
If you are reading this before learning the truth about Silas, put it away.
Graham almost laughed.
Leah leaned closer.
“What?”
“She’s still giving orders.”
“Death has not improved her manners.”
He continued.
If you know Silas did not steal your father’s money, then you know the first thing I owe you.
You were right.
Graham stopped.
Three words.
He had imagined them for six years.
They felt nothing like victory.
You were right and I was wrong.
I knew you trusted Silas because he had earned it.
I distrusted him because fear made Gideon Pike’s evidence easier to believe than the people I loved.
That is not an excuse.
I told myself for years that grief explained my behavior.
It did.
Explanation is not absolution.
Graham swallowed.
Leah remained silent.
I accused an innocent man.
I asked my son to choose between truth and his mother.
Then, when you chose truth, I punished you for it.
Graham lowered the paper.
For a moment he could not read.
Leah reached for his hand, then stopped.
Graham noticed.
He turned the page.
I am sorry.
There it was.
The sentence he had demanded.
The sentence she had refused to put in his first letter.
I am sorry for what I said.
I am sorry I let six days become six weeks, then six months, then six years.
I am sorry pride became habit.
I am sorry you had to build a home somewhere else because I made yours conditional.
Graham stood abruptly.
He walked toward the window.
Leah remained at the table.
He pressed one hand against the frame.
Outside, darkness covered the yard.
“I thought hearing it would help.”
“Does it?”
“No.”
“That may take time.”
He laughed once.
“Always time.”
He returned.
More remained.
There is something you must know about your father.
Graham’s expression changed.
Leah saw it.
He continued aloud.
“‘Thomas knew Gideon Pike was trying to obtain the river parcels.’”
Silas entered from the hallway.
Graham waved him in.
He read.
Your father was frightened, though he would never have admitted it.
He believed Pike would eventually use you to challenge the old partnership transfer because you were Thomas’s heir.
That is why he asked Silas to help you leave Colorado.
Silas lowered his head.
Graham kept reading.
Thomas thought distance would protect you.
I thought keeping you home would protect me.
Between us, we treated your life like something parents had the right to arrange.
We did not.
Graham closed his eyes briefly.
Even Thomas.
The father he had idealized.
The man Graham had spent years comparing Matilda against.
Even he had made choices for Graham.
There is more.
The mortgage Pike holds is false.
The signature is your father’s handwriting, but Thomas did not place it there.
The river property is yours.
Pike has collected lease money from the railroad for four years.
If you prove the cattle-payment fraud, you can challenge the mortgage and the leases.
Then the handwriting became shaky.
But do not mistake property for justice.
If you can clear Silas’s name, do that first.
Silas turned away.
Graham continued.
Money can return.
Land can return.
A man does not get six years of reputation returned to him.
Silas rubbed his eyes.
Graham pretended not to notice.
The final page contained only half a paragraph.
There is one thing I never managed to prove.
Gideon Pike did not choose Silas at random.
Someone told Pike about the argument Thomas and Silas had three days before the cattle shipment.
The sentence ended.
Nothing followed.
Graham looked at Silas.
“You argued with Father?”
Silas frowned.
“Hundreds of times.”
“Three days before the shipment.”
Silas thought.
Then his face changed.
“Yes.”
“About what?”
“You.”
Graham stared.
“Me?”
“Thomas wanted you gone before spring.”
“Because of Pike.”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Neither did I then. I thought he was pushing you out because he didn’t want you tied to the farm.”
“What did you say?”
“That he was a fool.”
“Loudly?”
Silas smiled weakly.
“Thomas and I rarely argued quietly.”
“Who heard?”
Silas’s smile vanished.
“Pike.”
Leah leaned forward.
“Gideon Pike knew you were angry at Thomas.”
“Yes.”
Graham understood.
“So he made it look like you stole from him.”
Silas nodded.
“Gave Matilda motive to believe it.”
Graham felt cold.
Pike had not simply altered papers.
He had studied fractures in their family and widened them.
Thomas and Silas argued.
Pike used it.
Matilda was afraid.
Pike used it.
Graham was angry.
Pike used it.
Leah was widowed and vulnerable.
Pike used that too.
“What about Andrew?” Graham asked.
Leah looked down.
“If Pike knew Andrew was investigating him, maybe he threatened him.”
“He died of fever.”
“Yes.”
“I’m not questioning that.”
“Then what?”
“Maybe the page you found wasn’t stolen.”
Leah frowned.
Graham continued.
“Maybe Andrew was copying evidence.”
Silas nodded.
“If so, there may be more.”
“Where?” Leah asked.
She looked genuinely lost.
Graham looked at Andrew’s scrap.
“You said you found it in his Bible.”
“Yes.”
“What happened to his things?”
Leah went still.
“Matilda stored them.”
“Where?”
“The attic.”
They climbed immediately.
Dust coated trunks and furniture.
Leah found Andrew’s wooden chest beneath an old quilt.
She knelt.
Her hands trembled before opening it.
Clothes.
Books.
A shaving kit.
Letters.
Nothing obvious.
Then Graham noticed the false bottom.
He lifted the thin wood panel.
Beneath it lay an envelope.
Leah covered her mouth.
The front read:
LEAH — IF I FAIL TO COME HOME.
She stared at it.
Five years.
It had been waiting five years.
She opened it.
Inside was a short letter.
And a brass key.
Leah read silently.
Her face changed.
“What?” Graham asked.
She handed him the page.
Leah,
If you are reading this, then I waited too long to tell you something.
I found evidence Gideon Pike is taking money that does not belong to him.
I copied what I could.
The originals are in a deposit box at First Territorial Bank, Denver.
Box 214.
The key is enclosed.
Graham looked at the key.
At Leah.
At Silas.
The hearing was five days away.
Denver was nearly two days each way if everything went perfectly.
Nothing had gone perfectly yet.
Leah closed her fist around the key.
“I’m going.”
Graham answered immediately.
May you like
“We’re going.”
And before dawn, they left for Denver carrying the one object Gideon Pike had spent five years hoping no one would ever find.
