Chapter 8 - The Man Who Came to Collect
Caleb Doss did not approach.
That was worse.
He sat his horse at the far edge of Cottonwood Station while Graham read Anna Reed’s telegram.
Silas noticed him first.
“Don’t.”
Graham looked at him.
“Don’t what?”
“Whatever you’re considering.”
“I’m considering conversation.”
“You look like you’re considering murder.”
Leah folded the telegram.
“No one is murdering anyone.”
Graham glanced at her.
“You in charge now?”
“Apparently someone has to be.”
Doss finally turned his horse and rode away.
Graham watched until he disappeared.
“He knows about Anna.”
“Maybe,” Leah said.
“Her message literally says Pike knows.”
“I mean Doss may not know what she has.”
“Then we keep it that way.”
They returned to Red Bluff after dark.
The Alder house was untouched.
But a man waited on the porch.
Gideon Pike.
He sat in Thomas Alder’s old chair.
That alone made Graham’s blood rise.
Pike stood calmly.
“Evening.”
Graham dismounted.
“Get off my porch.”
Pike smiled.
“There’s a familiar Alder welcome.”
“Now.”
Pike stepped down.
“I came to make an offer.”
“No.”
“You haven’t heard it.”
“Still no.”
Leah and Silas dismounted behind him.
Pike glanced toward Leah.
“You always were impatient, Miss Bennett.”
“She said no to you before,” Graham replied. “Consider this repetition.”
Pike’s smile thinned.
“The mortgage balance is thirty-four hundred dollars.”
“Forged.”
“The court may disagree.”
“What’s your offer?”
Silas looked at Graham.
Graham ignored him.
Pike adjusted his gloves.
“I will withdraw the claim against the house.”
“For?”
“Your signature.”
“On what?”
“A release regarding historic transport-company interests.”
There it was.
Leah’s eyes met Graham’s.
River parcels.
Graham folded his arms.
“Worth how much?”
Pike’s expression did not move.
“Old paperwork.”
“Then you don’t need it.”
“A clean title benefits everyone.”
“Everyone who?”
“Business.”
“I own a ranch. You’ll need a better word.”
Pike sighed.
“Your father and I had disagreements.”
“He caught you stealing.”
Silence.
Even Silas looked toward Graham.
Pike’s face changed almost imperceptibly.
“Careful.”
“Why?”
“Because accusing a man publicly requires proof.”
“We’re not public.”
“Yet.”
Graham stepped closer.
“You forged my father’s signature.”
Pike lowered his voice.
“Your father was a difficult man.”
“My mother said the same about me.”
“Then perhaps she taught you something.”
“She taught me not to trust you.”
That landed.
Pike glanced toward the house.
“Matilda eventually became obsessed.”
“She found evidence.”
“She found scraps.”
“Enough for you to search the barn.”
For the first time, Pike looked directly angry.
“You should consider what you are risking.”
“My house?”
“Your Wyoming ranch.”
Graham’s expression hardened.
Pike continued.
“Businesses depend on credit. Cattle depend on buyers. Rail companies choose whose stock receives priority.”
Graham suddenly understood.
“You’ve already been asking about Marrow Creek.”
“I keep informed.”
Silas moved forward.
“Threatening his ranch won’t help.”
Pike looked at him.
“Still playing father, Boone?”
Silas went still.
Graham stepped between them.
“Leave.”
Pike nodded toward Graham.
“Your father died believing stubbornness was strength.”
“My father died in his own bed.”
Pike paused.
“That what you were told?”
Graham’s entire body became still.
Leah whispered, “Graham.”
He ignored her.
“What did you say?”
Pike smiled.
Small.
Cruel.
“You have six days.”
He walked toward his carriage.
Graham followed.
Silas caught his shoulder.
“Let him go.”
“What did he mean?”
“Exactly what he wanted it to mean.”
“You know something?”
“No.”
Pike climbed into the carriage.
Before departing, he called, “Ask Matilda.”
The carriage disappeared.
Graham remained in the road.
Ask Matilda.
A dead woman.
Pike knew precisely where to push.
Leah stood beside him.
“He wants you angry.”
“He succeeded.”
“He wants you distracted.”
Graham turned toward her.
“You think Father’s death is connected?”
“I think Pike wants you to think that.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“No.”
Silas walked toward the barn.
Graham followed.
“Where are you going?”
“To sleep.”
“You’re hiding something.”
Silas stopped.
“No.”
“Pike implied Father didn’t die naturally.”
“And you believed him?”
“I’m asking.”
“Thomas had pneumonia.”
“You were there.”
“Yes.”
“So was Mother.”
“Yes.”
“Anything strange?”
Silas turned.
“Your father got sick after riding cattle through freezing rain. He coughed for three weeks. Doctor said lungs filled with infection. There was nothing mysterious.”
“Then why say it?”
“To make you doubt.”
Graham knew Silas was right.
Knowing did not erase doubt.
That night he barely slept.
Near dawn he found Leah in the kitchen reading Matilda’s notebook.
She looked up.
“You too?”
“What?”
“Unable to sleep.”
He sat.
“What are you reading?”
“Her final entries.”
“Anything?”
“Possibly.”
Leah turned the notebook.
A line had been underlined.
Gideon always tells half a lie when the whole truth would expose him.
Graham read it.
“Sounds like Mother.”
“She wrote another note beneath.”
Thomas was already dying when Gideon began his scheme.
Graham looked at Leah.
“She anticipated that.”
“She knew Pike would use your father’s death to unsettle you.”
He leaned back.
Even dead, Matilda seemed to know exactly what each man would do.
Leah closed the notebook.
“There’s something else.”
“What?”
“Your mother did not believe Pike originally intended to steal the cattle payment.”
Graham frowned.
“What?”
“She thought he wanted to make Silas look guilty.”
“Why?”
“She never figured that out.”
Graham considered.
Silas was Thomas’s closest friend.
Removing him isolated Matilda.
Driving Graham away isolated her further.
Pike had left Matilda alone with debt, grief and a disputed estate.
“He wanted no one advising her.”
Leah nodded.
“Exactly.”
“Then why didn’t he take the land six years ago?”
“Maybe he couldn’t.”
“Because I still had inheritance rights.”
“Or because he didn’t know where Thomas filed the river-parcel documents.”
Graham thought of the hidden records.
His father had filed originals in Denver.
Pike needed the Alder estate controlled.
But Matilda had survived him.
For six years.
Long enough to start uncovering everything.
Graham almost smiled.
“What?”
Leah asked.
“My mother made him wait.”
“For six years.”
“She’d enjoy that.”
“She did.”
Leah’s expression changed with the memory.
“She used to say Pike hated two things: losing money and waiting for anything.”
Graham looked down at Matilda’s notebook.
“What else did she say about me?”
Leah smiled slightly.
“A great deal.”
“Tell me something I won’t regret asking.”
“She said when you were eight, you tried to train a goat to pull a wagon.”
Graham stared.
“I was nine.”
“So it’s true?”
“No.”
Leah laughed.
He found himself watching her.
Not because of Matilda.
Because for the first time since she arrived, Leah’s face was entirely free of grief.
Then she noticed him looking.
The laughter faded more slowly than either intended.
Graham cleared his throat.
“We should find that collection receipt.”
“Yes.”
They searched until noon.
Nothing.
Then Graham remembered the spurs.
The parcel remained in his room.
He unwrapped it again.
Silver.
Leather.
Flour sack.
Blue thread.
Leah entered.
“What?”
“Mother told Morley she’d hide the receipt where Pike would never look.”
Leah stared at the spurs.
“Inside something meant for you.”
Graham turned the flour-sack cloth over.
One seam was thicker.
Leah fetched scissors.
Carefully, they opened it.
A narrow folded paper slid out.
Silas entered just as Graham unfolded it.
Cottonwood Freight Office.
Payment collection receipt.
Received by Caleb Doss.
Authorized on behalf of Gideon Pike Consolidated Holdings.
Not Silas Boone.
Not Thomas Alder.
Graham looked at Silas.
For six years, the official story had been that Silas collected Thomas’s cattle money.
Now Graham held proof that Gideon Pike’s own man had taken it.
Silas sat down.
His hands shook.
Graham had never seen that before.
“It’s over,” Graham said.
Silas shook his head.
“No.”
“We have him.”
“No, son.”
Silas looked at the receipt.
“We have one theft.”
Graham frowned.
“What else is there?”
Silas’s face became grim.
“Why steal twenty-eight hundred dollars if the real prize was land worth fifty times that?”
Leah understood.
“The missing money was never the end.”
Silas nodded.
“It was the beginning.”
May you like
And somewhere between Thomas Alder’s death, Silas Boone’s disgrace and Graham’s departure, Gideon Pike had built six years of lies around one purpose.
They still did not know exactly what it was.
