Chapter 6 - Why Caleb Reed Came Back
The cliff was forty feet high.
Clara discovered this when she looked over the edge and nearly decided Deputy Warren was preferable.
“No.”
Caleb secured an old survey rope around a pine.
Clara stared.
“Absolutely not.”
“You climbed through a tunnel beneath a house.”
“That was horizontal.”
“You walked across river ice.”
“Which proved I make mistakes.”
“Clara.”
“No.”
The door of the survey shelter shook again.
Rusk shouted from inside.
“You have thirty seconds!”
Caleb looked at her.
“You have twenty.”
She hated him.
Possibly.
“Children first?”
“Yes.”
Caleb tied a loop around Eli.
“I can climb.”
“I know.”
“I don’t need a rope.”
“You’re getting one anyway.”
Caleb lowered him.
June went next.
Clara watched every inch.
When both children reached the sheltered ledge below, Caleb lowered Jonah.
The older man complained continuously.
“If I survive this, I’m retiring.”
“You have said that for twelve years,” Caleb replied.
“I mean it now.”
Clara’s turn.
Caleb secured the rope.
“Don’t look down.”
“Everyone keeps saying that right before making me go somewhere terrible.”
The cabin door cracked.
Caleb lowered her.
Halfway down, Clara heard wood splinter above.
She reached the ledge.
“Caleb!”
The rope moved.
Then stopped.
Voices shouted.
A heavy impact followed.
Eli started climbing upward.
Clara grabbed him.
“No.”
“But Mr. Reed—”
“He’ll come.”
The words felt familiar.
This time she believed them.
Seconds stretched.
Then the rope went taut.
Caleb appeared.
He descended quickly.
When his boots reached the ledge, Clara released a breath she had not realized she was holding.
Rusk leaned over the cliff above.
“There!”
Caleb pulled everyone beneath the rock overhang.
A shot struck stone.
No one was hurt.
They moved along the ledge toward an old logging path.
Within minutes, the cliff hid them.
They walked through darkness until Caleb found another shelter—an abandoned equipment shed half buried in snow.
No fire.
Too visible.
They huddled beneath blankets.
June slept against Clara.
Eli remained awake.
Jonah snored.
Caleb sat near the doorway.
Clara joined him.
“You could have left us.”
He looked at her.
“At the cabin.”
“Yes.”
“You could have taken the ledger and disappeared.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you?”
Caleb stared at the snow.
“Thomas saved my life.”
“How?”
“Not the way you think.”
Clara waited.
Caleb rarely offered information without being pushed.
When he did, it mattered.
“After Rachel died, I stopped caring much what happened to me.”
Clara said nothing.
“I worked harder for Vale. Took riskier jobs. I told myself I was providing for nobody now, so consequences didn’t matter.”
“Thomas changed that?”
“Eventually.”
Caleb rubbed his hands together against the cold.
“One night Vale ordered me to evict an old miner named Samuel Beckett. Beckett had nowhere to go. His wife couldn’t walk.”
Clara knew the name.
“They’re in the ledger.”
“Yes.”
“Did you do it?”
“I went there.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Caleb nodded.
“Yes.”
Clara looked away.
“I put their belongings outside.”
His voice stayed steady, but shame filled every word.
“Thomas arrived before I left. He didn’t threaten me. Didn’t call me a monster.”
“What did he do?”
“He started carrying the belongings back inside.”
Clara almost smiled.
That sounded like her brother.
“I told him Vale would fire him.”
“He said, ‘Then I’ll be fired warm and you can be employed cold.’”
A laugh escaped Clara.
Caleb looked surprised.
“So you know the kind of thing he said.”
“Unfortunately.”
Caleb smiled faintly.
“I helped him put everything back.”
“And Vale?”
“Beat me half to death.”
Clara’s expression changed.
Caleb shrugged.
“I deserved worse for other things.”
“No.”
He looked at her.
“That isn’t how justice works.”
Caleb considered that.
“Thomas hid me for three days.”
“Where?”
“Under Black Pine Mill.”
Clara went still.
“The lower level.”
“Yes.”
“You’ve been there?”
“Years ago.”
“Why didn’t you say that when we found Matthew’s letter?”
“Because the old lower level collapsed.”
“All of it?”
“I thought so.”
Clara stared.
“But Vale is keeping a prisoner there.”
“Apparently part of it survived.”
Now they finally had something more than speculation.
A way inside.
Clara leaned closer.
“How?”
“There was a drainage tunnel from the creek.”
“Was?”
“It may be frozen or collapsed.”
“But you remember where it is?”
“Yes.”
“Then tomorrow we go.”
Caleb rubbed his face.
“You do not surrender.”
“Neither do you.”
“That is probably why I find you exhausting.”
“I assumed it was my personality.”
He gave her another small smile.
The wind moaned outside.
For the first time since Caleb arrived, silence between them was not hostile.
Then Clara asked, “Why did Thomas tell everyone not to trust you?”
Caleb’s smile vanished.
“I betrayed him.”
She had not expected the answer.
“How?”
“Vale discovered we were gathering evidence.”
“And?”
“He offered me a deal.”
Clara’s body stiffened.
“What deal?”
“Tell him where Thomas kept the copies, and Vale would leave Rachel’s grave and our old family land untouched.”
Clara stared.
“Why would a grave matter?”
“Vale wanted that land for a logging road.”
Caleb’s voice flattened.
“He threatened to move the cemetery.”
Clara suddenly understood.
Rachel.
Even after death.
“What did you tell him?”
“Where Thomas kept one set of papers.”
“You gave him the evidence?”
“A copy.”
“You knew it was a copy?”
“Yes.”
“So you tricked Vale.”
“Thomas didn’t know that.”
“Why not tell him?”
“Because Vale was watching me.”
Caleb’s jaw tightened.
“I thought Thomas would figure it out.”
“Did he?”
“Eventually.”
“But he never forgave you?”
“He did.”
Clara was confused.
“The note behind the stove proves that.”
“Then why did you say you betrayed him?”
“Because Vale followed one of his men after my information. That led them close enough to discover Matthew was involved.”
Clara’s stomach dropped.
“You think your decision exposed my husband.”
“Yes.”
“Did Thomas blame you?”
“No.”
“Do you?”
“Every day.”
Clara stared at him.
Now she understood why he had returned.
Not loyalty alone.
Guilt.
The most stubborn compass a man could carry.
“Caleb.”
He looked at her.
“Matthew made his own decisions.”
“That doesn’t clear me.”
“No.”
She repeated what he had told her earlier.
“But it matters what you do afterward.”
Caleb looked at her for a long time.
The words had reached somewhere deep.
Then Eli spoke behind them.
“Papa would forgive you.”
They turned.
The boy had been awake.
Caleb’s expression changed.
“You should sleep.”
“Papa forgave everybody.”
“That was one of his more annoying qualities.”
Eli smiled sadly.
“Yeah.”
He crawled closer.
“Do you really think he could be alive?”
Caleb did not lie.
“Yes.”
Hope filled the boy’s face.
“But,” Caleb continued, “we have to be careful.”
Eli nodded.
“I can be careful.”
Clara brushed his hair away from his forehead.
“You’re eight.”
“I can still be careful.”
“You also tried to fight a chicken last summer.”
“The chicken started it.”
Caleb actually laughed.
June stirred.
For a handful of minutes, inside a freezing shed while dangerous men searched the mountain, they almost sounded like a family.
Then Jonah stopped snoring.
Caleb noticed immediately.
“Jonah?”
No response.
Clara touched his face.
Too cold.
His breathing was shallow.
“We need a fire.”
“It’ll reveal us.”
“He may die without one.”
Caleb looked through the broken doorway.
The storm had thickened.
Visibility had fallen to almost nothing.
“Then we make one.”
He gathered old boards.
Clara watched him.
“You’ll risk them finding us?”
“I’m not letting Jonah freeze because I’m afraid of smoke.”
There it was again.
The difference between the man Caleb had been and the man he was trying to become.
Caleb struck a match.
A small flame appeared.
Warmth slowly filled the shed.
An hour later Jonah’s breathing strengthened.
But so did something else.
Far below them, through a break in the storm, orange light appeared.
Then another.
Torches.
Moving along the logging path.
Caleb stepped outside.
Clara followed.
“How many?”
“Too many.”
“Rusk?”
“Maybe.”
Then Jonah’s weak voice came from behind them.
“No.”
They turned.
He was awake.
His eyes were filled with dread.
“If there are that many torches, it isn’t Rusk.”
Caleb frowned.
“Then who?”
Jonah swallowed.
“Vale.”
Clara stared down the mountain.
Silas Vale had come personally.
May you like
And he was no longer waiting until morning.
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