Chapter 6 - The Secret Amos Vance Left Behind
Silas Mercer looked nothing like the monster Walker expected.
That made him worse.
He was clean-shaven, neatly dressed and calm. His black coat belonged in a bank office, not a cattle camp.
He dismounted slowly.
“Josephine.”
She stood beside Walker.
“Silas.”
“You've caused considerable trouble.”
“You murdered my sister.”
Silas sighed.
“Ruth fell.”
“She gave me the ledger.”
His eyes changed.
Only slightly.
Walker saw it.
“Give it back,” Silas said.
“No.”
Silas looked at Walker.
“This doesn't concern you.”
Walker rested one hand on his gun belt.
“You've got an unusual way of showing that.”
Silas smiled.
“You're Boone?”
“Yes.”
“I know your father.”
Walker’s expression hardened.
“Knew.”
Silas tilted his head.
“Then perhaps you don't know everything he did.”
Walker said nothing.
Silas looked at Josephine.
“Ask him about Amos.”
Josephine froze.
“What?”
“Your husband.”
Silas smiled.
“Ask Walker Boone why Amos Vance was riding with that herd the night he died.”
Walker stared.
“I never knew Amos.”
“No,” Silas said. “But your father did.”
Then he dropped a folded document into the dirt.
Mounted.
And rode away.
Josephine picked it up.
The paper bore Boone Cattle Company letterhead.
At the bottom was Amos Vance’s signature.
Walker read it.
Amos had been hired secretly by Walker’s father to investigate cattle theft along the northern trail.
The names listed beneath included Silas Mercer.
Josephine sat down.
All these years she had believed Amos died in an ordinary stampede.
Now she understood.
He had been gathering evidence.
Evidence against the same man who later married Ruth.
Silas.
The story was bigger than Josephine knew.
And more dangerous.
Walker crouched beside her.
“I didn't know.”
“I believe you.”
That surprised him.
“How?”
“Because I know your face when you're lying.”
He almost smiled.
Josephine touched Amos’s signature.
“My husband died because of this.”
Walker sat beside her.
“No.”
She looked at him.
“He died because men like Silas believed money mattered more than lives.”
Josephine began crying.
Quietly.
Walker held her.
Nobody interrupted.
That night they burned Amos’s old contract after copying the important names into Walker’s ledger.
Josephine watched the paper curl into flame.
For the first time, she understood Amos had not abandoned her.
He had been trying to build a safer future for her.
And perhaps he had.
Just not the future either of them expected.
May you like
Because when Walker took her hand beside the dying fire, Josephine didn't pull away.
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