Chapter 3 - Her Mother’s Journal
Martha did not remember standing.
One moment she was seated at Ethan’s pine table, staring at her mother’s handwriting.
The next she was by the window with the journal pressed against her chest.
Ethan remained silent.
It was the first kindness he had offered her that did not involve food or shelter.
He allowed the silence to exist.
Martha appreciated him for it.
Her mother’s death had never felt suspicious.
Naomi Boone had fallen ill during a bitter winter.
Fever.
Chest pain.
Difficulty breathing.
She had died within six days.
Martha had been twenty-one.
Dr. Price had signed the death certificate.
At the time, Martha had thanked him.
The memory made her stomach turn.
Ethan finally spoke.
“What happened to your mother?”
“Pneumonia.”
“You sure?”
Martha looked at him.
“No.”
The answer frightened her more than anything else that morning.
She opened the journal again.
The missing pages appeared deliberate.
Clean cuts near the binding.
She traced one edge.
“My mother never damaged books.”
“Maybe somebody else did.”
“Yes.”
Ethan’s face hardened.
“Price?”
“Maybe.”
“You say maybe a lot.”
“Because guessing has consequences.”
“So does waiting.”
Martha closed the journal.
“Then help me find facts.”
That stopped him.
“What do you need?”
“Everything Ruth has taken for the last year.”
They began with the bedroom.
Ethan brought every bottle, powder, packet, tea, and syrup downstairs.
There were eleven.
Seven came from Price.
Two from a physician in Denver.
One from Santa Fe.
And one homemade cough mixture prepared by Ruth herself.
Martha arranged them across the table.
Price’s bottles shared something unusual.
The labels described different purposes—sleep, pain, digestion, circulation—but the liquid inside several smelled nearly identical.
“Can you test them?” Ethan asked.
“Not the way a proper laboratory could.”
“Then what can you do?”
“Observe.”
She compared color.
Residue.
Odor.
Thickness.
One bottle left a faint crystalline film after a drop dried near the stove.
Martha wrote everything down.
At noon Ruth woke.
She looked stronger.
Only slightly.
But enough for Ethan to notice.
“You’re sitting up.”
“I’ve been sitting up since before you learned not to wet the bed.”
“Ma.”
Martha hid a smile.
Ruth noticed.
“Don’t encourage him to pretend he’s dignified.”
“I’m trying.”
“You’re failing.”
Ethan muttered something and went downstairs.
Ruth waited until he was gone.
Then she asked, “What did you find?”
Martha sat beside her.
“Your name in my mother’s journal.”
Ruth’s humor disappeared.
“What?”
Martha showed her.
Ruth touched the writing with trembling fingers.
“Oh, Naomi.”
“You know what it means?”
Ruth’s eyes remained on the page.
“Not all of it.”
“Tell me what you know.”
Ruth looked toward the door.
“My son is a good man.”
“I know.”
“He’s also incapable of leaving anything alone once he believes somebody he loves is threatened.”
“I’ve noticed that too.”
Ruth took Martha’s hand.
“Then don’t tell him yet.”
Martha stared.
“Tell him what?”
Ruth breathed slowly.
“Twenty-two years ago, Naomi Boone saved my life.”
Martha felt the room shift.
“How?”
“I was sick. Not like this. Different.”
Ruth leaned back.
“Ethan was twelve. Ranch was failing. I had a fever no doctor could break. Naomi came up here when everyone else had given up.”
Martha had never heard the story.
“My mother treated you?”
“For nine days.”
“Why didn’t she tell me?”
“Because she asked me to keep quiet.”
“Why?”
Ruth’s gaze hardened.
“Because Harlan Price hated being proven wrong.”
Martha felt cold.
Ruth continued.
“He had treated me first. When I worsened, Naomi realized his medicine was making the fever worse.”
“Accidentally?”
“I believed so then.”
“And now?”
Ruth looked toward the window.
“Now I’m not certain.”
Martha’s mind raced.
“What happened afterward?”
“Price tried to have Naomi arrested.”
“For what?”
“Practicing medicine without a license.”
Martha laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
“Of course.”
“I stopped it.”
“How?”
“I threatened to tell everyone he nearly killed me.”
Ruth smiled faintly.
“I was meaner then.”
“I doubt much has changed.”
Ruth squeezed her hand.
“I like you.”
Martha’s throat tightened unexpectedly.
She looked away.
Ruth continued.
“Your mother and I stayed friends. Quietly.”
“Why quietly?”
“Because Naomi had discovered something.”
Martha leaned closer.
“What?”
“She never told me everything. Only that Price had been purchasing substances through a mining supplier west of town.”
“For medicine?”
“She didn’t think so.”
Martha thought of the missing pages.
“She wrote about it.”
“I expect she did.”
“Then somebody removed those pages.”
Ruth nodded slowly.
Martha looked at her.
“Do you know who?”
“No.”
A floorboard creaked outside.
Both women stopped.
Ethan entered.
“What don’t I know?”
Neither answered quickly enough.
His eyes narrowed.
“I hate when two women decide to protect me.”
Ruth sighed.
“You always were nosy.”
“Ma.”
Martha made a decision.
Secrets had already lasted too long.
She told him everything.
Naomi’s earlier treatment.
Price’s attempt to have her arrested.
The mining supplier.
The missing pages.
Ethan listened without interrupting.
That was somehow worse.
When Martha finished, he walked to the window.
“How long did you know?”
Ruth answered.
“About Price and Naomi? Twenty-two years.”
“And you never told me?”
“You were a child.”
“I stopped being one.”
“You were busy saving this ranch.”
“So you protected me by lying?”
Ruth’s expression hardened.
“I protected you by letting you become a man without inheriting every enemy I ever made.”
Ethan turned.
“And now you’re sick because of one.”
“Maybe.”
Martha stood.
“Don’t do this now.”
Ethan looked at her.
She pointed upstairs.
“Your mother needs rest, not guilt.”
For a moment she expected him to argue.
Instead he nodded.
“Fine.”
That afternoon they searched the attic.
Ruth remembered Naomi leaving a box at the ranch years earlier.
“Something safe,” she had called it.
They found nothing at first.
Dust.
Christmas decorations.
Old saddles.
Broken tools.
Then Martha noticed a loose plank beneath an old trunk.
Ethan pried it up.
Inside the narrow space lay an oilcloth package.
Martha recognized her mother’s handwriting before opening it.
Ruth—only if necessary.
Her hands shook.
Inside were three letters.
A newspaper clipping.
A list of names.
And a page torn from Naomi’s journal.
The missing page.
Martha read the first paragraph.
Then stopped.
Ethan leaned closer.
“What?”
She handed it to him.
Naomi had recorded purchases made by Dr. Harlan Price from the Briar Ridge Mining Company.
Arsenic compounds.
Digitalis extract.
Heavy-metal salts.
Substances useful in controlled medical circumstances.
Deadly when misused.
At the bottom Naomi had written:
I believe Harlan is treating certain deaths as opportunities.
Below that were five names.
Four were dead.
The fifth was Ruth Callaway.
Ethan stared at his mother’s name.
Then someone fired from outside.
The window exploded.
Ethan threw Martha to the floor.
Glass scattered across the room.
Ruth screamed downstairs.
Ethan crawled toward the wall and reached for his rifle.
Martha’s heart pounded.
Another shot struck the window frame.
Then silence.
Ethan looked at her.
“Stay down.”
He moved toward the door.
Martha grabbed his sleeve.
“Ethan.”
His eyes met hers.
“Whoever fired knows what we found.”
He nodded.
“That means they’re afraid.”
Martha looked at the torn page in her hand.
“No.”
She thought of Dr. Price’s trembling hands.
“Fearful people run.”
Outside, hoofbeats thundered away through the trees.
Martha listened until they disappeared.
Then she finished the thought.
May you like
“Whoever did this isn’t running.”
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