Chapter 8 - The Secret Beneath the Floorboards
Charlotte Vale never reached Denver.
Not because Ethan caught her.
Not because the marshal stopped her.
Because she turned around.
At dawn, a stagecoach driver arrived at Callaway Ranch carrying an envelope.
“Lady paid me to bring this.”
Ethan tore it open.
Inside was one sentence.
If you want the ledger, meet me at the abandoned church outside Ridgewater. Martha comes too.
Martha read it.
Ethan said, “No.”
She looked at him.
“We’ve had this conversation.”
“I know. I’m becoming tired of it.”
“Then stop beginning with no.”
“I’ll try beginning with absolutely not.”
Ruth called from the breakfast table.
“Take Martha.”
Ethan stared at his mother.
“You’re supposed to support me.”
“I support intelligence.”
Martha put on her coat.
The abandoned church stood on a hill east of town.
Charlotte waited inside.
Without her expensive blue dresses and carefully arranged hair, she looked younger.
Afraid.
The ledger rested on a pew.
Ethan entered first.
Martha followed.
Charlotte raised both hands.
“I’m not armed.”
“Why did you steal it?” Ethan asked.
“To save my father.”
“Charles Vale helped Price.”
“I know.”
“And you knew when you came to my ranch pretending you wanted marriage?”
Charlotte looked ashamed.
“Yes.”
Ethan’s jaw tightened.
Martha stepped forward.
“Why return?”
Charlotte looked at her.
“Because my father is going to kill Harlan Price.”
Ethan frowned.
“What?”
“He thinks if Price dies before trial, the investigation stops.”
“It won’t.”
“My father doesn’t know that.”
Charlotte picked up the ledger.
“He sent me to retrieve this.”
“Why not destroy it?”
“He needs to know what Price wrote about him.”
Martha understood.
“Blackmail.”
Charlotte nodded.
“Price kept leverage on everyone.”
She handed Martha the ledger.
“I read it.”
“And?”
Charlotte’s face went pale.
“My father knew Ruth was being poisoned.”
Ethan stepped forward.
Martha blocked him gently.
Charlotte continued.
“He didn’t administer anything. But he knew.”
“Why?”
“Silver rights.”
Ethan’s voice was icy.
“So your father watched my mother die for land?”
Charlotte started crying.
“Yes.”
Martha took the ledger.
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
“Charlotte.”
“I swear.”
She wiped her face.
“He disappeared last night.”
Ethan looked toward the door.
“We need to warn the marshal.”
Charlotte grabbed Martha’s sleeve.
“There’s something else.”
“What?”
“My father said the Callaway ranch has another deed.”
Ethan stopped.
“What deed?”
“I don’t know.”
“He said Ruth’s ownership wasn’t as simple as everyone thought.”
Martha remembered the letter.
Ruth had kept secrets for twenty years.
Maybe another was waiting.
Back at the ranch, Ruth listened quietly.
Then she sighed.
“I wondered when that would surface.”
Ethan leaned on the table.
“Apparently today is another excellent day to discover my family never tells me anything.”
Ruth ignored him.
“When your father died, the ranch was in debt.”
“I know.”
“No. You know part.”
She looked at Martha.
“Naomi lent me money.”
Martha stared.
“My mother?”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“Enough to stop foreclosure.”
“Where did she get money like that?”
Ruth smiled.
“Her family owned timber land before Ridgewater existed.”
Martha had never known.
Ruth continued.
“I offered Naomi half the ranch.”
“She refused.”
“Of course she did.”
“But we wrote an agreement.”
Ethan frowned.
“What agreement?”
“If anything happened to both of us before the debt was repaid, Naomi or her daughter would inherit a fifty-acre parcel.”
Martha stared.
“What?”
“It includes the north ridge.”
The room went silent.
The silver.
Martha sat slowly.
“So Price wasn’t just targeting you.”
Ruth shook her head.
“He needed Naomi’s claim gone too.”
Ethan looked at Martha.
Her mother’s death suddenly had another possible motive.
“Where’s the agreement?” Martha asked.
“Under the floorboards.”
Ethan laughed bitterly.
“Of course it is.”
Ruth pointed toward the pantry.
“Third board from the wall.”
They found a sealed metal tube.
Inside lay the original contract.
Naomi Boone’s name.
Ruth Callaway’s signature.
Witnessed twenty-one years earlier.
Martha read the property description.
Fifty-two acres.
The entire north ridge.
Worth potentially thousands.
Maybe tens of thousands.
“I don’t want it.”
Ruth smiled.
“That sounds exactly like your mother.”
“I’m serious.”
“So was she.”
Ethan crouched beside Martha.
“It belongs to you.”
“No.”
“Martha.”
“This is your ranch.”
“Our ranch.”
She looked at him.
He realized what he had said.
So did Ruth.
Her eyebrows rose.
Ethan stood quickly.
“I meant—”
“I know what you meant,” Martha said.
Did she?
Her heart was beating strangely.
Ethan looked away.
Ruth smiled into her tea.
The moment ended when riders approached.
The federal marshal entered.
His expression was grim.
“Price is dead.”
Martha stood.
“How?”
“Poisoned.”
Nobody spoke.
The irony felt obscene.
“Charles Vale?” Ethan asked.
“Missing.”
“Where was Price?”
“Jail cell.”
Martha frowned.
“Who could access him?”
“Deputies. Morrow. Me. His lawyer.”
“And food?”
The marshal hesitated.
“Brought from the hotel.”
Martha looked at Ethan.
A dead suspect meant somebody was cleaning up the remaining evidence.
Maybe Vale.
Maybe another partner.
The marshal placed a small paper packet on the table.
“This was found beneath Price’s mattress.”
Martha opened it.
Inside was a handwritten note.
The Boone woman knows too much. Finish what Harlan started.
No signature.
But beneath the sentence was a symbol.
A circle crossed by two lines.
Ruth made a sound.
Martha turned.
“You recognize it?”
Ruth nodded.
“That belonged to the Briar Ridge Mining Company.”
Martha remembered Naomi’s records.
The mining supplier.
Not merely a place where Price purchased chemicals.
Possibly the source of the entire conspiracy.
Ethan unfolded a map.
“Briar Ridge shut down ten years ago.”
Ruth shook her head.
“The mine did.”
“What’s the difference?”
“The company didn’t.”
Martha looked toward the snowy north ridge.
Price had been one man.
Vale another.
Morrow another.
But somebody had financed them.
Somebody had wanted the silver beneath Callaway Ranch badly enough to let people die.
And now that person knew Martha possessed fifty-two acres standing directly over the richest part of the vein.
That night Ethan checked every door twice.
Martha noticed.
“You think someone’s coming.”
“Yes.”
“You want me to leave?”
“No.”
The answer came too quickly.
They stood facing each other in the dim kitchen.
Ethan lowered his voice.
“I want you where I can see you.”
Martha’s breath caught.
Before she could answer, the barn bell began ringing violently.
Ethan ran outside.
Flames were rising from the hayloft.
And painted across the barn door in black tar were six words:
May you like
SELL THE NORTH RIDGE OR BURY RUTH.
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