Chapter 2 - The Medicine That Wasn't Medicine
The rear window rose less than an inch before Martha slammed her palm against it.
The intruder jerked back.
"Martha!" Colton shouted.
The effort turned his voice into a rasp.
She shoved the wooden latch into place and backed away.
Outside, boots splashed through mud.
At the front door Doctor Pierce pounded hard.
"It's really me! Open up!"
Martha still held the fireplace poker.
"Prove it."
"What?"
"Tell me what you said when I broke my wrist when I was twelve."
Silence.
Then:
"I said your father should stop letting you climb barn rafters."
Martha released the breath she'd been holding.
Only three people had been in that examination room.
Her father was dead.
Her mother had been dead nine years.
She opened the door just enough for Doctor Edwin Pierce to squeeze inside.
Nathan Cole followed immediately behind him with a revolver drawn.
"Rear side," Martha said.
Nathan crossed the cabin and peered through the window.
Nothing remained outside but rain.
"Tracks," he said.
Pierce looked terrible.
His spectacles were wet. His gray hair hung over his forehead. One boot was covered in mud.
Martha closed the door.
"What happened?"
Pierce put a leather medical case on the table.
"Someone broke into my surgery."
"When?"
"Last night."
"What's missing?"
"Several things. Laudanum. Tinctures. Two bottles of aconite."
Colton's eyes opened wider.
"Aconite?" Martha asked.
Pierce nodded.
"In small quantities, it's medicinal. Too much can cause weakness, numbness, vomiting, dangerous changes in the heartbeat."
"Fever?"
"Sometimes sweating and sensations that might be mistaken for fever."
Martha went to the cupboard.
She brought out the suspicious jar.
Pierce opened it and smelled the contents.
His face changed.
"Where did you get this?"
"You left it."
"No."
"Your boy brought it."
Pierce stared at her.
"I don't have a boy working for me."
Martha felt cold despite the fire.
"A young man came yesterday morning. Brown cap. Said you sent him."
Nathan turned away from the window.
"Description?"
"Maybe twenty. Thin. Freckles."
Pierce took a small metal probe, touched the ointment, and held it beneath his nose.
"I can't tell without testing."
"But?"
"But this is not my salve."
Colton closed his eyes.
Someone had not simply abandoned him.
Someone had tried to make sure he became worse.
Nathan checked the doors.
"From now on nobody comes inside unless I know them."
Martha folded her arms.
"You told me to leave yesterday."
"I was wrong."
She looked at him.
Nathan met her gaze.
"I said I was wrong."
That was rare enough in Red Hollow to deserve recognition.
Martha nodded once.
Pierce approached the bed.
"I'm going to examine him."
Colton made a weak motion toward Martha.
"She stays."
Pierce glanced at her.
"Of course."
Martha was surprised by the warmth that rose unexpectedly in her chest.
She stayed.
Pierce cleaned the wound properly, checked Colton's pulse, examined his eyes and gums, then listened to his heart with a wooden stethoscope.
After nearly twenty minutes, he stepped away.
"He's ill, but I don't believe it's contagious."
Martha's mouth tightened.
"You could've figured that out yesterday."
Pierce looked ashamed.
"Yes."
Colton watched him.
"So everyone ran because of a rumor."
"Yes."
"And you let them."
Pierce removed his spectacles.
"I let fear make me a coward."
The cabin became very quiet.
Martha had never heard a respected man in Red Hollow admit such a thing.
Pierce continued.
"I cannot undo yesterday. But I can stay tonight."
Martha nodded.
"Good."
Nathan inspected the muddy tracks outside. When he returned, his hat dripping water, his expression was grim.
"Same heel mark."
"The print from beneath the desk?" Martha asked.
"Looks like it."
Colton shifted.
"Mercer's foreman."
Nathan looked at him.
"What?"
"Jacob Rusk wears a horseshoe repair on his left heel."
"You sure?"
"I watched him kick one of my fence posts last month. Plate came loose."
Nathan's jaw hardened.
Jacob Rusk was Silas Mercer's chief enforcer.
Everybody in Red Hollow knew him.
Nobody called him that.
Officially, Rusk managed cattle.
Unofficially, he persuaded people.
Sometimes persuasion involved money.
Sometimes threats.
Sometimes barns burned.
"What did Rusk want from your desk?" Nathan asked.
"The original ledger."
"Anything else?"
Colton hesitated.
Martha noticed.
"What?"
"A letter from my father."
Nathan pulled a chair closer.
"What letter?"
"Written before he died. Said if Mercer ever claimed the ranch, I should find Elias Boone."
Pierce looked up sharply.
"Elias Boone?"
Martha knew the name too.
Everybody did.
Elias Boone had been the county recorder until eight years earlier, when he disappeared.
The official story said he moved west.
Another rumor claimed he had stolen public money.
"Why Boone?" Nathan asked.
"My father didn't say."
"Where's the letter?"
"Was with the ledger."
"So Rusk may have it."
Colton looked toward Martha.
"Unless..."
"What?"
"My father never trusted one hiding place."
Martha frowned.
"You think there's another copy?"
"He used to hide documents in the cabin."
"Where?"
Colton gave a tired smile.
"If I knew, they wouldn't be hidden."
Nathan groaned.
Pierce almost laughed.
For the next hour they searched.
Behind loose stones in the fireplace.
Inside flour jars.
Beneath floorboards.
Under the mattress.
Martha was the one who noticed the bedpost.
One spindle on the headboard sounded different when she knocked against it.
"Hollow."
Nathan unscrewed the carved cap.
Inside was a narrow roll of paper tied with thread.
Colton stared.
"My father."
Nathan opened it carefully.
The paper contained names.
Dates.
Payments.
Martha leaned closer.
Silas Mercer appeared again and again.
So did the name of Judge Amos Weller.
And Doctor Pierce.
Pierce recoiled.
"That's impossible."
Nathan pointed to an entry dated fourteen years earlier.
PIERCE — $300 — HAYES CERTIFICATION.
"What certification?" Martha asked.
Pierce shook his head.
"I don't know."
"Three hundred dollars was a lot of money."
"I know."
Colton stared at him.
Pierce sat heavily.
"My wife was dying fourteen years ago."
Nobody spoke.
"I borrowed money everywhere. I don't remember Mercer giving me anything."
Nathan tapped the page.
"Maybe he did."
Pierce looked sick.
"Or maybe somebody wrote my name to make it look that way."
Martha took the list.
At the bottom, one sentence had been written in Colton's father's hand:
IF THIS LEDGER IS FOUND, BOONE KEPT THE OTHER HALF.
"Elias Boone," Martha said.
Nathan nodded.
"Which means Mercer may have spent eight years looking for him."
"And Colton's father knew where he was."
"Maybe."
A wagon approached outside.
Everyone became still.
Nathan drew his gun.
This time the voice calling from the yard belonged to a woman.
"Sheriff?"
Nathan relaxed slightly.
"Who is it?"
"Anna Hayes."
Colton's eyes opened.
"My sister."
Martha had never met Anna.
She had married a merchant in Denver eleven years earlier and rarely returned.
Nathan opened the door.
A slender woman in a black traveling coat entered, carrying a small carpetbag.
She looked at Colton and covered her mouth.
"Oh, God."
Colton stared at her.
"Anna?"
She rushed to the bed.
Martha stepped aside.
Anna knelt and took her brother's hand.
"I came as soon as I heard."
"Who told you?"
Anna froze.
Colton noticed.
"So did Martha.
"Who told you?" he repeated.
Anna looked at Nathan.
Then at the paper.
Finally, she whispered:
"Silas Mercer."
Nobody moved.
"Why would Mercer contact you?" Nathan asked.
Anna's face went pale.
"Because he knew where to find me."
"That doesn't answer him."
Anna stood slowly.
Her eyes filled with tears.
"Colton, I should have told you years ago."
"Told me what?"
She reached inside her carpetbag.
Martha instinctively moved between her and the bed.
Anna stopped.
"I'm not going to hurt him."
"What are you carrying?"
Anna pulled out an envelope.
It was yellow with age.
Across the front was written:
FOR COLTON — IF MERCER COMES FOR THE RANCH.
Colton stared at the handwriting.
"That's Father's."
Anna nodded.
"He gave it to me the week before he died."
"Why didn't you give it to me?"
"Because he made me swear not to unless Mercer tried to take everything."
"He already tried."
"I didn't know."
Colton's voice hardened.
"Eleven years, Anna."
"I was afraid."
"Of Mercer?"
Her silence answered.
Nathan held out his hand.
"Give me the letter."
Anna did.
Inside were two pages.
Nathan read silently.
His expression changed.
"What?"
Colton tried to rise again.
Martha pressed him gently back.
"Read it."
Nathan looked at Anna.
"Did you read this?"
"No."
He turned toward Colton.
"Your father believed Mercer falsified land deeds throughout the county."
Colton stared.
"How many?"
"Maybe dozens."
Martha felt something twist in her stomach.
Her own father had lost eighty acres after a disputed debt when she was twenty-two.
Silas Mercer had purchased the land.
Nathan continued reading.
"Your father and Elias Boone gathered proof. Boone copied county records before disappearing."
"Where are they?"
"The letter doesn't say."
"It has to."
"It says Boone hid the records where 'the bell hears every Sunday.'"
Martha blinked.
"The church?"
Nathan looked at her.
"Maybe."
Then Anna spoke.
"No."
Everyone turned.
She was staring at Martha.
"The Bell."
Martha frowned.
"What?"
Anna swallowed.
"Your family."
Martha went perfectly still.
Anna continued.
"Your father knew Elias Boone."
"That's impossible."
"It isn't."
"My father never said his name."
"Because Mercer ruined him."
Martha's thoughts raced backward twenty years.
Her father's lost acreage.
His quiet anger.
His refusal to discuss the debt.
The locked wooden trunk he kept beneath his bed until the day he died.
After his death, Martha's mother had told her it contained nothing but old clothes.
Martha suddenly remembered something else.
The trunk had disappeared before the funeral.
"Why would Boone trust my father?" she asked.
Anna's voice became almost inaudible.
"Because your father helped him escape Red Hollow."
Nathan stepped closer.
"Where?"
Anna shook her head.
"I don't know."
Colton watched Martha.
She could feel everyone waiting for her reaction.
For years she had believed her family's poverty came from bad luck.
Bad harvests.
Debt.
Her father's mistakes.
What if none of it had been true?
A knock sounded.
Three quick strikes.
Nathan raised his gun.
"Who's there?"
A man's voice answered.
"Silas Mercer."
Colton's face hardened instantly.
Martha felt Anna grab the back of a chair.
Mercer spoke again.
"I know you're all in there."
Nathan looked at Martha.
Then Colton.
"Don't open it," Colton said.
Mercer's voice remained calm.
"I didn't come to argue."
"What do you want?" Nathan shouted.
"To save Colton Hayes's life."
Pierce stared at the door.
Mercer continued.
"His fever isn't an accident."
Martha's heartbeat quickened.
"Then tell us who did it," Nathan called.
Mercer laughed softly.
"You already invited the person inside."
Everyone in the cabin froze.
Martha slowly looked from Nathan to Pierce.
Then to Anna.
Silas Mercer spoke one final sentence through the locked door.
"Ask Anna what she put in her brother's coffee three nights ago."
Colton turned toward his sister.
Anna's face collapsed.
May you like
And before anyone could speak, she whispered:
"Colton... I can explain."
