Chapter 3 - What Anna Had Done
Colton did not shout.
That frightened Martha more than anger would have.
He simply stared at his sister.
Anna stood near the foot of his bed, rainwater still darkening the shoulders of her coat.
"Explain," he said.
Anna's hands trembled.
"It isn't what Mercer made it sound like."
"Did you put something in my coffee?"
"Yes."
Martha's stomach dropped.
Nathan stepped between Anna and the door.
"What?"
"A sleeping powder."
Pierce looked sharply at her.
"What kind?"
"Chloral hydrate."
"How much?"
"I don't know exactly. Mercer gave it to me."
Colton's jaw tightened.
"You drugged me."
Anna started crying.
"I thought I was protecting you."
"From what?"
"From Rusk."
Nathan held up a hand.
"Start at the beginning."
Anna sat.
For several seconds she couldn't speak.
Then words came fast.
"Mercer wrote to me two weeks ago. He said Colton had discovered documents connected to Father's debt. He said Rusk knew about them too and intended to come here."
"You believed Mercer?" Colton asked.
"I believed Rusk was dangerous."
"He works for Mercer."
"I know that now."
Martha watched her carefully.
"What did Mercer ask you to do?"
"He told me to come to Red Hollow quietly. He said if I could get Colton asleep for one night, he'd send someone to remove the documents before Rusk could find them."
Nathan's expression hardened.
"And you did."
"I put the powder into Colton's coffee."
Colton looked away.
Anna continued.
"But the dose shouldn't have done this. Mercer said Colton would sleep six hours."
Pierce nodded reluctantly.
"If it truly was chloral, that wouldn't explain several days of fever."
Martha thought of the false ointment.
"Because somebody came afterward."
Nathan looked toward her.
"Rusk."
Colton closed his eyes.
Memory was returning.
"He was here."
"When?" Nathan asked.
"After Anna left."
Anna stared.
"I never saw him."
"I woke on the floor."
Colton's voice was weak but steady.
"Someone was at my desk. I reached for him. Rusk hit me."
"Your side?"
"No."
Everyone went silent.
Martha looked at the wound.
"Then how did you get that?"
"I rode after him."
The story came back piece by piece.
Rusk had escaped on horseback.
Colton followed despite the drug still clouding his head.
Two miles south of the ranch, Rusk cut across a ravine.
Colton's horse slipped.
Colton fell onto broken fencing.
The jagged rail opened his side.
He managed to ride home.
By morning the fever had started.
"So Mercer didn't injure you," Nathan said.
"No."
"But his man caused it."
Colton looked toward the door.
"Maybe."
Mercer still waited outside.
Nathan opened the door only after making him remove his gun belt.
Silas Mercer entered carrying a black umbrella and wearing a dark wool coat that seemed insultingly clean.
He surveyed the room.
His eyes rested briefly on Martha.
Not through her.
On her.
"So," he said. "The faithful nurse."
Martha disliked him immediately.
"You knew the ointment was poisoned?"
Mercer removed his gloves.
"I suspected."
"How?"
"Because Rusk stole aconite from Pierce."
Pierce stepped forward.
"You knew?"
"Yesterday."
"And you said nothing?"
"I was confirming it."
Martha laughed once.
"You waited while Colton might die."
Mercer's expression did not change.
"My accusation would have carried consequences."
"For you?"
"For everyone."
Colton pushed himself higher against the pillow.
"What do you want, Silas?"
Mercer looked almost sad.
"To correct a mistake."
"Which one?"
"Trusting Jacob Rusk."
Nathan crossed his arms.
"You expect us to believe Rusk acted alone?"
"I expect you to believe greed makes ambitious men foolish."
Colton pointed weakly toward the survey.
"You wanted my ranch."
"Yes."
"You forged my father's debt."
Mercer glanced at the old papers.
"I bought that debt."
"Was it already paid?"
Silence.
That was an answer.
Nathan took one step forward.
"Silas."
Mercer sighed.
"Your father's account was complicated."
"Was it paid?"
"Most of it."
Colton's face darkened.
"Get out."
Mercer didn't move.
"If I leave, Rusk will kill you before morning."
"Then arrest him," Martha said.
Nathan shook his head.
"I need evidence."
Mercer looked at her.
"You have more than you realize."
"What does that mean?"
He nodded toward the old list.
"Boone."
Nathan stiffened.
"You know where Elias Boone is?"
"No."
"Then what?"
Mercer took a chair.
Nobody invited him.
"Twenty years ago, I was not the only man falsifying deeds."
Martha stared.
"Judge Weller."
Mercer nodded.
"Amos Weller created the scheme. I benefited from it. So did others."
Nathan's face hardened.
"You're confessing?"
"To enough."
"Why?"
"Because Rusk isn't stealing for me anymore."
"Who is he stealing for?"
Mercer's eyes moved toward Anna.
Then Martha.
"Judge Weller's son."
Martha knew the name.
Caleb Weller.
Bank president.
Candidate for state senate.
The man who gave speeches about honesty every Fourth of July.
"He knows the railroad is coming," Mercer said. "If he acquires the old disputed properties before the route is announced, he'll make a fortune."
"Including mine," Colton said.
"Including yours."
Martha thought about her father's land.
"And the Bell property?"
Mercer looked at her.
His hesitation was brief.
"Yes."
Something inside Martha went still.
Not rage.
Something colder.
"My father wasn't in debt."
"He was."
"But not enough to lose eighty acres."
"No."
She stood.
"How much?"
Mercer looked away.
"How much?"
"Fourteen dollars."
Martha stared.
Her father had lost eighty acres over fourteen dollars manipulated into a fabricated judgment.
The land had broken him.
He worked until his lungs failed.
Her mother took washing to keep their small house.
Martha spent eighteen years believing poverty was something her family deserved because they had failed to manage themselves properly.
Fourteen dollars.
Colton said her name.
She didn't respond.
Mercer continued.
"I can return it."
Now she looked at him.
"What?"
"The acreage."
"You own it."
"Some."
"And the rest?"
"Caleb Weller."
Martha understood.
That was why Mercer had come.
Not guilt.
Survival.
Caleb Weller and Rusk were taking control.
Mercer was becoming disposable.
"You need us," she said.
Mercer's eyes narrowed.
"You're smarter than people say."
Martha stepped so close to him he leaned back.
"People don't say anything about me. That's the problem."
Colton almost smiled despite everything.
Martha continued.
"You came because you're afraid Weller will bury you with the evidence."
Mercer looked at Nathan.
"I came because if Boone's records still exist, they can expose every forged transfer."
"Including yours."
"Especially mine."
Nathan stared at him.
"Why help us destroy you?"
Mercer smiled without humor.
"Prison is preferable to a grave."
That silenced everyone.
Rusk was no longer merely protecting a financial scheme.
He was eliminating witnesses.
Nathan began organizing protection.
Pierce would remain.
Anna would stay where Nathan could see her.
Mercer would be escorted to town and locked in the sheriff's office, officially for his own safety.
Martha planned to search her old family home.
Colton objected immediately.
"No."
"You aren't in a position to forbid anything."
"If Rusk knows Boone gave something to your father—"
"Then he'll search the house."
"Exactly."
"So I'd prefer to arrive first."
"I'll go."
"You can barely sit."
"I'll crawl."
Martha stared at him.
"Men are exhausting."
Anna gave a tiny unexpected laugh.
Even Nathan smiled.
Colton did not.
"Martha."
She looked at him.
His expression had changed.
There was fear there.
Not for himself.
For her.
"Don't go alone."
That landed somewhere inside her she wasn't prepared to examine.
"I won't."
Nathan volunteered to accompany her at dawn.
Mercer was taken away.
Pierce prepared fresh medicine himself.
For the first time in two days, Colton's fever began to fall steadily.
Near midnight, Martha sat beside him again.
He woke.
"You should sleep."
"So should you."
"I'm trying."
"Try harder."
He studied her face in the low lamplight.
"Why did you come?"
Martha knew what he meant.
Why her?
Why when everyone else stayed away?
She folded the cloth.
"Your mother once helped mine."
"When?"
"The winter my father died."
Colton frowned.
"I didn't know."
"Nobody did. Your mother brought flour every Thursday after dark because she knew mine was too proud to accept charity where people could see."
Colton smiled faintly.
"That sounds like her."
"When your mother died, I meant to tell you."
"Why didn't you?"
Martha looked at her hands.
"You were surrounded by people."
"And you weren't?"
She gave him a dry look.
"You really have been unconscious."
His smile faded.
"Martha."
"What?"
"I'm glad you came."
She looked at him.
No man had ever said those words to her in quite that way.
Not as courtesy.
Not gratitude for a pie or laundry or favor.
He meant her presence.
She stood abruptly.
"Your fever is making you sentimental."
"Probably."
"Go back to sleep."
"Yes, ma'am."
She turned away before he could see her smile.
At dawn Nathan arrived.
They rode toward the Bell homestead.
Martha had not entered the abandoned house in six years.
After her mother's death, she rented a room behind the bakery in town because the old place held too many ghosts.
The Bell house stood three miles west of Red Hollow.
The porch sagged.
Dust covered everything.
Martha walked directly to her father's bedroom.
The trunk was gone, as she remembered.
But the floor beneath where it had stood bore scratches.
Nathan knelt.
"Something heavy moved repeatedly."
They pried up a loose board.
Nothing.
Martha searched the walls.
Her father's bed frame.
The closet.
Then she saw a small iron bell hanging above the back door.
Her mother used to ring it when supper was ready.
"The bell hears every Sunday."
Nathan looked at her.
"What?"
Martha took the bell down.
Inside its wooden mounting bracket was a narrow cavity.
She pulled free a rolled strip of cloth.
Inside were three keys and a note.
Her father's handwriting.
MARTHA — IF YOU FIND THIS, GO TO THE OLD SCHOOLHOUSE. THIRD FLOORBOARD BENEATH THE TEACHER'S DESK.
Nathan smiled.
"Your father knew you would be the one."
Martha couldn't speak.
They rode immediately to the abandoned schoolhouse.
The building had not been used in fifteen years.
Martha remembered attending lessons there as a child.
She found the teacher's desk.
Nathan counted floorboards.
One.
Two.
Three.
He pried up the third.
Beneath it sat a small metal box.
One of the keys fit.
Inside were stacks of copied deeds.
Judgments.
Payment records.
Signatures.
Enough documents to ruin powerful men across three counties.
And one sealed envelope.
Martha's name was written across it.
She opened it.
Inside was a single page.
Martha read.
Her knees weakened.
"What?" Nathan asked.
She handed it to him.
The letter was from Elias Boone.
It said he had survived.
It said he had hidden after Judge Weller ordered his death.
And it said one person in Red Hollow knew exactly where he was.
Nathan reached the final line.
His face drained of color.
Martha read the name again.
Doctor Edwin Pierce.
They looked at each other.
Colton was alone at the ranch with him.
Nathan grabbed the evidence box.
Martha ran for the door.
They rode harder than she had ever ridden in her life.
As Colton's cabin appeared beyond the ridge, Martha saw smoke rising from the chimney.
The front door stood open.
Doctor Pierce's horse was gone.
Martha jumped from her saddle before it stopped.
"Colton!"
No answer.
She ran inside.
The bed was empty.
A chair lay overturned.
Blood marked the floor.
And on Colton's pillow rested a folded note.
Martha opened it.
Three words had been written across the page:
BRING BOONE'S RECORDS.
May you like
Then she heard a weak knock beneath the floor.
Someone was trapped under the cabin.
