Chapter 2 - The Man on the Ridge
The fourth rifle shot tore through the well cover and sent splinters across Ruth’s hair.
Caleb shoved her lower behind the stone rim.
“Stay down.”
Ranch hands scattered toward cover.
Amos crawled behind a water barrel.
The triplets were inside the house, thank God, with the cook.
Caleb raised his revolver but did not fire blindly.
“Can you see him?” Amos yelled.
“No.”
The north ridge lay half in shadow now.
Pines, rocks, dry brush.
Too many places for a rifleman.
Ruth pressed her back to the stones.
Her heart hammered hard enough to make her vision pulse.
“Who knows about that box?” she whispered.
Caleb looked at her.
“Until five minutes ago? Nobody.”
Another shot hit dirt.
Caleb turned toward the stable.
“Luke! Circle east!”
A ranch hand disappeared behind the barn.
For several minutes there was silence.
Then hoofbeats.
Fast.
Moving away.
Caleb stood cautiously.
“Stay here.”
He and two men mounted and rode north.
They returned forty minutes later.
No shooter.
Only tracks.
Fresh horseshoe marks led to a rocky wash where the ground became too hard to follow.
Ruth remained near the box.
Nobody opened it.
She had covered it with an overturned feed tub.
When Caleb came back, she said, “We need witnesses.”
“You think it’s dangerous?”
“I think somebody shot at us because we found it.”
That was enough.
Caleb sent Amos into town with two men to fetch Sheriff Daniel Boone and telegraph the county health office.
Ruth kept thinking about Dr. Bell.
KEEP BELL QUIET UNTIL THE MERCER BOYS ARE GONE.
Gone.
Not cured.
Not sent away.
Gone.
The word sounded like murder.
Caleb stood beside her.
“You think Bell knows.”
“I think somebody believes he knows.”
“He’s treated those boys since they were infants.”
“That doesn’t make him innocent.”
Caleb looked toward the house.
His expression tightened.
“My wife trusted him.”
Ruth knew there was more in that sentence than he intended to reveal.
She did not ask yet.
Sheriff Boone arrived after dark.
He was a square-built man of fifty with gray at his temples and the exhausted look of somebody who had spent too many years sorting lies.
He examined the paper first.
Then the pipe.
Then the box.
“Open it?” Caleb asked.
Boone shook his head.
“Not until I have another witness.”
A county clerk had ridden with him.
Together they pried the lid.
Inside were six corroded metal canisters.
Several had leaked into straw packing.
The smell made everyone step back.
Boone covered his mouth.
“What is that?”
Ruth held a lantern closer without touching.
Faded lettering remained on one container.
ARSENICAL COMPOUND.
Caleb stared.
“What does that mean?”
Ruth swallowed.
“It means nobody touches anything.”
Arsenic compounds were used in mining, agriculture, pest control.
And in poisonings.
Boone read the paper again.
“Could this stuff reach the well through that pipe?”
“Possibly.”
“Why bury it here?”
Ruth looked at the trench.
“Maybe it wasn’t meant to stay buried.”
Caleb understood.
“The pipe.”
She nodded.
“If runoff or contaminated water was deliberately routed toward the well…”
Boone’s expression darkened.
“That’s a mighty serious accusation.”
“So is shooting at people who discover it.”
The sheriff posted a deputy at the ranch overnight.
Caleb ordered every hired hand to sleep armed.
Ruth tucked the boys into bed using water brought from town.
Samuel asked, “Are we going to die?”
Ruth sat beside him.
“No.”
She said it with more certainty than she possessed.
Eli whispered, “Doctors said maybe.”
Ruth’s throat tightened.
“What exactly did they say?”
Noah looked toward the door.
“Dr. Bell told Papa we might not grow up.”
Caleb stood in the hall.
He had heard.
His face twisted.
He turned away.
Ruth followed him downstairs later.
He stood alone in the kitchen.
“I should’ve known.”
“No.”
“They got better in Cheyenne.”
“You were listening to doctors.”
“I’m their father.”
“And frightened parents trust people who promise answers.”
He struck the counter with his palm.
“I watched them getting thinner every month.”
Ruth said nothing.
Sometimes comfort insulted pain.
After a while Caleb asked, “Who taught you about poisoned water?”
So she told him.
Not everything.
Enough.
Her husband.
The mining settlement.
The contaminated well.
The doctors who kept treating symptoms while people died.
Caleb listened without interruption.
“When did Thomas die?”
“Seven years ago.”
“Same age my boys were born.”
“Yes.”
“You never remarried?”
“No.”
He looked at her carefully, but did not ask why.
A rider reached Blackridge shortly before midnight.
Telegram from Cheyenne.
Isaac Reed had received Ruth’s samples through a rail courier and would begin testing immediately.
His reply contained another sentence.
DO NOT CONSUME WATER. SYMPTOMS CONSISTENT WITH CHRONIC HEAVY METAL EXPOSURE.
Caleb read it three times.
Then he sat down.
Ruth watched something break inside him.
Not loudly.
Caleb Mercer did not break loudly.
He covered his face.
For several seconds his shoulders shook.
Ruth put her hand on the table near his, not touching.
When he finally looked up, his eyes were red.
“If someone did this…”
“We prove it first.”
“If someone poisoned my sons—”
“We prove it.”
He nodded.
Morning brought another surprise.
Dr. Bell returned.
He rode into the ranch yard as though nothing had happened.
Sheriff Boone intercepted him.
Bell looked at the deputy, the opened trench, the guarded well.
His face drained of color.
“What happened?”
Boone handed him the note.
Bell read it.
His fingers began trembling.
Caleb saw.
“You know something.”
Bell shook his head too quickly.
“No.”
“Look at me.”
Bell did.
“Did you know they were being poisoned?”
“No.”
“Did you suspect?”
Bell swallowed.
“No.”
Ruth stepped closer.
“Then why are you afraid?”
Bell looked at her.
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
“I resent being interrogated by servants.”
Boone took the doctor by the arm.
“Try answering the question.”
Bell pulled away.
“I came because the children require treatment.”
“They’re improving already,” Ruth said.
Everyone looked at her.
It was true.
Only twenty-four hours without ranch water and Noah had eaten two eggs.
Samuel had not complained of stomach pain all morning.
Eli’s tremor seemed less severe.
Bell’s reaction was instant.
Not relief.
Alarm.
Ruth saw it.
So did Caleb.
“Why doesn’t that make you happy?” Caleb asked.
Bell said nothing.
Caleb moved toward him.
Boone stepped between them.
“Easy.”
Bell’s composure cracked.
“You don’t understand.”
“Then explain.”
“I treated what I saw.”
“With what medicine?”
Bell glanced toward Ruth.
She remembered the broken bottle.
“What was in those tonics?”
“Standard preparations.”
“Name them.”
Bell’s mouth opened.
No sound came.
Boone said, “Doctor, I can search your office with a warrant.”
That did it.
Bell’s shoulders sagged.
“I was told it was necessary.”
Caleb became perfectly still.
“What?”
Bell looked at him.
“I didn’t know at first.”
Ruth’s skin prickled.
“At first?”
Bell backed away.
“The boys were ill before I understood.”
“Understood what?” Boone demanded.
Bell looked toward the north ridge.
“There are people involved who will kill me.”
Caleb grabbed his coat.
“They almost killed my children!”
Boone pulled Caleb off.
Bell gasped.
“I tried to keep them stable.”
“With poison?” Ruth asked.
“No!”
“Then what?”
“The medicine reduced some symptoms.”
“Who told you what to prescribe?”
Bell looked at Ruth.
Then Caleb.
Then the sheriff.
“Nathaniel Crowe.”
Amos, standing near the stable, whispered a curse.
Caleb released Bell.
Ruth knew the name only vaguely.
Nathaniel Crowe owned the regional mining company that had purchased claims across three counties.
He also controlled freight contracts, a bank, and half the commercial property in nearby Red Creek.
Caleb’s voice dropped.
“Why would Crowe care about my sons?”
Bell’s eyes filled with terror.
“He doesn’t.”
“Then why?”
Bell stared toward the ranch house.
“He cares about Blackridge.”
Caleb frowned.
“What about it?”
Bell wiped his mouth.
“The land beneath it.”
The silence that followed felt enormous.
Boone asked, “What land?”
Bell whispered, “Crowe found a silver vein running under Mercer property last summer.”
Caleb stared.
“He never approached me.”
“He knew you wouldn’t sell.”
“So he poisoned my children?”
“I don’t know who did that.”
“But you knew they were sick from the water.”
Bell said nothing.
Caleb lunged again.
Boone restrained him.
Ruth stepped close to Bell.
“Why would sick children make Caleb sell?”
Bell looked at her with something almost like shame.
“Because Crowe knew Caleb had one weakness.”
“The boys.”
“Yes.”
“He wanted them dead?”
“No.”
Bell shook his head.
“He wanted Caleb desperate.”
Ruth felt sick.
Bell continued.
“The plan was to convince him the ranch was unhealthy for the children. Crowe would offer to buy Blackridge. Caleb would leave. The boys would recover elsewhere.”
Caleb’s face went gray.
“And if I didn’t sell?”
Bell lowered his eyes.
Nobody needed the answer.
Boone arrested him.
Bell did not resist.
Before Boone placed him in the wagon, Bell suddenly turned.
“There’s something else.”
Caleb stared.
“What?”
“Anna knew about the silver.”
Caleb went motionless.
“My wife?”
Bell nodded.
“She found survey stakes weeks before she died.”
“That was seven years ago.”
“Yes.”
“Crowe’s claim was only last year.”
Bell looked confused.
“No.”
Ruth felt the ground shift beneath the story.
Bell whispered, “Nathaniel Crowe has wanted Blackridge for much longer than you think.”
Caleb stepped forward.
“What did Anna know?”
Bell opened his mouth.
A shot cracked from across the pasture.
Bell jerked violently.
A red stain spread across his shoulder.
Boone dragged him down.
Men shouted.
Horses panicked.
Ruth dropped behind the wagon.
Caleb drew his gun.
Another bullet struck the wheel.
Bell clutched Ruth’s sleeve.
His face was white.
“Cellar,” he gasped.
“What?”
“Your house.”
Blood ran between his fingers.
“Under the old pantry floor.”
Caleb leaned close.
“What’s there?”
Bell’s eyes rolled toward him.
“Anna left proof.”
May you like
Then the ranch house cellar door creaked open behind them.
Someone was already inside.
