Chapter 3 - The Brother in the Mountain
Elias grabbed Matthew by the coat.
“You let me bury an empty grave.”
Matthew didn’t fight him.
Clara stared at the scar across Matthew’s throat.
A brass key hung from his neck.
Stamped into it was the number 417-B.
Elias released him.
Matthew said, “They found us.”
A rifle fired outside.
The bullet struck the tunnel wall.
Matthew blew out the lantern.
Darkness swallowed them.
“Back passage,” he whispered.
Elias had forgotten there was one.
Matthew hadn’t.
They moved through blackness, crawling beneath rotting beams until cold air touched their faces.
The hidden exit opened above a ravine.
Three horses waited there.
“You planned this?” Elias asked.
“I’ve been planning for nine years.”
Clara stared at Matthew.
“You left me.”
Matthew’s face tightened.
“I saved you the only way I could.”
“You disappeared.”
“Because Creed had men watching every road, every station, every relative.”
“I thought you were dead.”
“I wanted you to.”
Her hand struck his face.
The sound cracked in the frozen air.
Matthew accepted it.
Then he said, “We have six minutes before they find the second entrance.”
They rode north.
Elias followed because anger could wait.
Bullets could not.
Hours later they reached an abandoned line shack deep in the timber.
Matthew barred the door.
Only then did Elias turn on him.
“Nine years.”
“I know.”
“Mother died thinking you were dead.”
Matthew looked away.
“I know.”
“You didn’t come home.”
“If I came home, Creed would have killed you too.”
“You don’t get to decide that for me.”
“I already did.”
Elias punched him.
Matthew hit the wall.
Clara stepped between them.
“Enough.”
Neither brother argued.
Matthew wiped blood from his mouth.
“You still hit like Father.”
“You still deserve it.”
“Probably.”
They stared at each other.
Then something broke.
Elias pulled his brother into an embrace.
Matthew stiffened.
Then held on.
For nine years Elias had carried grief.
Now grief had a heartbeat.
When they separated, Clara said, “Where is the ledger?”
Matthew touched the brass key.
“Not where Creed thinks.”
“The church bell?”
“Yes.”
Elias frowned.
“In Stevensville?”
Matthew nodded.
“The ledger is hidden inside the old bell housing.”
“We just came from town.”
“That’s why I left the message.”
Clara’s anger returned.
“You knew I was coming?”
“I learned you were on the stagecoach two days ago.”
“And you didn’t meet me?”
“Creed was watching you.”
“He still found me.”
“He was always going to.”
Matthew opened a cupboard.
Inside were maps, ammunition, preserved food, and newspapers.
One headline carried Clara’s face.
MURDERESS SENTENCED TO DIE.
Elias hated it.
Clara took the paper.
“That photograph was taken after three days without sleep.”
Matthew looked at Elias.
“She didn’t kill Wren.”
“I believe her.”
Clara turned.
“You do?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Creed wanted the letter.”
“That’s all?”
“And Pike looked scared when I showed it.”
“That’s enough for you?”
“No.”
Elias met her eyes.
“But you had several chances to leave me behind today. You didn’t.”
She said nothing.
Matthew smiled faintly.
“I wondered how long that would take.”
Elias scowled.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
Clara folded the newspaper.
“What happened the night Wren died?”
Matthew sat.
“Tell him.”
Clara drew a breath.
“Senator Wren sent for me three months ago. He said he knew my real identity.”
“Clara Mercer.”
“Yes.”
“I had been living under my late husband’s name, Vale.”
“You were married?”
“For eleven months.”
Elias didn’t know why that bothered him.
“What happened to him?”
“Fever.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Thank you.”
She continued.
“Wren offered me money for the location of my father’s ledger. I told him I didn’t know. He didn’t believe me.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
Matthew nodded.
“That part is true.”
“Wren kept me in his office for almost an hour. Then Creed arrived. They argued.”
“About what?”
“Wren wanted out.”
Matthew looked surprised.
Clara continued.
“He said too many people had died. Creed said there was no leaving.”
“And then?”
“Creed shot him.”
Elias leaned forward.
“With what?”
“Wren’s pistol. Then he put it in my hand and called for guards.”
“A clean frame.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you name him?”
“I did.”
Matthew laughed bitterly.
“Creed testified he was in Great Falls that night.”
“Witnesses?”
“Six.”
“Paid.”
“Of course.”
“What about appeals?”
“The judge who denied the final appeal is in the ledger.”
Elias understood.
“The law isn’t going to save you.”
Clara’s voice was quiet.
“Not the law they own.”
Matthew stood.
“But the federal circuit judge arriving in Missoula next week might.”
“Why?”
“Judge Nathaniel Cross.”
Clara knew the name.
“He prosecuted the Northern Pacific fraud cases.”
“And he hates bought judges.”
Elias said, “Then we get him the ledger.”
Matthew nodded.
“There’s one problem.”
“Creed controls the roads.”
“More than that.”
Matthew unrolled a map.
“He’s moving the stolen land titles out of the territory in four days. Once the records vanish, the ledger becomes accusation without proof.”
“Where are the titles?”
“Fort Wren.”
Elias stared.
“The abandoned mining camp?”
“Not abandoned.”
Matthew marked a canyon.
“Creed has twenty men there.”
Clara shook her head.
“We don’t need titles if the ledger names everyone.”
“We do if we want to prove your innocence and return property to the families.”
Elias looked between them.
“So first we go back to Stevensville, climb into the church bell, steal the ledger under Creed’s nose, then raid a private army in the mountains?”
Matthew shrugged.
“That’s the short version.”
Elias almost laughed.
Clara did.
The sound surprised all three of them.
For a moment, the room felt human again.
Later Matthew slept.
Elias sat outside the shack with Clara.
The moon silvered the trees.
“You expected someone else,” she said.
“For a wife?”
“Yes.”
“I expected a woman named Clara Vale.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
He considered it.
“I expected someone plain.”
She glanced down at the brown dress.
“Better?”
“That isn’t what I meant.”
“You thought velvet meant useless.”
“I thought velvet meant you’d hate my life.”
“I wore the dress because it was the last thing my mother gave me.”
Elias looked at her.
“I’m sorry.”
“I wasn’t trying to deceive you.”
“Except about the murder charge.”
She winced.
“Yes.”
He smiled faintly.
“That part was significant.”
“I was going to tell you.”
“When?”
“Before the wedding.”
“That generous?”
She laughed softly.
Then her expression faded.
“I didn’t think you would still want one.”
Elias said nothing.
The truth was uncomfortable.
He didn’t know what he wanted.
But he knew he no longer wanted her taken away.
“You wrote that you wanted a partnership,” she said.
“I did.”
“You wrote that loneliness had become heavier than work.”
He looked at her.
“You remember that?”
“I remember all your letters.”
For some reason, that hit harder than it should have.
She continued.
“You wrote that your home wasn’t grand, but it was honest.”
“It still isn’t grand.”
“It’s the first place I felt safe in years.”
Their eyes met.
Then a branch snapped.
Elias stood.
Matthew appeared in the doorway.
“Riders?”
“No.”
He held a scrap of paper.
“I found this under the door.”
Elias took it.
One sentence had been written in charcoal.
COME TO STEVENSVILLE ALONE BY NOON OR THE BOY DIES.
Clara frowned.
“What boy?”
Matthew looked at Elias.
“Thomas Reed has a grandson.”
Elias’s stomach dropped.
“Caleb.”
“Eight years old.”
Clara whispered, “Creed took him?”
Matthew nodded.
Elias grabbed his coat.
“No.”
Clara caught his arm.
“You can’t ride into town alone.”
“He’s a child.”
“That is exactly why Creed chose him.”
Matthew took the note again.
“There’s something else.”
He turned it over.
A small mark had been drawn on the back.
A circle crossed by two lines.
Elias knew it immediately.
Their mother used to carve that mark into lunch tins when they were boys.
It meant:
Not what it seems.
Elias looked at Matthew.
“Who wrote this?”
Matthew’s face went pale.
“I don’t know.”
A knock sounded against the line shack door.
Three slow taps.
Then two.
Matthew raised his gun.
Elias moved beside him.
Clara picked up a rifle.
The knock came again.
Three.
Then two.
Matthew whispered, “Only one other person knows that signal.”
“Who?”
Matthew reached for the latch.
“Our mother.”
Elias stared at him.
May you like
Their mother had been dead for seven years.
Matthew opened the door.
