Chapter 3 - A Debt Written in Another Man's Name
Judson crossed the room with his revolver raised.
The window was empty.
Then a voice came from outside.
"Don't shoot me, you fool."
Silas.
Judson opened the door.
Silas hurried inside carrying a saddlebag.
"You were followed from town."
He had found tracks near the ridge.
Three riders.
Possibly four.
Judson showed him the note.
Silas read the words COME ALONE, LITTLE BROTHER and sat down.
"That's impossible."
"Unless Matthew survived," Winifred said.
Judson shook his head.
"I saw him go over."
"You saw him disappear over a ridge."
"It was a two-hundred-foot drop."
"Did you see his body?"
Judson didn't answer.
Silas did.
"No."
A body had been recovered three days later.
Badly damaged.
The sheriff identified it as Matthew from his coat, boots, and belongings.
Judson had never been allowed to see the face.
The possibility changed everything.
At dawn, Judson prepared to ride to the pass.
Winifred blocked the doorway.
"The note says alone."
"Exactly."
"And you're planning to obey a threat written by someone who may have murdered your brother?"
"I'm planning to keep you alive."
"By taking them the only key they want?"
Judson frowned.
She held up another key.
He stared.
Winifred had spent the night filing an old cabinet key until it resembled the brass storage key.
"You made a copy?"
"A bad one."
A reluctant smile touched his mouth.
"You're full of surprises."
"So I've been told."
They devised a plan.
Judson would carry the false key.
Winifred and Silas would follow at a distance.
The real key remained hidden inside a flour barrel.
By midnight, Blackstone Pass was silver beneath the moon.
Judson waited alone beside the abandoned mining shed.
A rider emerged.
Clyde Mercer.
"Key."
"First tell me who wrote the note."
Mercer smiled.
"You still take orders poorly."
"Where's Matthew?"
The smile disappeared.
"Dead."
"Then who called me little brother?"
Mercer held out his hand.
"The key."
Judson tossed it.
Mercer examined it.
Then a gunshot cracked.
The key flew from Mercer's hand.
Silas stepped from behind a boulder with his rifle.
Winifred appeared beside him.
Judson groaned.
"I told you to stay farther back."
"You also told me I couldn't handle the Rockies."
Mercer reached for his gun.
Winifred pointed Silas's second pistol at him.
"Don't."
Mercer froze.
Judson searched him.
Inside Mercer's coat was a ledger.
Payments.
Property numbers.
Names.
One entry stopped Winifred.
EDMUND HAYES — $2,000.
Her father had received money from Amos Black.
Judson watched her face fall.
"It doesn't prove—"
"It proves he was paid."
Mercer laughed.
"Your daddy wasn't the saint you imagined."
Winifred struck him.
Not with the skillet this time.
With her palm.
"Tell me what he did."
"He printed whatever Black gave him."
"Forged deeds?"
"Among other things."
"Why did he turn against Black?"
Mercer shrugged.
"Conscience gets expensive."
Judson grabbed him.
"What happened to Matthew?"
Mercer's confidence finally cracked.
"I wasn't there."
"Who was?"
"Black."
"And?"
Mercer looked toward the darkness.
"And somebody Matthew trusted."
A shot came from the ridge.
Mercer collapsed.
Winifred screamed.
Judson pulled her behind the mining shed.
Silas fired toward the ridge.
Hooves thundered away.
Mercer clutched his chest.
Judson knelt.
"Who?"
Mercer struggled to breathe.
"Your... father."
Judson froze.
"My father died when I was seventeen."
Mercer laughed weakly.
"That's what... Matthew thought too."
Then he went still.
They returned to the ranch before dawn.
Judson said almost nothing.
His father, Angus McIntyre, had supposedly died in a logging accident fifteen years earlier.
There had been a coffin.
There had been a funeral.
But the body had been burned beyond recognition.
Another unrecognizable body.
Another convenient death.
Winifred began to understand.
"This isn't just about land."
"No."
"It's about people disappearing whenever they learn something."
Judson looked at her.
"And now you're involved."
"I was involved before I met you."
He hated that she was right.
Two days later, they traveled to the county records office.
The clerk resisted until Silas threatened to bring Reverend Cole and half the town.
They found the original McIntyre deed.
The property wasn't valuable merely because of the railroad route.
Beneath the ranch lay mineral rights covering part of Blackstone Mountain.
Silver.
Possibly enough to make Amos Black one of the richest men in the territory.
But there was another condition.
Ownership transferred through the McIntyre bloodline.
If Judson died without a legal spouse or child, Amos Black could enforce an old debt claim and seize the property.
Winifred stared at the document.
"Then marrying me stopped him."
Judson nodded slowly.
"That explains why he wanted control over the agency."
"But why choose me?"
"Because of your father."
Black needed someone whose history he could use.
Someone tied to the forged deeds.
If necessary, he could discredit both Judson and his wife.
Winifred suddenly laughed.
Judson stared.
"What?"
"I crossed half a country believing some lonely mountain man wanted a wife."
"I did."
"You wanted a woman built like a lumberjack."
"I never said that."
"You nearly looked behind the stagecoach for her."
Judson actually laughed.
It was the first time she'd heard it.
The sound changed his face.
For a moment, neither remembered Black.
Then Judson grew serious.
"I was wrong about you."
Winifred looked away.
"That isn't the same as wanting me."
The words surprised both of them.
Their marriage had been practical.
At least it was supposed to be.
Judson stepped closer.
"Winifred—"
A bell rang outside the records office.
Fire.
Smoke rose from the far end of Coldwater.
Silas ran into the street.
"Judson!"
The smoke wasn't coming from town.
It was coming from the direction of the McIntyre ranch.
They rode hard.
By the time they reached the property, the barn was burning.
Judson rushed toward it.
Winifred stopped him.
"The horses!"
The stalls were empty.
Someone had released them.
The fire had been set deliberately.
Then Winifred saw the cabin door.
Open.
She ran inside.
The wooden box was gone.
Her father's notebook was gone.
The flour barrel had been overturned.
The real key was gone.
Judson entered behind her.
"They have it."
Winifred stared at the empty hiding place.
"No."
"What?"
She reached into her dress.
From beneath the bodice, she pulled out the real brass key.
Judson stared.
"I moved it this morning."
"You didn't tell me."
"I am learning from my husband."
He almost smiled.
Then they heard a groan.
Silas lay behind the cabin.
Blood covered his temple.
He was alive.
Barely.
Judson knelt.
"Who did this?"
Silas opened his eyes.
"They knew... about the key."
"Who?"
Silas gripped Judson's coat.
"Not Black."
Judson leaned closer.
Silas whispered two words.
"Your brother."
Then his eyes closed.
Behind them, Winifred heard a revolver being cocked.
A familiar voice spoke from the doorway.
"He's right, Jud."
Judson slowly turned.
A man stood inside the burned doorway.
May you like
He had Judson's eyes.
"Hello, little brother."
