Chapter 4 - What Elias Found in the Loft
Elias climbed the ladder first.
Constance remained below with the fireplace poker in both hands.
A crash sounded overhead.
Then a shout.
A body struck the floor.
Constance ran toward the ladder.
“Elias!”
“Stay down!”
Another crash.
Then silence.
A man suddenly dropped from the loft.
Constance screamed and jumped backward.
He landed hard, rolled, and scrambled toward the door.
She recognized him.
The young man from outside the saloon.
The one who had mocked her.
Elias came down behind him.
“Stop!”
The intruder ran.
Constance stuck out the fireplace poker.
It caught his ankle.
He hit the floor.
Elias stared at her.
“What?”
“You tripped him.”
“I noticed.”
“With a fireplace poker.”
“He was escaping.”
The young man groaned.
Elias tied his wrists.
His name was Caleb Dunn.
Twenty-three.
Stable hand.
Occasional laborer for Harvey Pike.
He was terrified.
That made him talk.
Pike had paid him five dollars to search the cabin.
“Where are the letters?” Constance demanded.
“I didn’t take them.”
“Who did?”
“Pike came before me.”
Elias crouched.
“When?”
“Yesterday.”
Constance’s stomach turned.
Pike had been inside their cabin while they were in town.
Their cabin.
The thought came naturally.
She corrected herself.
Elias’s cabin.
“Why send you afterward?” Elias asked.
“To find the ledger.”
“What ledger?”
Caleb shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
Elias looked at Constance.
She looked back.
Neither knew what he meant.
“Pike said your father kept it,” Caleb continued.
Elias froze.
“My father?”
“He said old Boon wrote everything down.”
Elias stood.
“My father died fifteen years ago.”
“Pike knows.”
“What’s in the ledger?”
“I swear I don’t know.”
Caleb began crying.
Constance believed him.
Elias eventually untied him.
“You’re letting him go?” she asked.
“He walks to town.”
“In this cold?”
“He broke into my house.”
Caleb looked horrified.
Constance folded her arms.
Elias sighed.
“Fine. Samuel can take him tomorrow.”
Constance smiled.
“You’re becoming civilized.”
“Don’t spread it around.”
They spent the afternoon searching.
Elias had inherited the cabin from his father, Nathaniel Boon, who had trapped and logged the mountain before homesteading it.
Nathaniel had kept records.
But Elias remembered no ledger.
They searched cupboards.
Boxes.
The loft.
Under the bed.
Behind loose stones.
Nothing.
At sunset, Constance found Elias sitting alone on the porch.
She brought coffee.
He accepted it.
“Tell me about him.”
“My father?”
“Yes.”
Elias stared toward the ridge.
“Hard man.”
“Cruel?”
“No.”
He considered.
“Maybe to himself.”
Constance waited.
“He believed needing people made you weak.”
“And you?”
“I believed him for a long time.”
“What changed?”
Elias looked at her.
The answer sat between them.
Neither touched it.
Instead he said, “He and Pike’s father worked together once.”
Constance turned.
“Doing what?”
“Mining.”
There it was.
The missing connection.
“Where?”
“Don’t know.”
“Could the ledger describe it?”
“Maybe.”
They searched again.
This time for places Nathaniel would have considered secure.
Elias checked beneath the fireplace stones.
Constance examined old furniture.
At last she noticed the damaged table.
“Was this your father’s?”
“Yes.”
She crouched.
The underside had several repairs.
One brace looked older than the others.
“Elias.”
He joined her.
They removed it.
Behind the wooden brace was a narrow cavity.
Empty.
Except for a scrap of leather.
“Ledger cover?” Constance asked.
Elias nodded.
“Pike already found it?”
“No.”
“How do you know?”
He pointed.
Dust covered the cavity evenly.
Whatever had been stored there had been removed years earlier.
“Your father moved it.”
“Or somebody else did.”
The mystery deepened.
So did winter.
By early December, snow made regular travel nearly impossible.
Samuel visited when he could.
Margaret sent newspapers.
Pike filed his land challenge.
Elias responded.
Constance stayed.
At first, she told herself it was because the legal dispute required witnesses.
Then because winter roads were unsafe.
Then because Elias needed help.
Eventually she stopped inventing reasons.
She liked the mountain.
More dangerously, she liked the man.
They developed routines.
She baked every morning.
He split wood.
They ate breakfast together.
She read while he carved.
He repaired things she had not asked him to repair.
Her trunk latch.
Her sewing stool.
The handle of her mother’s cup.
She mended his shirts.
One evening he entered carrying a package.
“For you.”
Constance stared.
“What is it?”
“Open it.”
Inside was blue wool.
Beautiful.
Thick.
Enough for a new winter coat.
She touched it.
“Elias.”
“Your coat’s too thin.”
“I can’t accept this.”
“You can.”
“It must have cost—”
“Don’t.”
She looked up.
“Why?”
He seemed uncomfortable.
“Because you’re cold.”
“That isn’t what I meant.”
“I know.”
His eyes dropped.
Constance’s heart began beating faster.
Then he turned away.
She grabbed his sleeve.
“Elias.”
He stopped.
“You don’t owe me kindness because of what happened.”
“I know.”
“Then why are you kind to me?”
He looked at her hand on his arm.
Then at her.
“Because I want to be.”
The room became very quiet.
Constance released him.
She could not breathe correctly.
Elias stepped closer.
Slowly.
Giving her time to move.
She did not.
His hand lifted.
He touched one loose curl near her temple.
Constance’s eyes closed.
Then the dog outside began barking wildly.
Elias turned.
A horse was approaching.
Samuel burst through the door seconds later.
“Pike got an injunction.”
Elias’s expression hardened.
“What kind?”
“He convinced the court nobody can alter or harvest anything from the disputed acreage until the hearing.”
“That’s half my timber.”
“Exactly.”
Without timber, Elias could not fulfill his winter contracts.
Without those contracts, he could lose the property even if he won the claim.
Constance looked at Samuel.
“When’s the hearing?”
“January.”
“That’s six weeks.”
Samuel nodded.
“Pike knows.”
Elias paced.
“There has to be something in my father’s records.”
“The ledger,” Constance said.
Everyone looked at her.
“If Pike wants it, the ledger matters.”
“But we don’t know where it is.”
Constance thought.
Nathaniel Boon believed needing people made a man weak.
A man like that would not trust banks.
Or lawyers.
Or partners.
Where would he hide something important?
Somewhere only he controlled.
She looked toward the fireplace.
Then beyond it.
“The mountain.”
Elias frowned.
“What?”
“Your father didn’t hide the ledger in the cabin.”
“How do you know?”
“He hid it where he believed nobody else had a right to go.”
She pointed toward the north ridge.
“On his land.”
The next morning, they searched Nathaniel’s old belongings again.
This time Constance found a map folded inside his Bible.
One place had been marked with an X.
An abandoned hunting shelter stood three miles north.
Elias knew it.
They left before noon.
The trail was difficult.
Constance insisted on going.
Elias complained for the first mile.
She ignored him.
At the shelter, they found rotting boards and snow.
Nothing else.
Until Elias noticed numbers carved into a beam.
17-4-9.
Constance stared.
“Bible verses?”
“No.”
Elias touched the carving.
“My father marked timber this way.”
“What does it mean?”
“Seventeen feet east. Four north. Nine down.”
They dug.
At nine inches, Elias’s shovel struck metal.
Not nine feet.
Nine inches.
He uncovered a small iron box.
Constance knelt beside him.
Elias opened it.
Inside was a ledger wrapped in oilcloth.
They found it.
Constance laughed.
Elias grabbed her around the waist and lifted her.
She shrieked.
For one glorious second, they forgot everything.
Then he set her down.
Their faces were inches apart.
Neither moved.
Elias whispered her name.
“Constance.”
She looked at his mouth.
He leaned closer.
A gunshot exploded outside.
The shelter window shattered.
Elias threw Constance to the floor.
A second bullet struck the wall.
May you like
Then a voice outside called:
“Leave the ledger and walk away!”
