Chapter 2 - The Child in the Stable
Mara aimed directly at the stranger.
“Put her down.”
Silas saw the small girl in the man’s arms and lowered his rifle half an inch.
The girl wore a brass tag around her neck.
Three numbers had been scratched into it:
“17 — 4 — 9.”
Silas suddenly knew the numbers were not coordinates.
The stranger released the girl.
She ran.
Mara caught her.
The man turned toward the trees.
Silas fired into the dirt beside his boots.
“Next one won’t miss.”
The stranger stopped.
The girl clung to Mara’s skirt.
She looked perhaps five years old, thin beneath an oversized coat, with a bruise along her temple.
“Who are you?” Mara asked.
The child trembled.
“Annie.”
“Who brought you?”
She pointed.
The man in gray slowly turned.
“I did.”
Silas kept the rifle aimed.
“Name.”
“Jonas Vale.”
Mara’s face drained of color.
Silas noticed.
“You know him?”
“No.”
Jonas smiled.
“She knows the name.”
Mara moved Annie behind her.
“My sister mentioned you.”
“That makes more sense.”
“She said if she ever disappeared, I should run from you.”
Jonas’s smile vanished.
“Your sister misunderstood a great many things.”
“She understood dying.”
Silas stepped closer.
“Start talking.”
Jonas looked at him.
“You Mercer?”
“Yes.”
“You’re larger than advertised.”
“And less patient.”
Jonas glanced toward Annie.
“She came from St. Agnes Home in Denver.”
Mara frowned.
“An orphanage?”
“On paper.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means your sister wasn’t investigating stolen freight.”
Mara’s grip tightened on the revolver.
Jonas continued.
“She found children.”
The world seemed to contract around those words.
Silas lowered the rifle slightly.
“Children where?”
“In shipments.”
Mara stared.
Jonas’s voice remained quiet.
“Freight wagons came into Denver carrying mining equipment. They left carrying children. Some were orphans. Some weren’t.”
“Where were they taken?”
“Mining camps. Ranches. Households willing to pay.”
Mara looked at Annie.
The girl pressed herself against her.
“My sister found out?”
“Yes.”
“Then why is she dead?”
“Because she tried to stop it.”
Mara fired.
The bullet struck the porch post inches from Jonas’s face.
Silas seized her wrist before she fired again.
“Mara.”
“He killed her!”
“No,” Jonas said.
“You expect me to believe that?”
“No. I expect you to stay alive long enough to discover it.”
Silas’s voice hardened.
“Who killed her?”
Jonas looked toward the road.
“Men who know I’m here.”
That changed everything.
Silas extinguished the lantern.
Darkness swallowed the porch.
“Inside.”
They moved quickly.
Silas barred the door.
Mara carried Annie to the kitchen while Jonas remained beneath Silas’s rifle.
Eli woke and began fussing.
Annie saw him.
Her frightened expression softened.
“Baby.”
“His name is Eli,” Mara said.
Annie touched his tiny hand.
“He was there.”
Mara froze.
“Where?”
“The place with the red door.”
Jonas closed his eyes.
Mara crossed the room in two steps and grabbed his coat.
“What place?”
“Warehouse seventeen.”
Seventeen.
Silas put the brass key on the table.
“Four and nine?”
Jonas nodded.
“Section four. Locker nine.”
Mara stared at the key.
Her sister had left a path.
Not random numbers.
Instructions.
“What’s inside?”
“Evidence.”
“What kind?”
“Enough to hang powerful men.”
“Names?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
Jonas looked at Silas.
“People in Mercy Hollow.”
Silas went still.
Jonas continued.
“That’s why I brought Annie here. Your sister trusted Mercer.”
Mara turned.
“You knew Clara?”
Silas shook his head.
“Not that I remember.”
Jonas reached slowly inside his coat.
Silas raised the rifle.
“Easy.”
Jonas produced a folded photograph.
He slid it across the table.
Silas opened it.
Three men stood outside a Denver freight warehouse.
One was Jonas.
One was a stranger.
The third was Silas’s younger brother, Nathan.
Silas stopped breathing.
Nathan had been dead four years.
At least that was what Silas had believed.
“What is this?”
“Taken two months ago.”
“No.”
“Look at the date.”
Silas did.
February 3, 1887.
Nathan had supposedly died in 1883.
Mara watched Silas’s face.
“Your brother?”
Silas sat down.
For the first time since she had met him, the giant looked small.
“He died in a mine collapse.”
Jonas shook his head.
“No body?”
Silas said nothing.
That was answer enough.
Jonas pointed at the photograph.
“Nathan Mercer helped Clara Bell.”
Mara’s anger shifted into confusion.
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
“You just said—”
“I lost contact with him after Clara died.”
Mara began pacing.
Silas remained staring at the photograph.
His brother alive.
Four stolen years.
A woman murdered.
Children transported like cargo.
And somehow all of it had arrived at his ranch with the woman he had ordered from a matrimonial advertisement.
Then another thought struck him.
“Why did Clara trust me?”
Jonas looked at Mara.
“She didn’t.”
“What?”
“She trusted Mara.”
Mara stopped.
Jonas continued.
“Clara knew her sister would never abandon Eli. She also knew Mara would never hide forever.”
Silas understood.
“So she arranged the marriage.”
Mara laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
“My sister ordered me a husband?”
“In a manner of speaking.”
Mara stared at the marriage contract.
“She chose him?”
Jonas nodded.
“Why?”
“Because Nathan told her there was one man in Colorado he trusted with his life.”
Silas looked down.
His brother.
Alive.
And still trusting him.
Mara sat beside him.
For once, she had no joke.
Silas looked at her.
“You knew none of this?”
“None.”
“You thought the agency matched us?”
“Yes.”
Jonas almost smiled.
“Clara bribed the clerk.”
Mara rubbed both hands over her face.
“My dead sister arranged my marriage.”
“Yes.”
“To a giant.”
“Yes.”
“Who requested a quiet woman.”
Jonas hesitated.
“Apparently Clara found that extremely funny.”
Mara laughed.
Then she cried.
It happened so suddenly Silas did not know what to do.
She turned away, ashamed of it.
He placed one enormous hand over hers.
She did not pull away.
That was how they sat when the first bullet shattered the kitchen window.
Silas threw Mara to the floor.
Jonas overturned the table.
“Lights out!”
Another shot tore into the wall.
Eli screamed.
Annie crawled beneath the stove table.
Mara grabbed both children.
“How many?”
Silas peered through a crack.
“Three. Maybe four.”
Jonas drew his pistol.
“They found me.”
“Back door,” Silas said.
“No,” Mara replied.
“Mara—”
“This is your ranch.”
“Yes.”
“And those are my children now.”
She handed Eli to Annie.
“Stay low.”
Then she picked up Silas’s second rifle.
He stared at her.
“What?”
“You know how to use that?”
Mara levered a cartridge into the chamber.
“My father had five daughters.”
“What happened to him?”
“He complained a lot.”
Despite everything, Silas grinned.
They fought from the dark.
Silas covered the front.
Jonas watched the rear.
Mara fired through the broken kitchen window.
A man cried out.
Another bullet struck the roof.
Lucifer screamed in the stable.
Then silence.
Too much silence.
Silas knew what it meant.
“They’re moving.”
“Where?”
He smelled smoke.
“Barn.”
Mara ran.
Silas caught her.
“Children first.”
“The horses!”
“Children.”
She hated that he was right.
They carried Eli and Annie through the root cellar tunnel Silas had dug years earlier for winter storms.
Jonas followed.
They emerged behind a stand of pines.
Flames climbed the stable wall.
Mara handed Eli to Jonas.
Then she ran toward the fire.
Silas cursed and followed.
They freed the horses.
Lucifer nearly trampled Mara before Silas grabbed the stallion’s halter.
Together they led him through smoke.
The attackers had disappeared.
By dawn, half the stable was gone.
Sheriff Pike arrived with six men.
He listened.
He examined shells.
He studied Jonas Vale.
Then he saw Annie.
His expression changed.
“I know her.”
Mara stepped closer.
“How?”
“Missing notice came through three months ago. Family from Kansas.”
Annie stared at him.
“Papa?”
“No, sweetheart.”
Amos crouched.
“But I think I can find him.”
For the first time, hope appeared in the child’s face.
Silas took Amos aside.
He showed him the photograph of Nathan.
The sheriff stared.
“Where did you get this?”
“Jonas.”
Amos looked toward the house.
“You trust him?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“But I trust that photograph.”
Amos rubbed his jaw.
“If Nathan’s alive, somebody lied about that mine collapse.”
“Who signed the death report?”
Amos’s expression became uncomfortable.
Silas understood immediately.
“Who?”
“Dr. Horace Venn.”
Mara heard the name from behind them.
Her face changed.
Silas turned.
“What?”
She whispered, “That’s the doctor who signed Clara’s death certificate.”
Nobody spoke.
Two dead people.
One doctor.
Except one of them was not dead.
Mara looked at Silas.
“Warehouse seventeen.”
He nodded.
“We go together.”
“When?”
“Now.”
They left Eli and Annie with Mrs. Pike and rode toward Denver before noon.
Jonas came with them.
Three hours outside Mercy Hollow, they found a wagon abandoned in the road.
A body lay beside it.
Silas dismounted.
The man was still alive.
Barely.
He grabbed Silas’s coat.
“Mercer?”
“Yes.”
The wounded man pushed an envelope into his hand.
“Your brother…”
Silas tore it open.
Inside was a single piece of paper.
One sentence.
SILAS, DO NOT TRUST JONAS VALE.
Silas slowly raised his eyes.
Jonas had disappeared.
Then Mara screamed from behind the wagon.
Silas ran toward her.
She was staring into the empty baby basket hidden beneath a blanket.
A fresh note had been pinned inside.
May you like
It read:
WE HAVE ELI.
