Chapter 4 - The Empty Grave
Claire did not remember crossing the room.
One moment Silas held the shotgun.
The next, she was standing inches from him.
“What did you say?”
Silas looked at the floor.
“Daniel wasn’t in the coffin.”
Elias took the gun from his hands.
Silas offered no resistance.
Claire’s voice shook.
“Where is my husband?”
“I don’t know.”
She slapped him.
Silas stumbled.
Elias did not stop her.
“You stood beside me at his funeral.”
“I know.”
“You watched me bury an empty coffin.”
“I know.”
“What was inside?”
“Stones.”
Claire turned away before she struck him again.
Her entire body trembled.
Hope tried to rise.
She crushed it.
A missing body did not mean Daniel was alive.
“Why?”
Silas sank into the chair.
“Pike couldn’t find Daniel after the attack.”
Elias went still.
“What?”
Silas looked at him.
“You thought he died.”
“He did.”
“No.”
Elias approached.
“I held him while he stopped breathing.”
Silas shook his head.
“You left to draw Pike’s men away.”
“Yes.”
“After you left, Daniel woke.”
Claire gripped the desk.
Silas continued.
“Brenner found him.”
“The undertaker?”
“He was collecting bodies from a mining accident. Daniel woke inside his wagon.”
Claire’s heart pounded.
“What happened then?”
“Brenner hid him.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
Elias grabbed Silas by the coat.
“You kept this secret?”
Silas’s face twisted.
“Pike had my wife. My property. My son.”
“And Daniel?”
“I thought Pike eventually found him.”
“Thought?”
“Six weeks after the funeral, Pike paid Brenner five hundred dollars.”
Claire remembered Brenner leaving town suddenly.
He had claimed a sister was ill.
“Where did Brenner go?”
“North.”
“Saint Mercy?”
“I don’t know.”
Claire looked at Elias.
Daniel might have survived.
Weeks.
Perhaps longer.
The thought was almost unbearable.
Silas suddenly grabbed Claire’s arm.
“Listen to me. Pike knows someone entered the courthouse.”
“How?”
“He marked the floorboard.”
Elias cursed.
“We need to leave.”
Silas blocked the door.
“You won’t make it through Main Street.”
“Then show us another way.”
The old auctioneer opened a storage closet.
Behind shelves of legal records was a narrow staircase.
“Old jail tunnel. Comes out behind the livery.”
Claire stopped before entering.
“Come with us.”
Silas shook his head.
“If I disappear, Pike goes after Martha.”
“He already owns your life.”
“I know.”
Silas’s eyes filled.
“That is why one of us needs to stop being afraid.”
He gave Claire the black ledger.
“Take it.”
They escaped through the tunnel.
By dawn they were back at the ranch.
Jonah listened in disbelief.
“Daniel survived?”
“For some amount of time,” Claire said.
She refused to say more.
Hope had already hurt too much.
Elias sat near the window holding Rose.
He had barely spoken since the courthouse.
Claire finally approached.
“You believed he died.”
“Yes.”
“You left him.”
“To save him.”
“I know.”
“I should have gone back sooner.”
“You had men chasing you.”
“I should have gone back.”
Claire looked at Rose.
“Is that why you protected Anna?”
Elias nodded.
“Daniel asked me to find her if anything happened.”
“And Rose?”
“Anna was pregnant when Daniel died.”
Claire’s eyes widened.
Elias saw the thought.
“No.”
Claire felt ashamed.
“I didn’t—”
“Rose isn’t Daniel’s.”
“Whose is she?”
Elias looked at the child.
“My brother’s.”
Claire sat slowly.
Elias explained.
His younger brother Samuel had worked for Pike hauling ore.
He fell in love with Anna.
When Samuel discovered what Pike was doing, he threatened to testify.
Three days later, Samuel disappeared.
Anna was already pregnant.
“Pike killed him?”
“I believe so.”
“So Rose is your niece.”
“Yes.”
Claire finally understood why Elias had risked everything.
“You’re all she has.”
His eyes moved toward Claire’s unborn child.
“So is yours.”
The words settled between them.
Two children fatherless because of the same men.
Two families broken by the same secret.
Claire looked at Daniel’s letter.
“We find Brenner.”
Jonah frowned.
“North is a lot of land.”
“Saint Mercy.”
“Why?”
“Because every road leads there.”
They left the next morning.
Martha remained at the ranch with Rose.
Claire hated leaving the baby, but carrying a newborn into dangerous mountain country was impossible.
Elias rode beside Claire.
Jonah followed.
Saint Mercy appeared near sunset.
Burned foundations.
Collapsed cabins.
A ruined chapel.
Dozens of wooden grave markers leaned beneath pine trees.
They found recent tracks.
One horse.
Maybe two.
Inside the ruined chapel, someone had been living.
Blankets.
Tin cups.
Medicine bottles.
Claire found a familiar object beside a cot.
Daniel’s knife.
She picked it up.
The initials D.W. were carved into the handle.
Her breath vanished.
“He was here.”
Elias searched outside.
Jonah found ashes less than a day old.
Then came a voice from behind the chapel.
“Put down the rifle.”
Elias turned.
An old man stepped from the trees.
Henry Brenner.
The undertaker looked twenty years older.
He held a revolver.
Claire walked toward him.
“Where is Daniel?”
Brenner stared at her belly.
Tears filled his eyes.
“Claire.”
She stopped.
“How do you know my name?”
“Daniel talked about you every day.”
Her knees nearly collapsed.
“Is he alive?”
Brenner lowered the gun.
“I don’t know.”
Claire closed her eyes.
“Tell me.”
He brought them into the chapel.
After Daniel revived in the undertaker’s wagon, Brenner hid him for weeks.
Daniel had suffered a skull fracture, broken ribs, and a gunshot wound.
“He couldn’t remember everything,” Brenner said. “Some days he didn’t know his own name.”
“But he recovered?”
“Enough to leave.”
“Where?”
Brenner looked toward the graveyard.
“He discovered what happened here.”
Daniel had spent weeks collecting evidence from old graves, identifying victims, documenting bullet wounds.
Then one night he vanished.
“Pike found him?”
“I thought so.”
“Did you see a body?”
“No.”
Claire laughed bitterly.
“That seems to be a problem around here.”
Brenner reached beneath his cot.
He brought out a canvas bag.
Inside was Daniel’s journal.
Claire opened it.
The final entry was dated seven weeks after his funeral.
My memory returns in pieces. Claire must believe I am dead until Pike is exposed. If I go home, he will use her against me. Especially now that she carries our child.
Claire could not breathe.
Daniel knew about the baby.
He had known.
A tear fell onto the page.
The final line continued.
Brenner believes there may be a federal investigator near Fort Harrison. I leave tomorrow.
Claire looked up.
“Fort Harrison.”
Jonah nodded.
“Three days north.”
Brenner suddenly went still.
Elias heard it too.
Horses.
Many.
Outside.
Elias extinguished the lantern.
Brenner moved toward the rear wall.
“There’s a cellar.”
The chapel door burst inward.
Sheriff Pike stepped inside with six armed men.
He smiled at Claire.
“Mrs. Whitaker.”
Claire backed toward the altar.
Pike’s gaze dropped to Daniel’s journal in her hands.
His smile disappeared.
“Give me that.”
“No.”
He raised his revolver.
Elias stepped between them.
Pike cocked the hammer.
Then another voice came from outside.
Calm.
Familiar.
Impossible.
“Lower the gun, Amos.”
Claire stopped breathing.
Pike’s face turned white.
A man stepped through the broken chapel door.
Thin.
Scarred.
Alive.
May you like
Claire whispered one word.
“Daniel.”
