Chapter 5 - The Sheriff’s Signature
Sheriff Cole stared at the telegram as though it had accused him of murder.
“I didn’t sign that.”
Caleb took the paper.
“Looks like your hand.”
“It isn’t.”
Jonas watched him carefully.
Cole had known the Hargrave family for twenty years.
He had helped search Evernight after the collapse.
He had stood beside Jonas at his father’s funeral.
He had served as witness at Jonas and Ellie’s wedding.
Trust was precisely what made betrayal useful.
Cole saw the suspicion.
“If I wanted that box opened, why would I show you the telegram?”
Jonas answered, “Because you didn’t expect us to know the signature was yours.”
Cole swore.
“Think.”
Ellie stepped between them.
“Who has access to your signature?”
“Half the county.”
“Official documents?”
“My office.”
Caleb looked toward the front desk.
“The deputy?”
Cole’s expression changed.
Deputy Martin Shaw had guarded Rusk before Rusk disappeared.
Shaw had claimed he was knocked unconscious.
No one had actually seen the attack.
Cole walked toward the back room.
“Martin!”
No answer.
His coat was gone.
So was his horse.
Jonas looked through the deputy’s desk.
Empty.
Too empty.
Caleb found a torn train schedule in the wastebasket.
Denver departure.
Two fifteen.
They had forty minutes.
Jonas, Ellie, Caleb, Rusk, and Cole reached the platform as the train prepared to leave.
No sign of Shaw.
They boarded anyway.
During the journey south, Ellie sat beside Jonas.
He had barely spoken since the mine.
“You’re hurt.”
“I’ve been hurt before.”
“That does not make the blood disappear.”
She cleaned the cut near his temple.
Jonas remained still.
Across the aisle, Caleb pretended not to watch.
Ellie noticed.
“You can stop staring.”
Caleb smiled.
“I’m trying to understand how my brother convinced you to marry him.”
“He advertised.”
Caleb laughed.
Jonas closed his eyes.
“This train could derail and improve my day.”
Ellie tied the bandage.
“Done.”
Jonas looked at her.
“Thank you.”
Her fingers remained near his face.
The train rocked gently.
For a moment, the danger outside their compartment disappeared.
Jonas covered her hand with his.
“You shouldn’t have come to the mine.”
“I know.”
“You could’ve been killed.”
“So could you.”
“That’s different.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Explain.”
Jonas opened his mouth.
Then stopped.
Because he could not explain without admitting the truth.
Her life had become more important to him than his own.
Ellie saw it anyway.
She leaned closer.
Their foreheads touched.
“You told me you wanted another human being in that cabin,” she whispered.
“I remember.”
“You got one.”
Jonas smiled faintly.
“Apparently a difficult one.”
“You advertised poorly.”
He kissed her.
Not dramatically.
Not desperately.
Just once.
Warm.
Careful.
Real.
When they separated, Caleb cleared his throat loudly.
Jonas looked across the aisle.
“I buried you once.”
Caleb grinned.
“Missed me too.”
Denver was chaos compared with Silver Plume.
Carriages.
Streetcars.
Hotels.
Banks.
Hundreds of strangers.
They went directly to Union Bank.
The manager, Henry Dawes, met them in a private office.
He looked terrified.
“Yes, the box was opened.”
“By whom?” Ellie asked.
“You.”
“No.”
“I saw you.”
Jonas leaned forward.
“You saw my wife?”
Dawes swallowed.
“A woman who looked exactly like her.”
Ellie’s skin chilled.
“Exactly?”
“Same hair. Same height. Similar voice.”
Caleb asked, “Was she alone?”
“No.”
“Who?”
“Deputy Shaw.”
Cole slammed a fist against the desk.
Dawes jumped.
“And a gentleman from Philadelphia.”
“Charles,” Ellie said.
Dawes nodded.
“What did they take?”
“Documents. A journal. Several maps.”
“Anything left?”
The manager hesitated.
“Your father instructed us that if anyone attempted unauthorized access, we were to move one item.”
Ellie sat forward.
“What item?”
Dawes opened a safe.
He removed a small wooden case.
Inside was a pocket watch.
Ellie recognized it.
“My father’s.”
The back opened.
Inside was a tiny rolled paper.
Jonas unrolled it.
A set of coordinates.
Caleb recognized them.
“Evernight.”
They had just come from there.
“What’s at those coordinates?” Jonas asked.
Caleb shook his head.
“Not the mine.”
He studied the map.
“Higher.”
Rusk leaned closer.
“Old survey cabin.”
Caleb’s eyes widened.
“That’s where Whitmore hid the original deed.”
Ellie looked at the others.
“So the papers Charles stole are copies.”
“Yes.”
A knock sounded.
Two federal marshals entered.
Sheriff Cole relaxed slightly.
Until they arrested him.
“What the hell?”
One marshal produced a warrant.
Nathan Cole was charged with conspiracy, fraud, and aiding theft from a federally chartered bank.
The evidence included his signature.
Witness testimony.
And money found in an account under his name.
“This is Pembroke,” Jonas said.
The marshal shrugged.
“Tell it to the judge.”
Cole was taken away.
Before leaving, he grabbed Jonas’s sleeve.
“Find Shaw.”
“I will.”
“He knows your cabin.”
Jonas frowned.
“What?”
“Deputy Shaw asked me for property maps two weeks ago. Said he was checking winter access roads.”
Ellie went pale.
Their cabin.
Her belongings.
Everything.
They rented rooms at a hotel but did not stay long.
Jonas wanted to return immediately.
Caleb stopped him.
“Charles wants you angry.”
“He knows where we live.”
“He already knew.”
“He knows Ellie.”
“So keep your head.”
Jonas grabbed Caleb’s coat.
“Twelve years gone and now you’re giving brotherly advice?”
Caleb didn’t flinch.
“Yes.”
Ellie stepped between them again.
“Enough.”
Jonas released him.
She looked at Caleb.
“Why did Charles use a woman who looked like me?”
“To establish a record.”
“For what?”
“Maybe to prove the fake marriage.”
Ellie felt sick.
“If witnesses believe I appeared as Eleanor Pembroke…”
“Then he argues you accepted the marriage.”
Jonas’s expression darkened.
“He’s not getting near you.”
Caleb gave him a look.
“You can’t guard her every second.”
Jonas answered, “Watch me.”
They took the evening train north.
Halfway back to Silver Plume, Rusk disappeared.
His seat was empty.
The conductor claimed he had moved toward the rear cars.
Jonas searched.
In the final freight car, he found blood.
A lot of it.
But no Rusk.
The exterior door stood open.
Snow blew inside.
Caleb crouched near the floor.
“Someone threw him off.”
Ellie spotted something beneath a crate.
Rusk’s notebook.
Inside were names.
Dates.
Payments.
One name appeared repeatedly.
M. SHAW.
Another appeared only once.
E. HARGRAVE.
Jonas stared.
“Who is E. Hargrave?”
Caleb slowly looked at him.
“Our mother.”
Jonas laughed bitterly.
“She died when I was twelve.”
“Maybe.”
Jonas turned.
“What does that mean?”
Caleb took the notebook.
“I found references years ago. Payments made to someone using her name after her death.”
“You’re telling me Mother survived?”
“No.”
“Then say what you’re telling me.”
Caleb hesitated.
“I think someone used her identity.”
“Who?”
“I never found out.”
They reached Silver Plume after midnight.
The town was quiet.
Too quiet.
Jonas wanted Ellie at the sheriff’s office.
She refused.
“My home is your cabin.”
“Our home.”
The correction came automatically.
Ellie looked at him.
Even with everything happening, those two words mattered.
They rode together.
When the cabin appeared, every window was lit.
Jonas stopped.
“I didn’t leave them like that.”
Caleb drew his gun.
The front door opened.
A woman stepped onto the porch.
She had blonde hair streaked with gray.
She was perhaps sixty.
Jonas stared.
His hand lowered.
The woman looked directly at him.
Tears filled her eyes.
“Jonas.”
He stopped breathing.
Nobody had called his name that way since childhood.
Caleb whispered, “No.”
Jonas took one step forward.
The woman said the words that shattered twelve years of certainty.
May you like
“My sons.”
Then she opened her arms.
