Chapter 5 - The Brother Who Sold the Mountain
Ethan opened the door with his revolver raised.
Elias Walker stood ten yards away.
He looked nothing like Ethan.
Where Ethan was broad and weathered, Elias was lean and polished.
His dark hair was short.
His beard carefully trimmed.
His coat cost more than Ethan’s cabin had.
Gideon Rourke’s white horse stood beneath him.
“Get down,” Ethan said.
Elias smiled faintly.
“You always were warm at reunions.”
“Get down.”
Elias dismounted.
Mara watched from the window.
Caleb stood beside her.
“You trust him?” she whispered.
“Ethan?”
“No. His brother.”
Caleb shook his head.
“Not for a second.”
Elias approached slowly.
Ethan held the gun steady.
“You sold my land.”
“I saved your life.”
“My cabin is ash.”
“I know.”
“You knew it would burn.”
“Yes.”
Mara saw Ethan’s finger tighten on the trigger.
Elias raised his hands.
“Rourke intended to kill you inside it.”
“That your idea too?”
“No.”
“You took his money.”
“I did.”
“Why?”
“To get close.”
Ethan laughed once.
No humor.
“You disappeared eleven years ago and suddenly you’re a hero?”
“I’m not a hero.”
“Finally something we agree on.”
Elias looked past him.
“Mara Bell?”
Mara stiffened.
Ethan stepped sideways, blocking his view.
“Don’t.”
Elias sighed.
“She has the ledger.”
Caleb raised his rifle.
“How do you know?”
“Because Rourke knows.”
That silenced everyone.
Elias continued.
“Samuel told him.”
Mara closed her eyes.
Of course.
“Where is Samuel?” Caleb asked.
“Dead.”
Caleb’s face changed.
“Rourke shot him?”
“No.”
“Who?”
Elias hesitated.
“That’s complicated.”
Ethan’s voice hardened.
“Make it simple.”
“Sheriff Danner.”
Mara remembered the name in the ledger.
“Why?”
“Samuel wanted more money. Threatened to expose everyone.”
Caleb looked away.
His brother had betrayed them.
Yet grief remained grief.
Mara understood that.
“Why are you here?” Ethan asked.
Elias reached inside his coat slowly.
He produced a folded map.
“Because Rourke knows about the deed under the Bell farmhouse.”
Mara stepped outside.
“He knows exactly where it is?”
“Not yet.”
“Then why would you tell us?”
“Because he’s riding there now.”
Caleb swore.
Elias opened the map.
“There’s another route.”
Ethan studied it.
“Old mining road.”
“Yes.”
“Collapsed.”
“Was.”
Ethan looked at him.
Elias smiled without warmth.
“Rourke paid to reopen it.”
“So he could steal my ridge.”
“So he could reach the coal seam underneath it.”
That explained everything.
The railroad.
Bell Valley.
Ethan’s mountain.
Rourke was assembling a corridor.
Land below.
Mineral rights above.
A fortune.
Mara stepped closer.
“How much time?”
“Four hours.”
“To the farm?”
“If he rides hard.”
“We can beat him?”
Elias nodded.
“If we leave now.”
Ethan folded the map.
“You ride ahead.”
Elias blinked.
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“You still don’t trust me.”
“No.”
“I came here alone.”
“On Rourke’s horse.”
“I stole it.”
“Convenient.”
Elias looked at Mara.
“Tell him—”
“No,” she said.
He stopped.
“I barely know Ethan. I trust him because he has never demanded that I ignore my own judgment.”
She looked at Elias.
“You’re asking him to ignore his.”
Elias considered that.
Then nodded.
“Fair.”
They rode.
For three hours the trail climbed and fell through narrow ravines.
Elias remained fifty yards ahead.
Ethan watched him constantly.
Caleb rode behind Mara.
She could feel his attention.
Eventually he spoke.
“Are you afraid of me?”
Mara looked back.
“No.”
“That’s worse.”
“Yes.”
He absorbed it.
“I loved you.”
“Past tense?”
“I love you.”
She looked forward again.
“That isn’t enough.”
“I know.”
“Love without trust becomes another kind of prison.”
Caleb said nothing.
Mara was surprised by her own words.
Months earlier she would have done anything to hear Caleb was alive.
Now he was beside her, and she understood something painful.
The man she mourned was not the man who returned.
Perhaps neither of them could return to who they had been.
At noon, Elias raised his hand.
They stopped.
The Bell farm lay below.
Mara’s breath caught.
Her home.
The barn roof sagged.
Windows were boarded.
The orchard had grown wild.
But it was hers.
Emotion overwhelmed her.
Ethan rode beside her.
“You all right?”
“No.”
He waited.
“That was the kitchen window.”
He followed her gaze.
“My mother used to make pies there.”
Mara laughed softly through tears.
“She was terrible at pie.”
Ethan smiled.
“Mine too.”
“That’s comforting.”
Elias pointed.
“Riders.”
Dust rose on the southern road.
Rourke.
They had perhaps twenty minutes.
Ethan made a plan.
Caleb and Elias would hold the barn.
Ethan would watch the road.
Mara would enter the house and retrieve the box.
Caleb protested.
“No.”
Mara turned.
There it was again.
The word.
The command.
She looked at him until he understood.
He exhaled.
“I’m sorry.”
Then corrected himself.
“Do you want me to go with you?”
“No.”
He nodded.
“Then I’ll cover the house.”
That mattered.
Mara entered alone.
The house smelled of dust.
Furniture was gone.
Her table.
Her stove.
Her mother’s rocking chair.
Everything.
She walked into the kitchen.
Four floorboards from the east wall.
Caleb had once repaired them.
Mara knelt.
She found a thin seam.
The brass key fit into a hidden iron plate.
Click.
A section lifted.
Inside sat a metal box.
She pulled it free.
Locked.
The brass key opened that too.
Documents lay inside.
Marriage certificate.
Original deed.
Letters.
And a photograph.
Mara picked it up.
Her father stood beside another man.
Gideon Rourke.
Young.
Smiling.
On the back, her father had written:
Gideon came asking about the coal again. I told him Bell Valley belongs to Mara. If anything happens to me, do not believe it was an accident.
Mara stopped breathing.
Her father had died after falling from the barn roof.
Or so she had always believed.
She heard gunfire outside.
Rourke had arrived.
Mara shoved everything into her bundle.
A floorboard creaked behind her.
She turned.
Sheriff Danner stood in the doorway.
Gun aimed at her chest.
“Well,” he said.
“Found it.”
Mara slowly stood.
“You killed Samuel.”
Danner smiled.
“Samuel talked too much.”
“You killed my father?”
“No.”
A voice behind him said, “I did.”
Danner stepped aside.
Gideon Rourke entered.
Mara felt cold.
Rourke looked around the kitchen.
“Your father was stubborn.”
“You murdered him.”
“I offered him money.”
“You murdered him.”
“He chose pride.”
Mara’s hands shook.
Rourke noticed.
“Give me the box.”
“No.”
He smiled.
“You still think the mountain man is coming?”
Gunfire cracked outside.
Then silence.
Rourke’s smile widened.
“He isn’t.”
Mara’s heart dropped.
Danner walked toward her.
“Box.”
She looked toward the window.
No Ethan.
No Caleb.
No Elias.
Nothing.
She slowly extended the metal box.
Danner reached.
Mara swung it into his face.
Bone cracked.
He screamed.
She ran.
Rourke grabbed her skirt.
Mara fell.
The box slid across the floor.
Documents scattered.
Rourke lunged.
A gunshot exploded.
He jerked backward.
Mara looked up.
Ethan stood in the doorway.
Blood covered one side of his face.
Rourke stared at the hole in his coat.
Not wounded.
The bullet had missed his heart by inches.
Ethan’s revolver remained aimed.
“Step away from her.”
Danner reached for his gun.
A second shot came from outside.
Danner collapsed.
Caleb appeared at the window.
Elias entered from the rear.
Rourke was surrounded.
For the first time, he looked frightened.
Then he smiled.
“You think this is over?”
Ethan moved toward Mara.
“Almost.”
Rourke laughed.
“No.”
He reached into his pocket.
Ethan raised the gun.
But Rourke only removed a folded telegram.
He tossed it onto the floor.
Mara picked it up.
One sentence.
FEDERAL MARSHAL HENRY COLE ARRIVED DRY CREEK STOP DETAINED PER JUDGE PIKE ORDER STOP.
Caleb went pale.
Rourke smiled.
“The man you planned to give your evidence to is already in my jail.”
Ethan stared at him.
Then hoofbeats thundered outside.
Dozens.
Not Rourke’s riders.
Someone shouted from the yard.
“Federal officers!”
Rourke’s smile vanished.
Elias looked toward the window.
“That isn’t Henry Cole.”
A second voice called out.
“United States Marshal Service! Drop your weapons!”
Mara looked at Elias.
“How?”
Elias whispered, “I didn’t call them.”
Ethan opened the door.
A line of armed riders surrounded the farmhouse.
At their center sat an older woman in a black riding coat.
She dismounted.
Then she looked directly at Mara.
“Mara Bell?”
“Yes.”
The woman removed her hat.
“My name is Abigail Bell.”
Caleb went completely still.
Mara stared at him.
The woman continued.
“I’m Caleb’s mother.”
May you like
Mara’s breath stopped.
Caleb had told her his mother died twenty years ago.
