Chapter 5 - Anna's Secret
Elias grabbed Clara's arm.
"What did you say?"
Martha had never seen him lose control.
Not until then.
Clara winced.
"Let go."
"Say it again."
"Elias."
Martha touched his wrist.
His grip loosened.
Clara pulled away.
"I said Anna Cole didn't die in the fire."
"My wife was inside."
"No."
"I found—"
"Bodies?"
Elias stopped.
Martha watched the truth strike him.
He had never found recognizable bodies.
Only remains.
A woman.
A child.
He had assumed.
Clara continued carefully.
"Coyle needed you obedient. Anna had discovered his land operation. Mercer was ordered to frighten her."
"By burning my home?"
"Mercer went further than ordered."
Elias's eyes were murderous.
"Where is Anna?"
"I don't know."
"Then how do you know she survived?"
"Because I saw her afterward."
"When?"
"Three days after the fire."
Elias staggered back.
"Where?"
"Coyle's ranch."
Martha whispered, "He took her."
Clara nodded.
"And your son."
Elias stopped breathing.
"Jacob?"
"He was alive."
For years Elias had lived as a widower and grieving father.
Now the dead had been returned to him in a sentence.
"Where are they?"
"Coyle moved them."
"Where?"
"I don't know."
Elias turned away.
He looked as if the ground beneath him had vanished.
Martha followed.
"Elias."
"Don't."
She stopped.
"I buried them in my head."
His voice was raw.
"Every night for six years."
Martha understood something about grief then.
Hope could hurt worse.
Because grief eventually taught you how to survive certainty.
Hope destroyed certainty.
"Elias."
He looked at her.
"We find them."
His expression said he wanted to believe her.
He was terrified to.
That night nobody slept much.
Clara explained that Anna had been forced to help Coyle maintain fraudulent property records because she could read and write better than most of his men.
Later, Anna and Jacob disappeared.
Clara believed Anna escaped.
"Daniel met her," Clara said.
Elias stared.
"When?"
"Last year."
"Where?"
"Near Independence Rock."
Daniel had met Anna.
That explained the letter.
Anna had told him about Elias and the ring.
"Why would she mention my ring?"
"She said if Daniel ever found you, he'd know you by it."
"Why didn't she come home?"
Clara looked sad.
"Maybe she tried."
Elias walked into the darkness.
Martha let him go.
At sunrise they resumed toward Fort Laramie.
Now the mission had changed.
For Martha, the ledger could expose the men responsible for Daniel's death.
For Elias, it might lead to his family.
Mercer remained behind them.
Coyle waited ahead.
And somewhere between them lay the truth.
Two days later they saw Fort Laramie.
Martha nearly cried.
She had imagined reaching it with Daniel.
Instead she arrived beside another man, carrying evidence of murder.
Elias stopped before entering.
"We don't ride through the main gate."
"Why?"
"Coyle owns eyes everywhere."
Samuel agreed.
They approached through the river side.
Clara led them toward an old blacksmith shop.
Marshal Briggs was supposed to meet informants there.
The building looked empty.
Elias entered first.
Then he called them in.
A chair stood in the center.
On it sat Deputy Marshal Nathaniel Briggs.
Dead.
Martha covered her mouth.
A note had been pinned to his coat.
Elias pulled it free.
RETURN WHAT BELONGS TO COYLE.
Samuel whispered, "We're too late."
"No," Martha said.
Everyone looked at her.
She was tired of being afraid.
Tired of men deciding what she could know.
Tired of graves.
"Daniel didn't die for us to stop at a dead marshal."
Elias looked at her differently.
"Then what do you suggest?"
"We find someone higher than Briggs."
Clara shook her head.
"Coyle controls half the territory."
"Not all of it."
Crane spoke.
"There's a federal circuit judge arriving tomorrow."
Everyone turned.
"Judge Harrison Vale," Crane continued. "He's traveling from Cheyenne."
"Can he be bought?" Elias asked.
"I don't know."
Martha picked up Briggs's badge.
"Then we'll find out."
They hid in a boardinghouse.
Martha finally slept.
She woke after midnight.
Elias was sitting outside her door.
"Guarding me?"
"Guarding the case."
"Liar."
He smiled faintly.
She sat beside him.
"You think Anna's alive?"
"I don't know."
"You want her to be."
"More than anything."
Martha felt an unexpected ache.
Not jealousy.
Something more complicated.
She had begun depending on Elias.
Perhaps caring about him.
But if Anna lived, he belonged to a life interrupted six years earlier.
Martha had no right to want anything else.
"She was lucky," Martha said.
"Anna?"
"To have someone love her this long."
Elias looked at Martha.
"Daniel was lucky too."
The air changed.
Neither moved.
Then Martha's door opened behind them.
Ben stood there.
"Someone's downstairs."
Elias rose.
"Who?"
"A man asking for Mrs. Whitcomb."
Elias drew his gun.
They descended.
The boardinghouse keeper looked frightened.
A stranger stood in the parlor.
He held a sealed envelope.
"Mrs. Whitcomb?"
Martha remained behind Elias.
"Who sent you?"
The stranger placed the envelope on a table.
"No name."
Then he left.
Elias inspected it.
Nothing.
Martha opened it.
Inside was one sentence.
BRING THE SEAL TO THE OLD CHAPEL AT MIDNIGHT IF YOU WANT ELIAS COLE'S SON TO LIVE.
Elias stared at the words.
Then a second paper slipped from the envelope.
A drawing.
A boy of about fourteen.
Around his neck hung a wooden horse.
Elias went pale.
"I carved that."
Martha looked at him.
"For Jacob?"
He nodded.
The church bell outside began striking eleven.
May you like
They had one hour.
And someone was waiting with Elias's son.
