Chapter 3 - Three Children Who Wouldn't Call Her Mama
Jacob pulled Hannah backward.
The hidden door opened.
A woman collapsed through it.
Hannah caught the lamp before it fell.
Margaret gasped.
“Elizabeth?”
The name shattered Hannah's world.
The woman on the floor was thin, gray-haired before her time, and trembling violently.
But Hannah knew her.
Not from reason.
From memory.
The curve of her cheek.
The tiny scar above her eyebrow.
The hands that had once braided Hannah's hair.
“Mama?”
Elizabeth Reed lifted her face.
“Hannie.”
Hannah dropped to her knees.
For six years she had imagined her mother's grave.
She had hated her for dying.
Begged God to return her.
Stopped begging.
Learned to survive.
Now Elizabeth was in her arms.
Alive.
Barely.
Jacob carried her upstairs.
The children watched from the staircase as he placed Elizabeth near the fire.
Hannah knelt beside her.
“Where have you been?”
Elizabeth tried to speak.
Nothing came.
Margaret gave her water.
Slowly the story emerged.
Cyrus had discovered Elizabeth and Thomas collecting evidence against him. Thomas was killed. Elizabeth survived an attack but disappeared before Cyrus could finish the job.
She had spent years moving between settlements under false names.
“Why didn't you come for me?”
The question sounded younger than Hannah wanted.
Elizabeth wept.
“I tried.”
“Six years.”
“I came twice.”
Hannah stared.
“Cyrus told me you'd died.”
Elizabeth shook her head.
“The first time, he threatened to kill you if I returned. The second time, I saw you from the woods.”
Hannah's voice cracked.
“You left.”
“I thought staying away kept you alive.”
“You thought wrong.”
Elizabeth closed her eyes.
“I know.”
Hannah stood.
She couldn't breathe.
She went outside.
Jacob followed but stopped several yards away.
She gripped the porch railing.
“Don't.”
“I wasn't going to say anything.”
“Good.”
They stood in silence.
Finally Hannah said, “Everyone makes decisions for me.”
Jacob looked at her.
“My uncle. My mother. Your wife. You.”
“Yes.”
“Nobody asks what I want.”
“What do you want?”
She turned.
The question disarmed her.
“I don't know.”
“Then nobody gets an answer until you do.”
“You make everything sound simple.”
“It isn't.”
“What happens now?”
“You stay or leave.”
“With what money?”
“I'll give you enough.”
“That would make me indebted to you.”
“No.”
“Everything costs something.”
Jacob's expression changed.
“That's Cyrus talking.”
Hannah hated that he was right.
Inside, a child cried.
Jacob immediately turned.
It was Caleb, the younger boy.
He had awakened from a nightmare.
Hannah watched Jacob kneel beside him.
His rough hands became careful.
His voice softened.
Mary's death had left wounds everywhere in this house.
Hannah recognized that kind of house.
She had lived in one.
The next morning, Samuel refused the breakfast she prepared.
“I don't want hers.”
Jacob lowered his coffee.
“Samuel.”
“She isn't Mama.”
Hannah set down the skillet.
“No.”
Samuel looked surprised.
“I don't intend to be.”
Ruth stared at her.
“Then what are you?”
Hannah considered.
“I suppose I'm Hannah.”
Caleb smiled.
“That'll do.”
Samuel didn't.
Over the following days, Elizabeth regained strength.
Margaret remained.
Jacob worked the ranch.
Hannah could have stayed in her room.
Instead, she found herself helping.
Not because she'd been bought.
Because Ruth couldn't braid her own hair.
Because Caleb burned biscuits.
Because Samuel had torn his coat and pretended he hadn't.
She repaired it without mentioning it.
He wore it the next morning.
He didn't thank her.
But he stopped refusing her breakfast.
One afternoon Hannah found him behind the barn crying.
She pretended not to notice.
“My mother cried where nobody could see too,” she said.
Samuel wiped his face angrily.
“I wasn't crying.”
“Of course not.”
He looked at her.
“Do you miss yours?”
“Yes.”
“But she's alive.”
“I missed six years.”
Samuel understood.
Children often understood grief better than adults.
He sat beside her.
“Pa still talks to Mama.”
Hannah looked toward the distant cottonwoods.
“Where?”
“At her grave.”
That evening Hannah walked there.
Mary Mercer's grave stood beneath a cottonwood.
Fresh pine branches had been laid across it.
Jacob was already there.
He didn't seem surprised.
“Ruth told me.”
He nodded.
Hannah studied the headstone.
MARY MERCER BELOVED WIFE AND MOTHER 1849–1883
“You loved her.”
“Yes.”
“Do you still?”
“Yes.”
His honesty hurt strangely.
“Then why did Cyrus think you needed a woman?”
“Because Cyrus sees an empty bed and assumes that's the same thing as an empty life.”
Hannah looked at him.
“And is it?”
“No.”
They stood quietly.
Then Jacob said, “Mary knew she was dying.”
“I know.”
“She worried about the children.”
“And me.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Jacob looked toward the grave.
“Because she owed your mother her life.”
Hannah waited.
“In 1866, Mary was seventeen. She was traveling west with her family. Their wagon was attacked. Your mother found her.”
“How?”
“Elizabeth was traveling with your father.”
Hannah's heartbeat quickened.
“My father.”
Jacob nodded.
“Who was he?”
“I don't know his real name.”
“You're lying again.”
“I know what Mary called him.”
“What?”
Jacob hesitated.
“Daniel Vale.”
Hannah repeated it.
The name meant nothing.
Behind them, a branch snapped.
Jacob turned.
Nobody was there.
He walked toward the trees.
Hannah followed.
On the ground lay a cigarette.
Still burning.
Someone had been watching them.
Jacob crushed it beneath his boot.
They returned quickly.
That night he checked every door and window.
Hannah slept poorly.
Near midnight she heard footsteps downstairs.
She took the lamp and descended.
The front door stood open.
Jacob was outside.
Samuel stood behind him.
“What happened?”
Jacob held something.
A dead raven.
Around its neck was tied a strip of cloth.
Jacob removed it.
Words had been written in red ink.
THE GIRL ISN'T YOURS.
Hannah felt cold.
Elizabeth appeared behind her.
When she saw the message, she staggered backward.
“You know who did this,” Hannah said.
Elizabeth didn't answer.
“Mama.”
Elizabeth's face had gone white.
“Daniel.”
Hannah stared.
“My father?”
Elizabeth whispered, “If he's alive, Cyrus isn't the man you should fear.”
A horse screamed from the barn.
Then came a gunshot.
Jacob ran outside.
Hannah followed as far as the porch.
A rider vanished beyond the fence.
Something had been nailed to the barn door.
Jacob tore it down.
It was an old photograph.
Elizabeth saw it and screamed.
Hannah took it from Jacob.
The photograph showed Elizabeth beside a young man.
On the back was a date.
And beneath it, freshly written in red ink:
May you like
TELL HANNAH WHO HER FATHER REALLY WAS BEFORE I DO.
Then someone knocked three times from inside the locked barn...
