Chapter 7 - The Man Who Came Riding After Midnight
Daniel Vale looked older than Hannah's imagination had allowed.
His beard was gray.
One eye was swollen shut.
But when he saw Elizabeth, something in his face collapsed.
“Lizzie.”
Elizabeth crossed the yard before anyone could stop her.
Whitcomb's deputy raised a rifle.
Jacob stepped onto the porch.
“Point that somewhere else.”
Whitcomb smiled.
“Mercer. You're under arrest.”
“For buying the woman her guardian sold me?”
Cyrus's face reddened.
“You kidnapped her.”
Hannah walked outside.
“No.”
Whitcomb looked at her.
“My dear—”
“Don't.”
The judge's smile thinned.
“I went willingly.”
“Under coercion.”
“Cyrus was the coercion.”
Whitcomb glanced at Cyrus.
Then at the deputies.
“Arrest Mercer.”
Hannah raised Thomas Bell's ledger.
“Before you do, perhaps your deputies should read this.”
Whitcomb's face changed.
Only slightly.
Enough.
“What is it?”
“You know.”
Nathan stepped from the barn with a rifle.
The deputies became uneasy.
Whitcomb dismounted.
“This can be settled peacefully.”
Jacob laughed without humor.
“That's usually what men say when peaceful isn't what they brought.”
Daniel suddenly shouted.
“Don't give him the ledger!”
Cyrus struck him.
Elizabeth screamed.
Chaos erupted.
Nathan fired into the air.
The children ran inside.
Hannah moved toward Daniel.
Whitcomb grabbed her arm.
Jacob crossed the distance instantly.
“Release her.”
The judge smiled.
“You're threatening a territorial judge.”
“No.”
Jacob's voice was almost quiet.
“I'm telling you what happens before I stop being polite.”
Whitcomb released Hannah.
Daniel looked at her.
“You have her eyes.”
Hannah couldn't answer.
Eighteen years of questions stood between them.
“Why didn't you come back?”
“I tried.”
“Everyone says that.”
His face crumpled.
“I deserve that.”
Whitcomb ordered the deputies forward.
But one deputy hesitated.
“Judge, if the lady says she isn't kidnapped—”
“She is confused.”
Hannah turned.
“I'm standing right here.”
The deputy lowered his rifle.
Another followed.
Whitcomb realized he was losing control.
Then Cyrus drew a pistol.
He aimed at Hannah.
Daniel moved first.
He slammed Cyrus sideways.
The gun fired.
Daniel fell.
Elizabeth screamed.
Jacob tackled Cyrus.
Nathan disarmed Whitcomb.
The deputies finally acted.
Cyrus was restrained.
Daniel's wound was through the shoulder.
Not fatal.
They carried him inside.
Whitcomb remained under guard.
For the first time, Hannah sat beside her father.
Daniel told her everything.
Cyrus had tried to kill him in 1868.
Daniel survived but was imprisoned under a false name after Whitcomb arranged fabricated robbery charges.
He escaped years later.
He had been hiding, collecting evidence.
“Why not contact Mama?”
“I thought she was dead.”
Elizabeth took his hand.
Cyrus had built their lives out of lies.
One by one.
Hannah looked toward the window.
Cyrus sat bound outside.
For years he had seemed enormous.
Now he looked small.
That frightened her differently.
Small men could cause enormous damage.
Whitcomb escaped before morning.
A guard was found unconscious.
Nathan discovered hoofprints leading east.
“To Miles City,” Daniel said.
“Why?” Jacob asked.
“To destroy the courthouse records.”
Those records could prove the land transfers.
They rode immediately.
Hannah insisted on coming.
Jacob didn't argue.
By the time Miles City appeared, smoke was already rising.
The courthouse was burning.
People formed bucket lines.
Hannah ran inside before Jacob could stop her.
Records burned along one wall.
She found the deed cabinet.
Locked.
Jacob smashed it open.
They pulled documents free.
Then the ceiling cracked.
“Hannah!”
Jacob dragged her away as burning timber fell.
They escaped through a side window.
Outside, Hannah coughed violently.
Jacob held her shoulders.
“Don't ever do that again.”
“You don't command me.”
“I know.”
“Then why say it?”
“Because you scared ten years off my life.”
She looked at him.
His hands were trembling.
Jacob Mercer, who faced armed men without blinking, was shaking because she'd nearly been hurt.
Something shifted between them.
She touched his face.
He froze.
Then Hannah kissed him.
Briefly.
She stepped backward.
Jacob stared.
“That was my choice,” she said.
His expression softened.
“Yes.”
Behind them Nathan shouted.
He had found a surviving document.
A deed.
Hannah's deed.
But when Daniel read it, his face darkened.
“What?”
“This isn't the original.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means the original is somewhere else.”
“Where?”
Daniel looked toward the burning courthouse.
“Thomas Bell knew.”
Margaret arrived that evening.
When she heard, she remembered something.
Thomas had kept a second safe.
Not at his office.
At the abandoned church outside town.
They reached it after midnight.
Behind the altar they found the safe.
Hannah entered the combination from her mother's Bible.
The lock clicked.
Inside was the original deed.
And another envelope.
TO HANNAH REED, UPON HER EIGHTEENTH BIRTHDAY.
She opened it.
Inside was not a deed.
It was a marriage certificate.
Her mother's name appeared first.
Elizabeth Reed.
Then her father's.
But the groom's name wasn't Daniel Vale.
Hannah looked at Daniel.
His face went white.
At the bottom of the certificate was another signature.
Cyrus Reed.
May you like
Not as witness.
As husband...
