Chapter 3 - The Empty Coffin
The cemetery sat on the northern ridge overlooking Red Creek.
By the time Iris and Elias reached it, the sun had dropped low enough to turn every headstone into a long black shadow.
Iris's ribs screamed with every step.
She didn't care.
Nathan Bell's grave stood near an old cottonwood.
Or it had.
Now the earth lay torn open.
The coffin rested beside the hole.
Its lid was raised.
Iris stopped twenty feet away.
She couldn't move.
Elias walked ahead.
Then stopped too.
The coffin was empty.
"No," Iris whispered.
She had buried her father five years earlier.
She remembered standing beside that exact hole while Amos Pike held her elbow.
How kind he'd seemed then.
How gently Walter had told her not to look at the body.
How the whole town had whispered that poor Nathan Bell had drunk himself into an early grave.
Now there was no body.
Cemetery caretaker Otis Brann removed his hat.
"I found it like this around noon."
"Noon?" Elias said. "Why wait?"
Otis looked ashamed.
"I went to Sheriff Dugan."
"And?"
"He told me to cover it."
Iris turned.
"He told you what?"
"He said grave robbers pass through."
"My father's coffin is empty."
"I know."
"You knew at noon?"
"Iris—"
"You let me spend the whole afternoon not knowing?"
Otis lowered his head.
Elias stepped closer to the coffin.
He inspected the hinges.
"Opened with tools."
He looked inside.
"Anything else missing?"
Iris approached slowly.
Her father's coffin had been simple.
Nathan hated waste.
No jewelry.
No money.
Only his wedding ring and a small Bible her mother had given him.
Both were gone.
Elias ran a finger along the wood.
Then stopped.
"Here."
Carved into the inside of the lid was a symbol.
A circle crossed by three vertical lines.
Iris had seen it before.
On the ledger.
Beside eleven of the thirty-two names.
"What does it mean?" Elias asked.
"I don't know."
Otis made a noise behind them.
Elias turned.
The caretaker had gone pale.
"You do."
Otis shook his head.
"Otis."
"No."
Iris walked toward him.
"You knew my father."
"Everybody did."
"You cried at his funeral."
Otis looked away.
"What does that mark mean?"
"I can't."
"Why?"
His eyes moved toward town.
"Because I have grandchildren."
Iris understood.
Fear again.
Always fear.
She felt anger rise.
"That excuse is getting old."
Otis flinched.
Immediately she regretted it.
But Elias didn't soften.
"How many graves have that mark?"
Otis's face collapsed.
Iris stared.
"How many?"
"Eleven."
The exact number.
"What happened to them?"
Otis whispered, "Same thing."
Iris felt sick.
"Empty?"
He nodded.
"When?"
"Over years."
"And you said nothing?"
"I told Sheriff Dugan."
"Of course you did."
Otis squeezed his hat.
"People disappeared. Ranch hands. Travelers. Folks with no family. Sometimes people with family who'd been told not to ask."
Elias's eyes hardened.
"What did Pike have to do with it?"
Otis said nothing.
Elias stepped closer.
"I'm not asking because I'm curious."
"I saw Pike freight wagons here at night."
Iris's pulse quickened.
"When?"
"After burials."
"Doing what?"
"Taking coffins."
"Why?"
"I don't know."
A horse approached.
Elias's hand moved toward his revolver.
Sheriff Dugan rode into view.
He was fifty-two, thick-necked, with a gray mustache and a badge polished brighter than any honest man's should be.
"Wasting my time again, Otis?"
He dismounted.
Then noticed Elias.
"You."
"Me."
Dugan walked toward the grave.
"I hear you've been making trouble."
Elias looked at the empty coffin.
"Seems trouble was here before me."
The sheriff ignored him.
"Iris, go home."
"My father's body is gone."
"Grave robbers."
"Eleven grave robbers?"
Dugan glared at Otis.
The caretaker shrank.
Elias saw it.
"Interesting."
"What?"
"He told you that number privately?"
Dugan's jaw tightened.
"I've investigated."
"No," Elias said. "You knew."
The sheriff stepped closer.
"Careful."
Elias didn't move.
"With what?"
"Accusations."
"I'm not accusing you."
Dugan smiled.
"Smart."
"I'm observing you."
That erased the smile.
Iris almost admired Elias's ability to make dangerous men angry without raising his voice.
Almost.
Because danger still followed.
Dugan pointed at her.
"Miss Bell, your bakery sits on Pike land."
"No, it doesn't."
"Check the deed."
"My mother bought it."
"From Pike Holdings."
"Twenty-seven years ago."
"With conditions."
Iris felt her stomach drop.
"What conditions?"
Dugan smiled.
"Ask Amos."
Then he mounted his horse.
Before leaving, he looked at Elias.
"You were a marshal once."
"Once."
"Means you know what happens to men who interfere outside their jurisdiction."
Elias's expression darkened.
"Sometimes they do the right thing."
Dugan rode away.
Otis waited until the sheriff disappeared.
Then whispered, "There's something else."
He walked to a small maintenance shed.
Inside, beneath tools, he lifted a wooden board.
A wrapped package lay underneath.
"I found this inside Nathan's coffin."
Iris stared.
"When?"
"Today."
"Why didn't the grave robbers take it?"
"It was under the lining."
Otis handed it to her.
Her hands shook as she opened the cloth.
Inside was her father's Bible.
The wedding ring was tied to it with string.
Iris pressed the ring to her lips.
Elias looked away, giving her privacy.
Then something slipped from the Bible.
A photograph.
Nathan Bell stood beside a freight wagon.
With him were six men.
Amos Pike.
Sheriff Dugan.
Walter.
Doctor Halpern.
Otis.
And Elias.
Iris stopped breathing.
She looked up.
Elias had gone completely still.
"You knew my father."
"No."
"You're in the photograph."
"I've never been to Red Creek."
She held it closer.
The man looked exactly like him.
Same eyes.
Same jaw.
But the picture was at least fifteen years old.
Too old.
Elias stared.
Then whispered one word.
"Thomas."
"Who?"
"My brother."
Iris looked back at the picture.
"You have a brother?"
"Had."
Something heavy entered his voice.
"He disappeared fourteen years ago."
"How?"
"I thought he was killed."
"You thought?"
"No body."
Iris stared at him.
The ledger.
Empty graves.
Missing bodies.
Now Elias's brother.
"What was he doing here?"
"I don't know."
Otis sank onto a stool.
"Thomas Mercer worked for Pike."
Elias slowly turned.
"You knew him?"
Otis nodded.
"He came here with railroad men."
"What railroad?"
"Silver Basin & Western."
Iris frowned.
"There was never a railroad through Red Creek."
"Exactly," Otis whispered.
They looked at him.
"The company collected federal money to build one."
Elias understood first.
"A ghost project."
Otis nodded.
"Millions in land grants. Equipment. Payroll. Workers."
"Workers who didn't exist?"
"Some existed."
Iris looked toward the cemetery.
"The names."
Otis nodded.
"They were workers."
Elias's voice became cold.
"And when auditors came?"
"I don't know everything."
"But Thomas did."
Otis looked at him.
"Your brother found the books."
The same phrase Nathan had used.
Books.
Evidence.
"Then what?" Elias asked.
Otis swallowed.
"He disappeared."
Elias stared at the photograph for a long time.
Iris watched grief transform into purpose.
She understood that transformation.
She had lived it.
He reached for the photograph.
On the back, her father had written something.
Iris read it aloud.
"Thomas knew where they buried the truth."
Below that were coordinates.
Elias frowned.
"Coordinates?"
Otis recognized them.
"Old Pike mine."
Iris looked at him.
"The silver mine?"
"Closed twelve years ago."
Elias folded the photograph.
"We go tonight."
"No," Otis said quickly.
"Why?"
"People who go there don't come back."
Elias checked his revolver.
"Then we'd better be unusual."
Iris stood.
"I'm coming."
"No."
She stared.
"Excuse me?"
"You're hurt."
"It's my father."
"It's dangerous."
"Which part of today gave you the impression danger makes decisions for me?"
Elias nearly argued.
Then stopped.
"Fine."
Otis looked horrified.
"Both of you are insane."
"Probably," Iris said.
They left after dark.
The Pike mine lay four miles into the hills.
Iris rode behind Elias because her ribs made a separate horse unbearable.
Neither spoke much.
The closeness felt different now.
Less embarrassing.
More necessary.
When they reached the mine, Elias dismounted first.
The entrance was boarded.
But the boards had fresh scratches.
Someone still used it.
Inside, the tunnel smelled of damp stone.
Elias carried a lantern.
They followed the coordinates through several branching passages.
At the final marker they found a wooden door.
Locked.
Elias broke it open.
Behind it was not a mine shaft.
It was an office.
Shelves covered the walls.
Boxes.
Files.
Ledgers.
Hundreds of them.
Iris stared.
"My God."
Elias opened the nearest book.
Railroad payroll.
Names.
Payments.
Death certificates.
Property transfers.
This wasn't a hidden room.
It was an archive.
Proof of decades of fraud.
Then Iris saw a coat hanging on a nail.
A black mourning band was tied around the sleeve.
Nathan's.
She approached.
Something lay beneath it.
A pocket watch.
Her father's initials were engraved on the case.
She picked it up.
The watch was warm.
Iris froze.
"Elias."
He looked over.
"This hasn't been sitting here five years."
They heard a sound deeper in the tunnel.
A cough.
Human.
Elias extinguished the lantern.
Darkness swallowed them.
Footsteps approached.
Slow.
Dragging slightly.
Then a voice came through the black tunnel.
Weak.
Older.
But unmistakable.
"Iris?"
Every part of her body went cold.
Nobody had called her name that way since she was twenty-four.
She stepped toward the darkness.
"Papa?"
The footsteps stopped.
A lantern flared.
A thin man's face appeared.
May you like
Iris dropped the pocket watch.
Her father was standing in front of her.
