Chapter 3 - The Man Beneath the Floor
Silas pointed the rifle into the opening.
“Come up slowly.”
No answer.
“Hands first.”
A pair of hands appeared.
Then a head.
The man who climbed from beneath Silas’s floor was perhaps forty-five, soaked despite having approached underground, with blood running from a graze along his shoulder.
Silas recognized him immediately.
The same man he had shot at the door.
Clara gasped.
“Daniel?”
The stranger looked at her.
“Thank God.”
Clara crossed the room and slapped him.
Hard.
Daniel blinked.
Silas almost approved.
“You disappeared,” Clara said.
“I was trying to keep you alive.”
“You let me think you were dead!”
“If Pike thought you knew where I was, he would have tortured you for it.”
Clara struck his chest again.
Then hugged him.
Silas lowered the rifle only slightly.
“Brother?”
Clara nodded.
Daniel Bell.
Her older brother.
Silas remembered nothing about him from years earlier.
Daniel looked toward the gun.
“I suppose you want an explanation.”
“That would be a strong beginning.”
Daniel glanced at Lucy.
“Is she all right?”
“For now.”
Daniel sat at the table.
He explained the tunnel first.
It had been built by Samuel Bell and Evelyn.
Silas stared at him.
“In my house?”
“Under it.”
“That distinction isn't helping you.”
Six years earlier, Silas had spent long stretches trapping beyond the northern ridge. During those absences, Evelyn had allowed Samuel to use the cellar as a place to store documents and water samples.
The tunnel connected to an abandoned root cellar forty yards behind the cabin.
Silas felt another flash of anger.
His own wife had maintained a hidden room beneath his feet.
Daniel saw it.
“She wasn’t betraying you.”
“She was lying to me.”
“She was afraid you’d confront Pike.”
“She was right.”
“That was precisely the problem.”
Silas looked away.
Daniel continued.
Evelyn had discovered contamination after several families sought her help for strange illnesses. She was not a physician, but she knew herbs, childbirth and basic frontier medicine.
The symptoms matched hers months later.
Pike’s mining operation had dumped waste upstream during heavy spring runoff.
When families became too ill or indebted to maintain their farms, companies controlled by Pike purchased the land.
Then Pike sold timber rights and mineral leases for enormous profit.
“Why kill Evelyn?” Silas asked.
“Because she copied records from Pike’s land office.”
“Who told him?”
Daniel hesitated.
Silas noticed.
“Who?”
“My father never knew.”
“Samuel?”
“He suspected someone close to Evelyn.”
Silas’s jaw tightened.
“Name.”
“He never gave me one.”
Clara put Lucy down carefully.
“What about Thomas?”
Daniel looked at his sister.
“Thomas found out.”
“How?”
“He found Father’s journal after Father died.”
Clara stared.
Samuel Bell had died two years earlier.
Stroke, supposedly.
Thomas found enough evidence to reopen everything privately.
He began collecting documents.
Then he discovered the black ledger.
“He was going to Helena,” Daniel said.
“I know,” Clara replied.
“He asked me to help.”
“You never told me.”
“He ordered me not to.”
Clara laughed bitterly.
“All the men in my family seem very fond of protecting me with lies.”
Daniel lowered his head.
Silas understood that sentence better than he wanted to.
“What happened to Thomas?” he asked.
Daniel’s face changed.
“We were supposed to meet at Crow Creek.”
“And?”
“He never came.”
“You found his wagon?”
“Yes.”
“Hands tied?”
Daniel nodded.
“Who killed him?”
“I didn't see the killing.”
“But?”
“I saw who left.”
Clara grabbed the table.
“Who?”
Daniel looked toward Silas.
“Sheriff Nolan.”
Silas wasn't surprised.
Pike’s sheriff had always been more employee than lawman.
“Then why are you alive?”
“Because Nolan doesn't know I saw him.”
“Yet.”
Daniel gave a humorless smile.
“Yet.”
Silas looked at the clock.
“We leave before daylight.”
Clara blinked.
“Leave?”
“Pike knows this cabin. Nolan likely knows too.”
“For Helena?”
“Eventually.”
Daniel shook his head.
“You’ll never make Helena on the main road.”
Silas looked at him.
“You have another idea?”
“Fort Owen.”
The old fort lay twenty miles north.
A federal survey party had been operating nearby for several weeks. Daniel believed a deputy U.S. marshal was traveling with them over a dispute involving public land.
“If we reach him,” Daniel said, “we can get the evidence out of Pike’s county.”
Silas considered it.
Twenty miles.
Mountain route.
Hard but possible.
“We leave before sunrise.”
Clara looked toward the rain.
“With Lucy?”
Silas nodded.
“I have a covered wagon.”
“Road will be mud.”
“We won’t use the road.”
Daniel stared at him.
“There’s another way?”
Silas almost smiled.
“I’ve lived here thirteen years.”
By four in the morning, supplies were packed.
Silas prepared two horses and a small mule-drawn cart with a canvas cover.
Clara tried refusing extra clothing.
Silas ignored her.
He gave her one of Evelyn’s old wool coats.
Clara held it carefully.
“I shouldn’t wear this.”
“She isn’t using it.”
Silas regretted the harshness immediately.
Clara understood anyway.
“Thank you.”
The coat was too small around Clara’s middle, but she wrapped it over her shoulders and tucked Lucy inside.
They left as dawn began turning the eastern clouds pale.
Daniel rode first.
Silas drove.
Clara sat beside him.
For three hours they followed an animal trail through thick forest.
No one spoke much.
At one point Lucy woke and began laughing at the movement of Silas’s beard whenever he glanced toward her.
Silas pretended not to notice.
Clara did.
“She likes you.”
“She has poor judgment.”
“She’s six months old.”
“Exactly.”
Clara smiled.
It was the first time Silas had seen her do it.
Something unfamiliar passed through him.
Not romance.
Not yet.
Only awareness.
He noticed how different she looked when fear was not controlling her face.
Then the sound of a rifle cracked through the trees.
Daniel’s horse reared.
Silas pulled Clara down.
“Get under the cart!”
Another shot struck a tree.
Daniel shouted, “Riders behind us!”
Silas grabbed his rifle.
Three men appeared along the ridge.
Pike’s men.
Silas fired into the earth near the first horse.
The animal turned sharply, throwing its rider.
Daniel shot at the second.
Clara crawled beneath the cart with Lucy.
“Stay down!”
The third rider circled.
Silas saw the badge.
Sheriff Nolan.
Nolan fired.
The bullet struck the wagon wheel.
Silas fired back.
Nolan disappeared behind the trees.
Then silence.
Too much silence.
Silas looked at Daniel.
“Where’d they go?”
Daniel shook his head.
Silas suddenly understood.
“They’re not trying to kill us.”
Clara looked from beneath the cart.
“What?”
“They want the ledger intact.”
A shout came from downhill.
“Mercer!”
Nolan.
Silas moved behind a tree.
“Come out!”
Nolan laughed.
“We only want the book!”
Silas shouted back.
“Come take it!”
“You’re protecting a murderer!”
Clara froze.
Silas looked toward her.
Nolan continued.
“Ask Clara Bell how her husband really died!”
Daniel cursed.
Clara stood.
“Don’t listen to him.”
Nolan shouted again.
“Thomas Bell wasn’t killed by us!”
Silas watched Clara.
Her face had gone white.
“What does he mean?”
“Nothing.”
“Clara.”
“Nothing!”
Nolan laughed from the ridge.
“Show Mercer the last page!”
Silas looked at the ledger inside his coat.
Clara stepped toward him.
“Silas, don't.”
He pulled it out.
Nolan fired again.
Silas ducked.
He flipped toward the final pages.
Clara grabbed his wrist.
“Please.”
“Why?”
Tears appeared in her eyes.
“Because Thomas made me promise.”
“Promise what?”
“Not to let you see it until we reached federal protection.”
Silas pulled his hand away.
He turned the last page.
A name had been written beside a payment amount.
Silas Mercer.
He stared.
His own name.
Five hundred dollars.
Six years earlier.
Paid from a Pike-controlled mining company.
Silas looked at Clara.
“What is this?”
She said nothing.
His voice dropped.
“What did I do?”
Clara’s mouth trembled.
“You didn’t know.”
“Know what?”
Another shot struck the cart.
Lucy screamed.
Daniel shouted that they needed to move.
But Silas kept staring at the line.
Five hundred dollars.
His signature appeared beneath it.
And beneath his signature was another sentence.
Water access granted through Mercer property.
Silas suddenly remembered.
Six years ago.
A payment.
He had allowed a mining survey team to cross the northern edge of his land.
He had signed the agreement.
He had taken Pike’s money.
And the access route passed directly above the creek that fed the spring Evelyn drank from.
Silas looked at Clara in horror.
“My signature gave them access.”
Clara shook her head.
“You couldn’t have known.”
“My wife died because I let them onto this mountain.”
“No.”
“I brought them here.”
“Silas!”
He barely heard her.
Nolan shouted again.
“You want the truth, Mercer? Ask her what Thomas wrote about Evelyn!”
Silas turned another page.
A folded note slipped from the ledger.
Clara lunged for it.
Too late.
Silas opened it.
The handwriting was Thomas Bell’s.
Evelyn Mercer survived the poisoning.
Silas stopped.
Read it again.
Survived.
The next sentence was worse.
Her death came later.
By human hands.
May you like
Silas looked up.
Then someone behind him cocked a pistol.
