Chapter 3 - The Ledger in Red Hollow
A bloody hand rose through Harlan's cellar door as a man whispered, "Clara sent me."
Harlan aimed his rifle and saw a silver railroad token between the stranger's fingers.
A deep scratch crossed its center.
The mark belonged to Northern Continental investigators.
The stranger was not one of Rusk's men.
"Come up slowly," Harlan said.
The man emerged.
Late forties.
Lean.
Gray beginning at his temples.
Blood covered one sleeve.
Clara stared.
"You."
The man nodded.
"Miss Whitmore."
Harlan looked between them.
"This the man who helped you escape?"
"Yes."
"You said you never saw his face."
"I didn't."
The stranger gave a tired smile.
"Name's Nathan Cole."
Bell swore.
Harlan glanced toward him.
"You know him too?"
"Everybody in freight knows Nathan Cole."
Cole closed the trapdoor.
"Used to investigate railroad theft."
"Used to?"
"I still do. I just don't advertise it."
He placed the silver token on the table.
"Rusk has been paying officials, stage agents, land clerks, and surveyors for two years."
Clara leaned forward.
"The ledger proves it."
"If it survived."
"It did."
Cole looked at her.
"You saw it?"
"I stole it."
That silenced everyone.
Harlan stared at Clara.
"You stole Rusk's ledger?"
"I copied part of it first."
"Why?"
"Because he kept leaving documents in the room next to mine."
Cole almost laughed.
"She picked a lock with a hairpin."
Clara looked mildly offended.
"Two hairpins."
Harlan finally understood why Rusk wanted her so badly.
His mail-order bride had not merely escaped.
She had stolen the evidence that could destroy him.
"We leave at first light," Harlan said.
Cole shook his head.
"Rusk knows about the coach."
"How?"
"Because someone told him."
Bell stiffened.
Cole looked directly at him.
"Wasn't me."
Bell stood.
"You're accusing me?"
"I'm accusing everybody until we have the ledger."
Harlan stepped between them.
"Enough."
He looked at Cole's wound.
"Bullet?"
"Grazed."
"Who shot you?"
"The fellow wearing your coat."
Harlan's expression changed.
"You know him?"
"Silas Mercer."
The name hit like a fist.
Harlan stared at Cole.
"No."
"That's what Rusk calls him."
"Silas Mercer died."
Bell said nothing.
Clara looked at Harlan.
"Who was he?"
"My brother."
Clara's eyes widened.
Harlan had not spoken Silas's name in years.
Not in letters.
Not in town.
Not even alone.
Silas was two years younger.
Restless.
Charming.
Always one bad decision ahead of disaster.
Eight years earlier, he'd joined a prospecting party near Montana.
A winter avalanche buried the entire camp.
No bodies recovered.
Only equipment.
Everyone presumed dead.
Including Silas.
"You're wrong," Harlan said.
Cole shook his head.
"I followed him from Rusk's warehouse."
"You saw his face?"
"Yes."
Harlan remembered the man on his porch.
The resemblance.
Not imitation.
Blood.
"He knew things about you," Clara whispered.
Harlan felt the room narrowing.
"Why would my brother work for Rusk?"
Bell answered.
"Money."
Harlan turned.
"You knew?"
"Rumors."
"You've had enough rumors for one night."
Bell lowered his eyes.
Cole said, "Silas showed up in Silver Creek six months ago."
"Why didn't anyone tell me?"
"Rusk made sure nobody did."
That explanation only made Harlan angrier.
"He used Silas to impersonate you."
"Exactly."
Clara closed her eyes.
"The man I saw from the hotel."
"Silas," Harlan said.
The betrayal felt stranger because it came from a ghost.
At dawn the storm weakened.
Harlan prepared Buck and Bell's horse.
Clara insisted on going.
"No," Harlan said.
"Yes."
"You can't walk."
"I can ride."
"You have cracked ribs."
"And you're looking for my bag."
"Our bag now."
Clara paused.
Something about those words affected her.
Harlan noticed and looked away.
He had spent months imagining their first meeting.
He had pictured awkward conversation.
Maybe coffee.
Maybe disappointment.
He never imagined bruises.
Guns.
Or his dead brother.
They left Bell at the cabin.
Cole rode ahead.
Clara sat with Harlan.
The snow made travel slow.
After two hours they reached Red Hollow.
The stagecoach lay tilted against a stand of trees below the ravine.
One wheel shattered.
Clara pointed.
"My bag was under the driver's seat."
Harlan dismounted.
Fresh tracks surrounded the coach.
Someone had arrived before them.
Cole saw them too.
"Two riders."
"Recent?"
"Before the storm ended."
Harlan handed Clara the reins.
"Stay."
She gave him a look.
"That's becoming an irritating word."
"Stay anyway."
Harlan and Cole descended.
The stagecoach door hung open.
Seats slashed.
Luggage torn apart.
Harlan crawled beneath the driver's bench.
Nothing.
"Bag's gone."
Cole cursed.
Then Clara called from above.
"Harlan."
He climbed quickly.
She held something.
A leather strap.
"My bag."
The strap had been cut.
Beside the horse's hoof, barely visible under snow, lay several torn pages.
Cole picked one up.
Numbers.
Names.
Payments.
Harlan recognized one.
SHERIFF DANNER — $300.
Another.
LAND OFFICE — W. PRUITT — $500.
Another.
A. BELL — $200.
Harlan's jaw hardened.
Bell.
Clara pointed lower.
"What does that say?"
Harlan brushed away snow.
S. MERCER — $2,000.
Silas.
Then he saw another entry.
H. MERCER — PAID.
Harlan stared.
"I never took money."
Cole took the page.
"Maybe it doesn't mean you."
"Initial. Surname."
Clara shook her head.
"Rusk wanted people to believe you did."
"Why?"
"Because if you refused his deal, he could claim you'd already accepted payment."
Cole nodded.
"Fraud case. Land seizure. Either route gets him the claim."
Harlan folded the page.
"Where's the rest?"
A rifle clicked behind them.
"Right here."
Silas stood on the ridge.
Harlan slowly turned.
His brother held Clara's leather bag.
Up close, the resemblance was undeniable.
Older.
Harder.
A scar across the left eyebrow.
But Silas.
Alive.
"Hello, brother."
Harlan did not speak.
Silas smiled sadly.
"Not the reunion I pictured."
"You were dead."
"Nearly."
"Eight years."
"Long story."
"You have ten seconds."
Silas looked at Clara.
"Rusk's riders will be here in twenty minutes."
Cole raised his weapon.
Silas tossed the bag.
It landed between them.
"The ledger's inside."
Harlan stared.
"Why give it back?"
"Because Rusk changed the deal."
"What deal?"
Silas's smile disappeared.
"He told me Clara would be frightened, not hurt."
Harlan's eyes hardened.
"You helped kidnap her."
"I helped keep her away from you."
"Difference?"
"At first, I thought so."
Clara stared at Silas.
"You wore Harlan's coat."
"Yes."
"You let me believe he was dead."
"Yes."
"Why?"
Silas looked at Harlan.
"Because I needed him to sell."
"Why?"
"Because Rusk owns me."
Harlan almost laughed.
"No man owns you."
"This one does."
Silas unbuttoned his shirt.
Across his chest were old burn scars.
"After Montana, I survived. Barely. A trading outfit found me."
"Why didn't you come home?"
"I owed men money."
"That never stopped you before."
"These men weren't bankers."
Silas looked toward the ridge.
"Rusk bought my debt."
Harlan's anger remained, but something underneath it shifted.
"You could've told me."
"I came to."
"When?"
"In May."
"My coat."
Silas nodded.
"I stole it because I lost my nerve."
Harlan shook his head.
"So you sold me instead."
"I thought you'd lose land."
Silas looked at Clara.
"Then she arrived."
Clara's voice was cold.
"And I became acceptable collateral."
"No."
"You locked me in a hotel."
"Rusk did."
"You guarded the hallway."
Silas had no answer.
Hoofbeats echoed above.
Cole looked up.
"Riders."
Silas grabbed Harlan.
"Take the ledger and use the north cut."
"Come with us."
Silas froze.
Harlan surprised himself.
"Come with us."
"I can't."
"Why?"
Silas looked toward Clara.
Then toward the approaching riders.
"Because they have Bell."
Harlan's stomach dropped.
"How?"
"They took him after you left."
"Why?"
"To trade."
"For the ledger?"
Silas nodded.
"When?"
"Tonight."
"Where?"
"Old Grant Hotel."
Clara went pale.
"No."
Harlan picked up the leather bag.
Inside lay the ledger.
Heavy.
Black.
Enough paper to bury half of Silver Creek.
Cole grabbed his arm.
"We need to move."
Harlan looked at Silas.
"You're coming."
Silas shook his head.
"I have to go back."
"Then they'll know you warned us."
"They already know."
Hoofbeats grew louder.
Silas turned.
Then stopped.
"Harlan."
"What?"
"There's something else in the ledger."
"What?"
"Last page."
Harlan opened the book.
Pages fluttered.
He reached the final sheet.
One entry.
A date.
Three months earlier.
CLARA WHITMORE — TRANSFER AUTHORIZED.
Beside it stood a signature.
Not Rusk's.
Not Bell's.
Harlan recognized the handwriting.
It belonged to the man who had originally placed his mail-order advertisement in the Eastern Matrimonial Gazette.
A man Harlan had trusted for years.
Reverend Samuel Pike.
Harlan stared at the signature.
Then a gunshot cracked through the ravine.
May you like
Silas fell.
And someone above shouted, "Take the woman alive."
