Chapter 4 - The Reverend's Signature
"Take the woman alive!"
The command echoed across Red Hollow as Harlan dragged Clara behind the overturned stagecoach.
A bullet struck the black ledger in his hand.
The leather cover split.
The final page remained intact.
Reverend Pike's signature was still there.
Harlan fired uphill.
One rider fell from the saddle.
Cole fired beside him.
"North cut!"
Clara crawled toward Silas.
Harlan grabbed her.
"No."
"He's bleeding."
"So will you if you move."
Silas groaned twenty feet away.
A bullet had entered his shoulder.
Another shot shattered the stage window.
Cole shouted, "I'll cover you!"
Harlan looked at Clara.
"Can you ride alone?"
"I'll manage."
He hated the answer.
But there was no alternative.
Harlan fired twice.
Then ran to Silas.
His brother's face had gone white.
"Leave me."
"Quiet."
"Harlan."
"I waited eight years for you to come home. You're not dying five minutes after I find you."
He hauled Silas upright.
Together they reached the horses.
Clara mounted with visible pain.
Cole fired until his revolver clicked empty.
They escaped through the north cut.
Three riders followed.
The ravine narrowed.
Snow fell from branches.
Harlan knew this country better than Rusk's men.
At the rock shelf he turned suddenly.
"Keep going."
Clara saw his expression.
"What are you doing?"
"Changing their minds."
He dismounted and fired into the snowpack above the trail.
Once.
Twice.
A slab of snow broke loose.
The small slide thundered across the passage.
It would not kill anyone.
But it blocked the route.
Harlan remounted.
They rode until dusk.
Cole knew an abandoned trapper's hut.
They sheltered there.
Silas fevered.
Clara cleaned his wound.
Harlan watched her work.
"You don't have to help him."
"Yes, I do."
"He helped Rusk imprison you."
"I know."
"Then why?"
Clara tied the bandage.
"Because if I become like the men who hurt me, they get more than my bruises."
Silas opened his eyes.
"You always talk like a schoolteacher?"
"Only when dealing with slow students."
Harlan almost laughed.
Silas did.
Then groaned.
For the first time since finding Clara, something human entered the room.
It did not last.
Cole opened the ledger.
"Pike's name appears twelve times."
Harlan sat beside him.
Reverend Samuel Pike had baptized children in Silver Creek.
Buried miners.
Married settlers.
Collected charity for widows.
He had also helped Harlan place the advertisement that brought Clara west.
"He selected her," Harlan said.
Clara looked over.
"What?"
"Pike helped write the advertisement."
Silas nodded weakly.
"Rusk needed a bride."
Harlan looked at him.
"Explain."
"Rusk couldn't force you to marry someone. But he knew you'd been talking about finding a wife."
Harlan felt exposed.
"Who told him?"
"Pike."
Clara stared at the ledger.
"So the advertisement wasn't random."
"No."
"Was my reply random?"
Silas hesitated.
Harlan saw it.
"Say it."
"Rusk received more than thirty letters."
Clara's face changed.
"He chose mine."
"Yes."
"Why?"
Silas looked ashamed.
"Because you had no father. No brothers. No wealthy relatives."
Clara's eyes hardened.
"No one who could easily come looking."
"Yes."
Harlan stood abruptly and walked outside.
The cold hit him.
He welcomed it.
He had imagined Clara choosing him.
Not being selected like a tool.
A minute later she stepped outside.
Wrapped in his coat.
"You didn't know."
"No."
"I know."
"I brought you into this."
"No."
"My advertisement—"
"Was written by a lonely man who wanted a family."
Harlan looked at her.
"You crossed the country because of it."
"I crossed because I chose to."
"But Rusk chose you first."
"That doesn't erase my choice."
Harlan looked toward the mountains.
"Do you still want it?"
"What?"
"The marriage."
She was silent.
"That's unfair," she finally said.
"Why?"
"Because we've known each other one day."
"We wrote for seven months."
"Letters aren't a life."
"No."
She stepped closer.
"Ask me after we survive."
He looked down at her.
"Fair."
"Besides..."
"What?"
Her expression softened.
"I haven't decided whether you're tolerable."
Harlan smiled despite himself.
"Take your time."
Inside, Silas called for him.
Harlan entered.
His brother was holding the ledger.
"You need to read page thirty-two."
Harlan did.
Several land purchases.
Then one entry.
PIKE — WHITMORE ARRANGEMENT — $1,500.
Clara read it over his shoulder.
"Arrangement."
Cole frowned.
"There's more."
A notation referenced a letter.
P-9.
Silas said, "Rusk keeps correspondence in his office."
"At the Grant Hotel?"
"No. Freight warehouse."
Cole sat back.
"If we get that letter, we prove Pike participated."
Clara looked at Harlan.
"We already have his signature."
"A good lawyer could claim forgery."
Bell was proof of how easily signatures could be manipulated.
They needed more.
Silas spoke.
"Rusk will move Bell tonight."
"Where?"
"Hotel basement."
Clara's hand tightened.
"You've been there?"
She nodded.
"That's where they questioned me."
Harlan's expression darkened.
"Then we're going."
Cole stared.
"With one rifle, two revolvers, an injured man, and a woman with broken ribs?"
Clara said, "Two injured people."
Cole looked at her.
"That doesn't improve the plan."
"It improves the counting."
Harlan laid the ledger on the table.
"We don't need to fight Rusk's entire operation."
"What do we need?"
"Witnesses."
Cole understood.
"If we bring the ledger publicly..."
"Rusk owns the sheriff."
"But not every person in town."
Exactly.
Silver Creek was corrupt.
It was not entirely bought.
The next morning they returned by separate routes.
Harlan and Clara entered town from the church road.
Silas and Cole circled toward the warehouse.
Harlan left the ledger hidden outside town.
A copy of several pages stayed inside Clara's coat.
They reached Reverend Pike's church just before noon.
The reverend stood near the altar.
When he saw Clara, his face went white.
"Miss Whitmore."
Harlan shut the door.
"Pike."
The reverend looked at Harlan.
"You found her."
"Disappointed?"
"No."
"Your handwriting says otherwise."
Harlan placed the copied ledger page on a pew.
Pike stared at it.
"You don't understand."
"Everybody keeps telling me that."
Clara stepped forward.
"You chose me."
Pike swallowed.
"I chose someone Rusk would accept."
"You knew what he'd do?"
"I thought he wanted leverage."
"You thought locking a woman in a hotel was leverage?"
Pike looked away.
Harlan approached him.
"Letter P-9."
Pike froze.
"Where is it?"
"I don't know."
"Wrong."
"Harlan—"
"Where?"
Pike's shoulders sagged.
"Warehouse office."
"What does it say?"
"Rusk's instructions."
"About Clara?"
"Yes."
"About me?"
"Yes."
"Anything else?"
Pike did not answer.
Harlan stepped closer.
"Anything else?"
Pike whispered, "Silas."
Harlan stopped.
"What about Silas?"
"He wasn't brought here by accident."
Before Pike could continue, church bells began ringing.
Not once.
Not for noon.
Three rapid strikes.
Pause.
Three more.
Pike went pale.
"What is that?"
He rushed to the window.
Harlan followed.
People were running toward Main Street.
Smoke rose above the freight district.
The warehouse.
Clara whispered, "Cole."
Harlan ran.
They reached the street as flames climbed Rusk's warehouse.
A crowd gathered.
Sheriff Danner blocked the road.
"No one goes inside!"
Harlan grabbed him.
"My brother's in there."
Danner's hand went for his gun.
Harlan beat him to it.
"Try."
The sheriff froze.
Then the warehouse doors burst open.
Cole stumbled out coughing.
Alone.
Harlan ran to him.
"Silas?"
Cole shook his head.
"They took him."
"Who?"
"Rusk."
"The letter?"
Cole pulled a charred envelope from his coat.
"P-9."
Harlan opened it.
Most of the paper had survived.
He read the first line.
Mercer must believe his brother died in Montana until the Whitmore woman arrives.
Harlan's hands shook.
Silas's avalanche had not been an accident.
He kept reading.
Then he reached the final sentence.
If Mercer refuses the transfer, use the bride and proceed with the father.
Harlan stared at it.
"My father died twenty years ago."
Reverend Pike had followed them into the street.
He heard the words.
His face drained of color.
Harlan turned slowly.
"Pike."
The reverend backed away.
"What does 'proceed with the father' mean?"
Pike opened his mouth.
Before he could answer, the church bell rang once.
A rider entered Silver Creek.
An old man sat in the saddle.
Gray beard.
Broad shoulders.
Harlan recognized him before anyone spoke.
May you like
The man Harlan had buried twenty years earlier rode straight toward him.
And said, "Son."
