Chapter 3 - THE KEY THAT OPENED NOTHING
Jeb did not ask about the key again until sunrise.
That frightened Clara more than questions would have.
They buried the stagecoach driver beneath stones because the ground was too hard for a proper grave. Jeb removed his hat.
Clara expected a prayer.
Instead he said, “His name was Henry Pike.”
“You knew him?”
“Enough to know he cheated at cards.”
“That is your eulogy?”
“He also fed stray dogs behind the hotel.”
Jeb placed the final stone.
“Men are usually more than the worst thing they did.”
Clara studied him.
She wondered whether he was speaking about Henry.
Or himself.
They rode north.
Around noon, Jeb finally said, “The key.”
Clara sighed.
“My uncle Silas gave it to me before he died.”
“What does it open?”
“If I knew that, it would be considerably more useful.”
“Show me.”
“No.”
Jeb looked over.
“People are killing for it.”
“That does not make me eager to display it.”
“To me.”
“Especially to you.”
He stopped his horse.
Clara stopped hers.
“You think I killed Pike?”
“I think I met you yesterday.”
Fair.
Jeb dismounted.
“So did the man who offered five hundred dollars for you.”
“That argument is annoyingly persuasive.”
“I have several.”
“I’m beginning to dislike your personality.”
“You’ll survive.”
Clara reached beneath her dress.
The key hung on a cord around her neck.
Jeb looked away while she retrieved it.
That tiny gesture registered.
He could have stared.
He didn’t.
The key was brass, long and strangely narrow.
A symbol had been stamped into its head.
A circle divided by three lines.
Jeb went still.
Clara saw it.
“You recognize it.”
“No.”
“You are a dreadful liar.”
“I don’t lie.”
“You just did.”
Jeb stared at the symbol.
“Where did Silas get this?”
“He never said.”
“What did he do before farming?”
“Bookkeeping. Railway work. Mining, briefly.”
“Where?”
Clara thought.
“Montana.”
Jeb cursed.
It was the first time she had heard him do it.
“What?”
“We need to move.”
“Why?”
“Because your uncle wasn’t a farmer.”
“He absolutely was.”
“He may have farmed.”
Jeb mounted.
“But that mark belongs to the Black Vein Company.”
Clara had never heard the name.
“What did they mine?”
Jeb looked toward the mountains.
“People.”
His cabin appeared near dusk.
Clara had expected a shack.
Instead she found a fortress.
It stood on a granite shelf above a frozen creek, built from enormous lodgepole trunks. A barn leaned against the hillside. Firewood was stacked beneath a covered awning with mathematical precision.
The cabin had two doors.
One window.
And gun slits.
Clara stared.
“You neglected to mention that your home resembles something preparing for war.”
“Winter.”
“Does winter shoot back?”
“Sometimes.”
Inside was stranger still.
Books.
Hundreds.
They occupied rough shelves from floor to ceiling.
Shakespeare.
Medical texts.
Engineering manuals.
Latin.
French.
Clara turned.
“You read?”
Jeb removed his coat.
“I try not to move my lips.”
She looked at him.
“Was that a joke?”
“No.”
“It was.”
“No.”
She smiled.
Then saw the piano.
Not a frontier upright.
A beautiful rosewood instrument.
Covered in canvas.
Everything about Jeb had suddenly stopped making sense.
“Who are you?”
His back stiffened.
“A man who needs supper.”
“That answer is becoming less convincing.”
He carried her trunk inside.
Clara watched where he put it.
Beside her room.
Her room.
Jeb opened the door.
A narrow bed.
Washstand.
Iron stove.
Lock.
On the inside.
He handed her the key.
“Yours.”
She looked at him.
“You really meant it.”
“What?”
“That you wouldn’t touch me.”
His expression hardened.
“A promise isn’t worth much if it surprises people when you keep it.”
Something in Clara’s chest moved.
She disliked it.
Immediately.
“Where will you sleep?”
“Other room.”
“And if I scream?”
“I’ll come.”
“And if you’re the reason?”
He considered.
“Use the chair.”
“What chair?”
He pointed.
A massive oak chair stood beside the bed.
“Against the door.”
Clara laughed.
He didn’t.
“You’re serious.”
“Yes.”
That night she cooked venison stew.
Jeb repaired a trap.
They spoke little.
It was strangely peaceful.
Then Clara opened her trunk.
Everything was there.
Quilts.
Books.
Skillets.
Her mother’s sewing box.
Silas’s Bible.
But something was wrong.
The lining.
One corner had been cut.
She touched it.
Fresh.
Someone in Bitter Creek had searched the trunk.
Clara removed the false bottom her uncle had built years earlier.
Empty.
Except—
No.
Something was wedged beneath the wood.
Paper.
She pulled.
A map unfolded across her lap.
Not Montana.
Bitter Creek.
But the town on the map was much larger than the town she had seen.
Streets existed where forest now stood.
A church.
A school.
Dozens of houses.
And beneath the town, drawn in red ink, were tunnels.
Jeb appeared in the doorway.
He saw the map.
Every trace of color left his face.
“Where did you get that?”
“My trunk.”
He crossed the room.
“No.”
Clara stood.
“Do not start ordering me around.”
“Burn it.”
“What?”
“Now.”
“No.”
“Clara.”
The way he said her name frightened her.
Not anger.
Fear.
Jeb Lawson was afraid.
She unfolded the map farther.
At its northern edge was a handwritten notation.
LAWSON PROPERTY.
Below it:
SHAFT 7.
Clara looked up.
“This cabin?”
Jeb said nothing.
“Jeb?”
His jaw tightened.
Then Clara noticed something on the wall behind him.
A framed photograph half-hidden behind hanging pelts.
Five men beside a mine entrance.
One was young.
Clean-shaven.
Educated-looking.
Almost handsome.
But she knew those eyes.
Winter ice.
Jeb.
Beside him stood Silas Whitmore.
Her uncle.
Clara stopped breathing.
“You knew him.”
Jeb closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“Seventeen years.”
“You told me nothing.”
“You didn’t ask.”
She slapped him.
Hard.
Jeb accepted it without moving.
“You knew who I was in Bitter Creek.”
“Yes.”
“You offered me work because of my uncle.”
“No.”
“Then why?”
“Because you needed it.”
She laughed bitterly.
“How noble.”
“Clara—”
“Why is my uncle standing beside you?”
Jeb looked toward the map.
“Because seventeen years ago, Bitter Creek had three thousand people.”
She waited.
“One night,” he said, “eight hundred and twelve disappeared.”
The fire cracked.
Clara whispered, “Disappeared?”
May you like
Jeb’s eyes met hers.
“Your uncle and I were the reason.”
