Chapter 5 - THE DEAD MAN WHO SENT LETTERS
The marshal woke tied to Jeb’s kitchen chair.
Clara had tied the knots.
Jeb inspected them.
“Farm knot.”
“Pig knot.”
“Difference?”
“Pigs are smarter.”
The marshal groaned.
Clara poured coffee.
“You broke my nose.”
“You entered my mountain with a gun.”
“Technically Lawson’s mountain.”
Clara handed him the cup.
“Would you like me to break it again?”
He accepted the coffee.
His name was Thomas Bell.
He was not working for Black Vein.
He had infiltrated them.
The other two gunmen had believed him corrupt.
“Who scratched ‘Trust the Bride’ onto your badge?” Clara asked.
Bell looked at Jeb.
“Silas Whitmore.”
Clara’s chair scraped backward.
“My uncle is dead.”
“I know.”
“When?”
“Six months ago.”
She stared.
“That’s impossible.”
Silas had died eleven weeks earlier.
She had buried him herself.
Bell reached into his coat.
Jeb immediately drew his revolver.
“Easy.”
Bell removed a letter.
Clara recognized the handwriting.
Silas.
Clara,
If Bell gives you this, I have failed to finish what I began. Do not trust anyone who tells you the ledger is about money. Money is merely what frightened men count when they cannot count bodies.
Her vision blurred.
She continued.
You were never sent to Bitter Creek to marry Wyatt Sutton.
Clara stopped.
“What?”
Bell nodded toward the letter.
She read.
I answered Sutton’s advertisement in your name. Forgive me.
Clara’s anger came so quickly it nearly knocked her down.
Her dead uncle had arranged everything.
The letters.
The journey.
The humiliation?
No.
She kept reading.
I needed you to reach Bitter Creek without anyone knowing why. A bride attracts gossip, not investigators. Sutton was supposed to be harmless. I did not know they had already purchased him.
Jeb cursed softly.
Clara’s hands shook.
Even Silas.
Even the man who loved her had manipulated her.
She finished.
The key is not for the ledger.
It is for the train.
Bell explained.
Western Continental maintained a private armored train called the Sovereign.
Once each year it traveled east carrying silver, payroll, corporate records and politicians.
In twelve days it would stop outside Bitter Creek.
Inside one locked mail car was the Black Vein archive.
Not merely evidence of the massacre.
Evidence of continuing forced labor across five territories.
“The company never stopped,” Bell said.
“They changed terminology.”
Debt workers.
Convict crews.
Contract labor.
Different words.
Same cage.
Clara looked at Jeb.
“So the ledger underground?”
“A decoy,” Bell said.
“Silas spread the rumor himself.”
Jeb almost admired it.
“Clever bastard.”
Clara did not.
“He used me.”
“Yes,” Bell said.
“He loved you.”
“Those statements can coexist.”
Jeb looked at her.
He understood better than Bell did.
Clara folded the letter.
“I’m going to rob the train.”
Both men said no.
Simultaneously.
She looked between them.
“That was charming.”
“Clara,” Jeb began.
“No.”
“It’s an armored train.”
“Yes.”
“Twenty guards.”
“Yes.”
“A Gatling gun.”
She paused.
“That seems unnecessarily enthusiastic.”
Bell laughed.
Jeb did not.
“You’re not going.”
Clara stood.
“You spent seventeen years waiting beside a grave.”
His face hardened.
She continued.
“My uncle spent seventeen years hiding. Bell spent years infiltrating them. And what happened?”
Silence.
“Nothing.”
“That isn’t fair.”
“No. Eight hundred and twelve people suffocating beneath our feet wasn’t fair.”
She placed the letter on the table.
“They expect men with guns.”
Bell stared at her.
“They expect outlaws.”
“Yes.”
She smiled.
“They do not expect a cook.”
Jeb closed his eyes.
“What are you thinking?”
“The Sovereign carries wealthy passengers?”
“Yes.”
“They eat?”
Bell slowly smiled.
“Oh, no.”
Jeb looked between them.
“What?”
Clara smiled.
“I’m going to apply for a job.”
Three days later Clara returned to Bitter Creek.
Alone.
Wearing brown wool.
No ruined bridal dress.
No shame.
Wyatt saw her enter the Gold Dust.
His face changed.
“You survived.”
“Disappointed?”
He stood.
“Lawson throw you out?”
“No.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Employment.”
Wyatt laughed.
“Doing what?”
Clara looked toward the railway office across the street.
“Cooking.”
Wyatt’s amusement vanished.
That told her everything.
He knew about the train.
She stepped closer.
“I have another question.”
“What?”
“Who paid you?”
His face remained blank.
“Don’t know what you mean.”
She slapped a five-dollar gold piece onto the bar.
Wyatt stared.
“You arrived with two dollars.”
“Yes.”
“Lawson paying you?”
“Generously.”
Something ugly entered his eyes.
Jealousy.
Possession after rejection.
Clara nearly laughed at the absurdity.
“You sleeping with him?”
She leaned closer.
“Wyatt, you rejected me because my hands were too rough.”
His eyes dropped toward them.
“Now you’re offended because someone else discovered they’re useful?”
His jaw clenched.
“You don’t know Lawson.”
“Neither do you.”
“I know what he did.”
“What?”
Wyatt smiled.
“He didn’t just lose his wife in Shaft Seven.”
Clara’s blood cooled.
“He locked the door.”
She stopped breathing.
“No.”
“He’s the one who sealed those people underground.”
“That’s a lie.”
“Ask him.”
Wyatt leaned closer.
“Ask your mountain man who turned the key.”
Clara left.
She wanted to dismiss it.
Couldn’t.
Because she remembered Jeb outside the shaft.
His fear.
His guilt.
The way he had said he was chained outside.
Was that true?
Or simply the version he could survive?
That night she returned to the cabin.
Jeb was skinning a rabbit.
He looked up.
“How’d it go?”
“I got the job.”
Relief.
Then he saw her face.
“What?”
Clara placed the Shaft Seven key on the table.
“Who locked the door?”
Jeb stopped moving.
And that was enough.
May you like
Clara whispered:
“You did.”
