Chapter 7 - THE WIFE WHO REFUSED TO BE DEAD
Jeb opened the door.
The woman outside was fifty perhaps, though hardship had blurred the calculation.
Gray threaded her black hair.
One eye was clouded.
Burn scars climbed her neck.
Jeb whispered, “Margaret.”
She punched him.
Clara liked her immediately.
Jeb staggered backward.
“You’re alive.”
“That was for taking seventeen years to notice.”
Then Margaret embraced him.
Jeb collapsed.
Not physically.
Something inside him simply gave way.
He held her and sobbed.
Clara turned aside.
Some moments did not belong to witnesses.
When they separated, Margaret saw Clara.
Then the piano.
Then Jeb.
Then Clara again.
“Oh.”
Clara felt suddenly absurd.
“Hello.”
“You kissed him.”
Clara nearly swallowed her tongue.
“How could you possibly—”
“His mouth is red.”
Jeb wiped his mouth.
Margaret laughed.
It was the strangest reunion Clara had ever witnessed.
“You’re not angry?” Clara asked.
Margaret looked surprised.
“At you?”
“Yes.”
“For kissing a man who believed himself widowed for seventeen years?”
“When you phrase it that way…”
“I usually do.”
Margaret entered.
Then her expression darkened.
“I came because the Sovereign arrives tomorrow.”
Jeb stared.
“How do you know?”
“Because I’ve spent seventeen years inside Black Vein.”
Silence.
Margaret had survived the explosion.
A ventilation shaft collapsed open.
Twenty-three people escaped.
Black Vein captured nineteen.
Four escaped into the mountains.
Margaret was one.
“Why didn’t you come back?”
Jeb’s pain became anger.
“You knew I was alive.”
“Yes.”
“You let me believe—”
“If I came back, they would have killed you.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I watched them kill the other three.”
Jeb stopped.
Margaret continued.
“So I disappeared.”
“You could have sent word.”
“I did.”
“Never got it.”
“I know that now.”
“How?”
“Because Silas intercepted the letters.”
Clara stood.
“My uncle?”
Margaret looked at her.
“He believed Jeb would go looking for me.”
“He would have.”
“Yes.”
“And get himself killed.”
“Yes.”
Clara laughed bitterly.
“Silas certainly enjoyed deciding other people’s lives.”
Margaret smiled sadly.
“He believed manipulation was kindness if the result kept someone breathing.”
Clara looked at Jeb.
A warning passed between them.
They were learning not to become Silas.
Margaret brought the final revelation.
The Sovereign was not carrying archives east.
It was carrying people west.
Thirty-two children.
Orphans purchased through fraudulent contracts.
Black Vein intended to place them in mining camps.
Clara went cold.
“We’re not stealing documents.”
“No,” Margaret said.
“We’re stealing a train.”
Jeb looked toward Clara.
She smiled slowly.
“That sounds more interesting.”
The Sovereign arrived at noon.
Black iron.
Six cars.
Armored windows.
Smoke boiling against a white sky.
Clara boarded wearing an apron.
Nobody looked twice at a cook.
That was the genius of being underestimated.
Powerful men noticed guns.
They rarely noticed the woman refilling their coffee.
Clara moved through the dining car.
Railway executives discussed senators.
A judge complained about his steak.
Wyatt Sutton sat at the final table.
Clara nearly dropped the pot.
He smiled.
“Surprised?”
“Frequently. Rarely pleasantly.”
“You should’ve married me.”
“You rejected me.”
“A mistake.”
“No. A public service.”
She poured his coffee.
Wyatt caught her wrist.
“I can still protect you.”
Clara looked down at his hand.
“Remove it.”
“Lawson can’t.”
“Remove.”
“Clara—”
She poured hot coffee into his lap.
Wyatt screamed.
The dining car erupted.
“Oh,” Clara said. “How clumsy.”
She walked away.
At 12:47, Bell unlocked the rear car.
At 12:49, Margaret uncoupled the communications wire.
At 12:51, Jeb rode alongside the engine and climbed aboard.
At 12:52, everything failed.
The children weren’t in the rear car.
They were in the locomotive tender.
And Black Vein’s president was aboard.
Augustus Vale.
The richest man west of Chicago.
He recognized Clara.
“Silas’s girl.”
She froze.
Vale smiled.
“Your uncle caused considerable trouble.”
“He had that gift.”
“He died poorly.”
Clara’s blood turned to ice.
“You killed him?”
“No.”
Vale smiled.
“You did.”
She stared.
“He was dying already. Cancer. Months perhaps.”
Vale leaned closer.
“But he knew you would never come to Bitter Creek willingly.”
Clara understood.
“The bride advertisement.”
“He arranged it.”
“I know.”
“Do you know why he chose you?”
“Because nobody would suspect me.”
Vale shook his head.
“No.”
He removed something from his coat.
A photograph.
Clara at perhaps eight years old.
Beside Silas.
And another man.
Augustus Vale.
“You’re my daughter.”
Clara laughed.
It was involuntary.
“No.”
“Ask Margaret.”
Clara looked toward her.
Margaret’s silence was terrible.
“No.”
Vale smiled.
“Silas wasn’t your uncle.”
The train thundered through the mountains.
“He stole you from me.”
Clara could barely hear.
“Why?”
“Because I intended to make you useful.”
Something in the phrasing told her everything.
Silas had lied.
Manipulated.
Controlled.
But perhaps he had also saved her.
Vale reached for her.
“My blood belongs beside me.”
Clara stepped backward.
“No.”
“You don’t understand what you are.”
She looked at him.
For the first time in her life, she understood exactly what she was.
Not rejected bride.
Not Silas’s pawn.
Not Jeb’s cook.
Not Vale’s daughter.
Clara.
“Neither do you.”
She smashed the coffee pot across his face.
Then pulled the emergency brake.
May you like
The Sovereign screamed.
And began to leave the rails.
