Chapter 15 - The Mother's Secret

Elias read the message three times.

"My mother?"

Nia watched him.

"Did your father ever talk about her?"

"Not much."

"What happened to her?"

"She died when I was eleven."

"How?"

"Fever."

Mercer looked at the note.

"Maybe not."

Elias stared at him.

"What are you saying?"

"Your father suspected she knew about the land scheme."

"But she was a schoolteacher."

"People underestimate witnesses."

Nia asked:

"What did she know?"

Elias remembered something.

His mother's journal.

After her death, his father had locked it away.

He had never read it.

They returned to the ranch.

The journal was hidden beneath a floorboard.

Elias opened it.

Most pages contained ordinary observations.

Then he found an entry from 1859.

Thomas came home frightened today. He says Mateo found proof that the land office is selling claims to men who do not legally own them. He wants to expose them. I told him we should leave. He says leaving would condemn others.

Another entry:

Someone followed me from town. Thomas says I must stop speaking to anyone about the records.

Then the final entry:

If anything happens to me, the truth is not beneath the ranch. It is inside the family.

Elias stopped breathing.

Nia leaned closer.

"Inside the family?"

Elias continued reading.

Henry knows.

Mercer closed his eyes.

"Your uncle."

Elias whispered:

"He didn't die of pneumonia."

The journal contained one final clue.

A name.

Clara Bell.

Mercer frowned.

"Who is she?"

Elias looked up.

"I don't know."

Nia said:

"Maybe we should find out."

Outside, someone fired a shot.

The journal fell from Elias's hands.

A bullet had struck the window.

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Attached to it was another note.

Stop digging.