Chapter 16 - The Letter Daniel Never Sent
The hearing resumed without them.
Whitaker delayed Mercer’s testimony.
Jacob, Eli, Martha and Tomas remained in the side room with Silas.
Eli sat alone.
Jacob wanted to comfort him.
He resisted.
Comfort offered too soon could become another way of avoiding truth.
Tomas sat near the window.
“What did Daniel want?” he asked.
Silas answered.
“Money.”
“That is not enough.”
Silas looked at him.
“For some men, it is.”
Tomas shook his head.
“Daniel lived near Coyote Spring his whole life. He knew what diverting it would do.”
Silas gave a tired smile.
“You want everyone to have noble motives.”
“No.”
Tomas’s answer was immediate.
“I want motives large enough to explain the risk.”
Jacob nodded.
“He’s right.”
Silas sighed.
“Daniel owed fifteen thousand dollars.”
“To whom?”
“A gambling syndicate in Tucson.”
“How?”
“Poker. Horse races. Loans to cover loans.”
Eli closed his eyes.
Silas continued.
“Mercer approached him with an opportunity. Find proof the Hayes family controlled the spring, then sell development rights.”
“Daniel found the partnership references.”
“Yes.”
“But those weakened control.”
“He didn’t know that until later.”
“So he tried blackmailing you.”
“Yes.”
“And when Clara discovered it?”
“She was furious.”
Eli whispered:
“At him?”
“At all of us.”
Silas looked at the boy.
“She told Daniel she would sell the house before she let him profit from stolen water.”
Eli’s face broke.
That sounded like his mother.
Jacob asked:
“Where is Daniel’s letter?”
Silas hesitated.
“What letter?”
“The one he planned to use against you.”
“Gone.”
“Clara burned one.”
“That was not Daniel’s.”
Jacob stared.
Silas continued.
“The letter Clara burned was from Mercer.”
The threat:
Daniel knows about the spring. Keep him quiet.
Mercer had written it.
“Why send that to Clara?”
“To frighten her.”
“Into what?”
“Convincing Daniel to stop.”
Martha whispered:
“Instead she returned the money.”
“Yes.”
Jacob saw the pattern.
Mercer knew Daniel was unstable.
Debts.
Blackmail.
A compromised marriage.
If Daniel exposed the scheme, Mercer lost potential buyers.
Then Daniel died from a tampered bottle.
“Mercer poisoned him.”
Silas shook his head.
“I cannot prove that.”
“But Clara suspected him.”
“Yes.”
“Then why keep Mercer as her lawyer?”
Silas looked grim.
“She didn’t.”
“But he was her lawyer until near her death.”
“She pretended he was.”
Jacob went still.
“She was watching him.”
Silas nodded.
“Clara decided the best way to learn who Mercer worked for was to let him think she still trusted him.”
Martha whispered:
“That’s why she never told me.”
Clara had become an investigator because betrayal had already taught her the cost of trust.
Eli looked up.
“So Mom knew Mercer might have killed Dad.”
“Yes.”
“And still met him?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“To prove it.”
Tomas asked:
“Did she?”
Silas’s face changed.
“She found Daniel’s last letter.”
Jacob leaned forward.
“To whom?”
“Mercer.”
“What did it say?”
“I never saw the original.”
“Who did?”
“Clara.”
“Where is it?”
Silas looked toward the leather pouch around Eli’s neck.
Eli noticed.
“No.”
Silas nodded.
“The medallion opens something.”
Tomas’s expression changed.
“What?”
“The old stone chamber.”
“We know.”
“No.”
Silas shook his head.
“You know the chamber where Eli found it.”
“Yes.”
“There is another compartment.”
Tomas stood.
“I have never heard of that.”
“Clara found it.”
“How?”
“Your former council elder, Joseph Two Rivers, showed her.”
Tomas’s face softened at the name.
“He died last winter.”
“Yes.”
Silas continued.
“Clara hid Daniel’s letter there.”
Eli grabbed the medallion.
“I was right there.”
“You didn’t know.”
“Why not tell me?”
“Because I wanted the medallion, not the letter.”
Jacob stared.
“Why?”
“Because the compact threatens my property.”
“And Daniel’s letter?”
Silas’s expression darkened.
“Threatens Mercer.”
Jacob understood.
Silas and Mercer had been cooperating while each held evidence that could ruin the other.
Mutual blackmail.
That explained why Mercer had not simply abandoned Silas years ago.
“Why didn’t you use it?”
“I didn’t have it.”
“Clara did.”
“And then she died.”
Tomas stood.
“We go back.”
Jacob looked at the window.
Western Meridian guards watched the courthouse.
“Mercer knows?”
Silas nodded.
“He knows Daniel wrote something. He doesn’t know where it is.”
Eli stood.
“He will now.”
Everyone looked at him.
“Why?”
“Because he heard me took the medallion.”
Jacob’s stomach tightened.
Mercer might not know the second chamber.
But if he followed them—
Tomas said:
“We do not leave openly.”
Martha volunteered to stay and keep the hearing occupied.
Whitaker could subpoena Mercer.
That would trap him in town for several hours.
Jacob looked at Silas.
“You’re coming.”
Silas laughed.
“I’m under federal supervision.”
Boone appeared in the doorway.
“I can supervise.”
Everyone turned.
The marshal leaned against the frame, pale but upright.
“You’re wounded.”
“Not enough.”
Jacob stared.
Boone shrugged.
“I owe Elias.”
Silas gave him a cold look.
“You owe everyone.”
Boone nodded.
“That’s why I’m starting somewhere.”
They left through the courthouse rear stable.
Jacob.
Eli.
Tomas.
Silas.
Boone.
A strange group held together by guilt, evidence and necessity.
Halfway to Red Mesa, Eli rode beside Silas.
“Did Mom hate you?”
Silas looked surprised.
He took a long time.
“No.”
“How do you know?”
“Because hatred would have been easier.”
Eli looked ahead.
“What did she feel?”
Silas’s voice became quiet.
“Disappointed.”
The word hurt him.
Jacob could tell.
Eli asked:
“Is that worse?”
Silas looked toward Jacob.
“Yes.”
They reached the old stone chamber at dusk.
Tomas inserted the medallion into a carved depression.
Nothing happened.
Eli turned it.
A stone panel shifted.
Inside lay a narrow tin box.
Jacob opened it.
One letter.
Daniel’s handwriting.
Addressed to Edwin Mercer.
Eli read over Jacob’s shoulder.
I know what you put in the medicine bottle.
Everyone froze.
The next line:
If I die, Clara has enough to hang you.
Eli’s breath caught.
Daniel had known.
Mercer had poisoned him.
But the final lines changed everything.
I will not expose you yet because I need the money. Pay what you promised, and I stay quiet about the spring and the bottle.
Eli stepped back.
His father had discovered an attempt to kill him—
and used it for blackmail.
Jacob felt sick for the boy.
Then Tomas noticed writing on the back.
Clara’s hand.
Daniel died before he could send this. Mercer never knew I found it.
Below:
The person who altered Daniel’s medicine was not Mercer. Daniel was wrong.
Jacob stared.
Then Clara’s final note:
I found the pharmacy record. Mercer bought the laudanum, but someone else collected it.
One name.
Silas Hayes.
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Every eye turned toward Silas.
And for once, he looked genuinely terrified.
