Chapter 5 - Clara’s Lawyer
Edwin Mercer had represented Clara Hayes for nearly six years.
Jacob had never known.
That alone made him question how little he had understood the woman he thought of as family.
“Six years?” he asked.
Amos nodded.
“Property matters. Her husband’s estate.”
Eli’s father, Daniel Hayes, had died five years earlier from fever.
Clara inherited a small ranch and a controlling interest in several grazing parcels.
Silas had “helped” manage them.
Jacob suddenly wondered whether help had been another word for control.
“Why did Mercer change sides?” Tomas asked.
Amos laughed bitterly.
“Money.”
“Too easy,” Jacob said.
Amos looked at him.
“Sometimes easy is true.”
Maybe.
But Jacob had stopped accepting first answers.
They rode toward Red Creek by back trails.
Amos came with them.
Tomas did not trust him.
Neither did Jacob.
Eli barely looked at the man.
By afternoon they reached an abandoned line shack overlooking the road.
Daniel Stone rode ahead to gather information.
He returned near dusk.
“Silas has men at both roads.”
“How many?”
“Ten, maybe twelve.”
Jacob swore.
Daniel continued.
“Town thinks Eli is still missing.”
“Good.”
“Not entirely. Silas says you were wounded during the rescue.”
Jacob frowned.
“Why invent that?”
Tomas answered.
“So no one expects you to appear.”
“And if I do?”
“He calls you confused, captured or coerced.”
Amos looked toward the town.
“He’s building the story before you can speak.”
Jacob understood.
Silas always had been good at telling a version of events first.
As a child, Jacob had admired it.
When cattle went missing, Silas knew which neighbor was responsible.
When taxes increased, Silas knew which politician had cheated them.
When Jacob’s father died, Silas knew exactly who had been careless with the blasting powder.
Years later, Jacob realized many of those stories had never been proven.
He had simply grown up inside them.
Eli removed the cloth list from his shirt.
“What are these numbers?”
Jacob studied them again.
Dollar amounts ranged from fifty to five thousand.
Mercer’s initials appeared beside several.
E.M.
Amos leaned closer.
“Payments?”
“To Mercer?”
“Maybe.”
Tomas noticed another set.
H.P.
Harlan Pike.
The dead notary.
Then A.C.
Amos Creed.
Everyone looked at him.
Amos paled.
“That’s not money I took.”
Jacob’s voice hardened.
“Then what is it?”
Amos stared at the entry.
A.C. — 300 — 17 June — axle.
Silence.
Jacob slowly stood.
Eli looked between them.
“Axle?”
Amos backed toward the wall.
“I didn’t cut Clara’s wagon.”
Jacob drew his revolver.
“Explain the three hundred dollars.”
“Silas paid me to replace an axle.”
“When?”
“June seventeenth.”
“That’s the day Clara died.”
“I know.”
Eli’s breathing changed.
Amos looked at him desperately.
“Your mother complained the rear axle was cracked. Silas told me to replace it before she rode south.”
“Did you?”
“Yes.”
“With what?”
“A new one.”
Jacob’s finger tightened near the trigger.
“Then how was it cut?”
Amos shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
Tomas asked, “Who had access afterward?”
“Silas. Two stable hands.”
“Names?”
“Ben Cole and Matthew Rusk.”
Jacob knew both.
Ben had left the territory.
Matthew drowned three months ago.
Another dead witness.
Amos continued.
“I finished the work at noon. Clara left around three.”
“Did you inspect it?”
“Yes.”
“And it was sound?”
“Yes.”
Eli whispered:
“Then someone cut it after.”
Amos looked at him.
“I think so.”
Jacob lowered the gun slightly.
“What does the three hundred represent?”
“Silas paid cash because the replacement came from Tucson.”
Tomas pointed at the list.
“Clara recorded the payment.”
“She must have seen his ledger.”
Amos swallowed.
“Silas kept one in the study.”
“What was in it?”
“Everything.”
Western Meridian deposits.
Loans.
Cash payments.
Jacob’s forged mortgage.
Clara’s supposed signature.
Maybe payment to whoever cut the axle.
“Where is it now?”
Amos hesitated.
“Silas burned it.”
“When?”
“After Clara died.”
Eli looked crushed.
Jacob said, “Then why are we chasing paper that no longer exists?”
Amos looked toward Clara’s cloth list.
“Because that isn’t a list of payments.”
“What?”
Amos pointed to the numbers.
“Those are ledger pages.”
Jacob stared.
A.C. — 300.
Not three hundred dollars.
Page 300.
H.P. — 118.
Page 118.
Clara had built an index.
“Then the real ledger existed when she wrote this.”
“Yes.”
“And she expected someone to find it.”
Tomas nodded.
“Which means she may have copied it.”
Eli suddenly reached into the leather pouch.
He removed the medallion.
“Mom told me cottonwood.”
Jacob looked at the carved tree.
Tomas took the medallion.
“The symbol marks water agreements.”
“No,” Eli said.
Everyone turned.
“Mom drew this shape.”
He pointed to the three lines above the crescent.
“In the margins of her Bible.”
Jacob remembered Clara’s Bible.
It had sat beside her bed.
Silas had taken most personal effects after the funeral.
But Eli had kept the Bible.
“Where is it?”
“At Silas’s ranch.”
Jacob’s heart sank.
Eli continued.
“There were numbers beside the symbol.”
“What numbers?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Try.”
Eli closed his eyes.
“Seven. Twelve. Four.”
Jacob looked at Tomas.
“Could those be coordinates?”
“No.”
Amos went still.
Jacob noticed.
“What?”
Amos spoke slowly.
“Silas’s study has twelve bookcases.”
“So?”
“Bookcase seven. Shelf twelve.”
Jacob frowned.
“There’s no shelf twelve.”
“Not shelves.”
Amos looked uneasy.
“Floorboard four.”
Jacob understood.
“You’ve seen a hiding place?”
“Once.”
“What’s in it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why didn’t Silas burn whatever’s there?”
“Because he doesn’t know I saw it.”
Jacob looked toward Red Creek.
They did not need to reach Clara’s Bible.
They needed Silas’s study.
Tomas shook his head.
“Too obvious.”
Jacob agreed.
Silas would expect him at the ranch.
Then Eli said:
“He won’t expect me.”
Jacob turned sharply.
“No.”
“Jacob—”
“No.”
“He thinks I’m still captured.”
“Which is exactly why you stay hidden.”
“But I know the house.”
“So do I.”
“Not like I do.”
Jacob looked at the boy.
Eli’s expression had changed since the platform.
He still looked thirteen.
But childhood certainty had been stripped away.
Jacob hated that.
He also knew he could not simply order him into silence and call it protection.
“Tell me your idea.”
Eli took a breath.
“Silas has a root cellar behind the smokehouse.”
Jacob nodded.
“There’s a tunnel.”
Amos stared.
“What tunnel?”
Eli almost smiled.
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“Exactly.”
And for the first time, they possessed something Silas did not know they knew.
