Chapter 6 - Beneath the Hayes Ranch
The tunnel had been built for liquor.
Jacob remembered hearing stories about it.
His grandfather had supposedly moved whiskey through the ranch during a territorial tax dispute.
Jacob assumed the entrance had collapsed decades ago.
Eli knew otherwise.
“Mom showed me.”
“When?”
“When Dad was alive.”
“Why?”
“She said Hayes men think secrets stay buried just because they stop talking about them.”
Jacob almost laughed.
That sounded like Clara.
They waited until midnight.
Tomas and his riders remained near the creek.
Amos stayed with them.
Jacob and Eli approached the ranch alone.
Jacob hated every step.
He had promised himself not to use Eli as bait.
Now the boy crawled through a tunnel toward the very man who had apparently sent him into danger.
But Eli had refused to remain behind.
“You don’t get to stop listening to me just because you’re scared,” he had said.
Jacob could not argue with that after everything.
They entered the root cellar through a loose stone behind the smokehouse.
The tunnel smelled of earth and old wood.
Eli moved ahead.
“You’ve done this before?”
“Once.”
“Why?”
“To steal peaches.”
Jacob looked at him.
“Your mother taught you this tunnel so you could steal peaches?”
“No.”
A pause.
“She told me never to use it.”
“That sounds more like Clara.”
They reached a trapdoor beneath the pantry.
The house was quiet.
Silas had two guards outside.
No one inside the kitchen.
They moved toward the study.
Jacob knew every board that creaked.
The room looked unchanged.
Mounted antelope horns.
Leather chair.
Big walnut desk.
A portrait of Jacob’s grandfather staring down like an accusation.
Eli counted bookcases.
Seven.
Then vertical panels.
Twelve.
Then floorboards.
Four.
Jacob used his knife.
The board lifted.
Inside lay a narrow steel box.
Locked.
Eli produced a small key.
Jacob stared.
“Where did you get that?”
“Mom’s Bible.”
“You said the Bible was here.”
“The key was sewn into the cover. I took it months ago.”
Jacob wanted to ask how many secrets the boy had been forced to carry.
Later.
The key fit.
Inside was a ledger.
Not burned.
Silas had lied to Amos.
Jacob opened it.
Western Meridian payments.
Mortgage pledges.
Cash distributions.
Then the page numbers from Clara’s cloth index.
Page 118.
H.P.
Harlan Pike.
Payment: $1,000.
Description: Backdate witness acknowledgment.
Forgery.
Page 300.
A.C.
Amos Creed.
Payment: $300.
Description: Replacement axle.
Legitimate.
Clara had indexed facts, not only crimes.
Jacob turned pages.
Page 412.
M.R.
Matthew Rusk.
Payment: $750.
Description:
Alter rear assembly after repair. S.H. instruction.
Eli read it.
His face went white.
“Matthew cut Mom’s wagon.”
Jacob closed his eyes.
They had proof Silas paid someone to alter the axle.
But the line did not explicitly say cut.
Still, it was enough to ask harder questions.
Then Eli turned another page.
Page 419.
E.M.
Edwin Mercer.
Payment: $5,000.
Description:
Obtain Clara correspondence / destroy compact copy.
Jacob’s stomach tightened.
Mercer had betrayed Clara before her death.
“Keep looking.”
Page 430.
B.C.
Ben Cole.
$600.
Move wreckage to north road.
Jacob stared.
Silas had paid to relocate Clara’s wagon.
The Chief had told the truth.
Eli began crying silently.
Jacob put one hand over the page.
“Don’t.”
“I want to see.”
“You’ve seen enough.”
“No.”
Eli looked at him.
“If Mom had to live it, I can read it.”
Jacob moved his hand.
They continued.
Then footsteps sounded in the hall.
Jacob closed the ledger.
Too late.
The study door opened.
Silas Hayes stood there.
Sixty years old.
Tall.
Silver hair.
No gun in his hand.
He looked first at Jacob.
Then Eli.
His expression was not shock.
It was disappointment.
“I hoped you’d be smarter than this.”
Jacob drew his revolver.
Silas sighed.
“Still doing everything with a gun.”
Eli stepped behind Jacob.
Silas noticed.
“That’s what they’ve taught you?”
Eli’s voice shook.
“You sent me to get killed.”
Silas’s face softened.
“No.”
“The note said send me to Denver.”
“To keep you safe.”
“You told everyone I was kidnapped.”
“To bring help.”
“You told me the tribe killed Mom.”
Silas’s gaze shifted toward the ledger.
“They did.”
Jacob laughed bitterly.
“We have your records.”
“You have bookkeeping you don’t understand.”
“Matthew Rusk. Alter rear assembly.”
“Repair.”
“Ben Cole. Move wreckage to north road.”
Silas paused.
Jacob saw it.
Just for a moment.
Then Silas recovered.
“Because Clara died on disputed land. I did what was necessary to prevent retaliation.”
“You staged the accident scene.”
“I moved a dead woman so her son would not grow up believing she died among strangers who hated us.”
Eli flinched.
Jacob stepped closer.
“You paid Mercer to destroy the compact.”
“Because the compact is legally meaningless.”
“Then why destroy it?”
Silas’s eyes hardened.
“Because meaningless paper can still ruin good land when fools wave it at bureaucrats.”
There it was.
Not confession.
But motive.
Jacob lifted the ledger.
“This goes to the federal inspector.”
Silas smiled sadly.
“No, it doesn’t.”
A rifle hammer clicked behind Jacob.
Edwin Mercer stood in the doorway.
Gun aimed at Eli.
“Put the ledger down.”
Jacob froze.
Mercer smiled.
“Clara should have done the same.”
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And suddenly the man who had been her lawyer was no longer a secondary betrayal.
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