Chapter 7 - The Lawyer Who Switched Sides
Jacob lowered his revolver.
Not because Silas ordered him to.
Because Mercer’s rifle pointed at Eli’s chest.
“Good,” Mercer said.
Silas looked annoyed.
“I told you no guns near the boy.”
Mercer shrugged.
“And I told you not to keep the ledger.”
Their argument revealed something useful.
They were partners.
Not friends.
Jacob set his revolver on the desk.
“Eli goes outside.”
“No,” Mercer said.
Silas said simultaneously:
“Yes.”
They looked at each other.
Jacob filed the fracture away.
Silas stepped toward Eli.
“You’re coming with me.”
The boy backed away.
“No.”
“I am still your guardian.”
“You sent me away.”
“To Denver.”
“Without telling me!”
Silas’s expression tightened.
“You are thirteen. Adults make decisions you don’t understand.”
Jacob almost struck him.
Instead he said:
“That sentence has done enough damage in this family.”
Silas looked at him.
“You think you’re different? You rode into a camp and opened fire because you saw ropes.”
Jacob said nothing.
Silas had found the wound.
Worse, he was right about that part.
But being right about one thing did not erase everything else.
Mercer walked to the desk.
“Ledger.”
Jacob handed it over.
Mercer flipped through several pages.
“You really should have burned this.”
Silas snapped:
“And lose every record of what Western Meridian owes me?”
Mercer laughed.
“They don’t owe you anything anymore.”
Silas stared.
“What does that mean?”
Mercer closed the ledger.
“It means the company changed terms.”
“Without me?”
“They’ve lost confidence.”
Silas’s face darkened.
Jacob realized Mercer had come not to protect Silas, but to manage the collapse.
“What happens tomorrow when the inspector arrives?” Jacob asked.
Mercer looked at him.
“Inspector?”
Silas turned sharply.
Mercer’s expression changed.
He had not told Silas.
Another fracture.
Jacob smiled faintly.
“Clara mailed evidence to Santa Fe.”
Silas looked at Mercer.
“You said that was handled.”
“It was.”
“Apparently not.”
Mercer’s jaw tightened.
Eli watched them.
Then asked:
“Did you know Mom’s wagon was cut?”
Mercer looked at him.
For a moment, the lawyer’s professional mask slipped.
“I knew your mother was taking risks.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Mercer sighed.
“Your mother believed law was a shield.”
Jacob said:
“And you taught her otherwise?”
“I taught her law is a tool. She chose to turn it into a weapon.”
Silas said:
“Enough.”
Mercer ignored him.
“Clara came to me six years ago because Daniel Hayes left debts.”
Eli’s face tightened at his father’s name.
“She wanted to protect your home,” Mercer continued. “I did that.”
“Then you betrayed her.”
“I changed clients.”
“After she found the forged deed.”
Mercer’s eyes narrowed.
Jacob had guessed correctly.
“She threatened Western Meridian,” he said. “They hired me to negotiate.”
“You mean silence her.”
“I mean prevent a disastrous legal conflict.”
“She died.”
Mercer looked toward Silas.
“That was not my decision.”
Silas went still.
Jacob stared at him.
“Whose decision was it?”
Silas’s face hardened.
“Clara’s death was an accident.”
Mercer gave him a strange look.
Not agreement.
Warning.
Jacob noticed.
So did Eli.
Then voices sounded outside.
Silas crossed to the window.
His guards were moving toward the smokehouse.
Tomas had arrived.
Jacob hid his relief.
Silas turned.
“You brought them here?”
“Yes.”
“To my home?”
“To mine too, according to the mortgage you forged.”
Silas’s face colored.
Mercer grabbed the ledger.
“We leave.”
Silas blocked him.
“With my book?”
“Your book is now evidence.”
“Against whom?”
Mercer smiled without warmth.
“Whoever the company needs.”
Silas understood.
Western Meridian was abandoning him.
Jacob watched panic enter his uncle’s face.
For the first time, Silas was not the man controlling the story.
He was inside someone else’s.
Mercer backed toward the hall.
Then Eli moved.
Fast.
He kicked the study door shut.
Mercer turned.
That second was enough.
Jacob crossed the room.
He hit the rifle barrel upward.
The shot tore into the ceiling.
Silas grabbed Eli.
Eli bit his hand.
Silas cursed and released him.
Jacob struck Mercer once.
The lawyer fell against the desk.
The ledger slid across the floor.
Eli grabbed it.
“Run!”
They bolted through the side door.
Silas shouted behind them.
Mercer fired again.
The bullet shattered a lamp.
Jacob shoved Eli through the kitchen.
Outside, chaos erupted.
Tomas and his two riders had entered the yard from the north while guards rushed toward the smokehouse tunnel entrance.
Amos appeared near the corral.
“Here!”
Jacob and Eli ran.
Silas emerged on the porch.
“JACOB!”
Jacob turned.
Silas did not raise a gun.
He shouted:
“If you take that ledger to the inspector, you lose everything too!”
Jacob stopped.
Silas pointed toward the book.
“Ask Clara what she found on page five hundred and twelve.”
Jacob stared.
Silas smiled grimly.
“You think this is about my forgery?”
Mercer appeared behind him.
Blood at his lip, nothing more.
Silas continued:
“Your father signed the first fraudulent transfer twenty years ago.”
Jacob’s chest tightened.
“My father was dead before Western Meridian came here.”
“Western Meridian is new.”
Silas looked almost sorrowful.
“The theft isn’t.”
Tomas shouted for Jacob to move.
But Silas’s next sentence followed him across the yard.
“Clara wasn’t trying to expose me, Jacob.”
Jacob climbed onto Ranger.
Silas yelled:
“She was trying to keep you from learning what your father did.”
Then a rifle shot cracked from the darkness.
Not from Jacob.
Not from Tomas.
Mercer jerked backward and fell from the porch.
Silas stared down at him.
Everyone froze.
A second shot hit the porch railing.
Silas ducked.
Jacob saw a rider on the distant ridge.
Then the figure disappeared.
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Somebody else had entered the game.
And they had just tried to kill Edwin Mercer before he could say anything more.
