Chapter 18 - Samuel Ames’s Signature
Caleb stared at Silas.
“Samuel died two years before Mary.”
Silas closed his eyes.
“I didn't say Samuel was there.”
“You said my father-in-law.”
Silas looked at him.
“Mary's stepfather.”
Caleb froze.
Reeves Hargrove had never been Mary's stepfather.
But there had been another man.
Edwin Crane.
Mary's mother married Crane after Samuel Ames died.
The marriage lasted six years.
Mary hated him.
Caleb had met Crane only twice.
“He left Arizona.”
“So we thought,” Silas said.
Kalisa asked, “Why was he with Hargrove?”
“Money.”
Silas coughed.
“Mary's north parcel originally belonged to her mother. Crane believed marriage gave him a claim. It didn't.”
Caleb understood.
“So he helped forge the deed.”
“Yes.”
“Where is he?”
Silas looked frightened.
“I don't know.”
Eleanor later confirmed Edwin Crane had notarized several Hargrove transactions under another name.
The Prescott notary claiming Mary signed the sale?
Edwin Crane.
The conspiracy had a family wound inside it.
Mary had not simply been fighting a cattle baron.
She had been fighting a man who once lived in her mother's house.
Caleb rode to Abigail Mercer.
“Did Mary know Crane was involved?”
Abigail nodded.
“She suspected.”
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“I didn't know until after she died.”
“How?”
Abigail opened a sewing trunk.
Inside lay a letter from Mary.
She wrote that Crane had approached her secretly.
He offered money for the parcel.
When she refused, he threatened to contest her mother's estate.
Mary had dismissed him.
Then she saw him dining with Hargrove.
“She was ashamed,” Abigail said.
“Of what?”
“That part of this came from her own family.”
Caleb sat down.
Family.
The word sounded different.
People imagined betrayal came from enemies.
But enemies rarely knew where to place the knife.
Abigail continued.
“Mary believed Crane had stolen her mother's seal.”
“What seal?”
“A small embossed stamp used on older property papers.”
Eleanor arrived later and confirmed the forged deed carried such a seal.
That tied Crane directly to the fraud.
But where was he?
Deputy Marshal Cole telegraphed Prescott.
By morning they had an answer.
Edwin Crane had been living in Santa Fe under the name Edwin Ames.
He left three days earlier.
Destination unknown.
“He knows we're coming,” Caleb said.
Kalisa pointed toward Hargrove's railway map.
“No.”
She traced the blue line.
“He knows Reeves is losing.”
“What does that change?”
“He may not be running from us.”
Caleb understood.
“He may be running from Reeves.”
They searched old correspondence recovered from the wagon.
One letter, unsigned, demanded additional payment for “the Ames papers” and threatened to reveal the Whitlock matter.
Crane had been blackmailing Hargrove.
The most recent note said:
I kept one copy of what you wrote after the woman died.
If you attempt to cheat me again, I will deliver it to Prescott.
Caleb's heartbeat quickened.
“What he wrote after Mary died.”
A confession?
An instruction?
Something.
Cole asked where Crane would go.
Caleb looked at a faded family map Abigail had provided.
Mary's mother once owned a cabin near Silver Pass.
Crane had spent summers there.
“He'd go somewhere he knows.”
They left before noon.
At Silver Pass, they found the cabin door open.
Inside were signs of a struggle.
A broken chair.
Blood on the floor.
No body.
Kalisa found tracks.
Two horses arrived.
Three left.
“Someone took him.”
Caleb searched the desk.
Empty.
Then he noticed the stove.
Cold ashes.
He sifted through them.
A corner of paper remained unburned.
He unfolded it carefully.
Only one complete sentence survived.
Reeves, you said the woman was alive when you left me with Nantan.
Caleb stared at the words.
Kalisa read them.
“If Crane was with Nantan…”
“Then he may know who killed Mary.”
A floorboard creaked behind them.
Caleb turned.
A revolver pointed directly at his chest.
Edwin Crane stood in the doorway.
Older.
Gaunt.
Terrified.
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“Close the door,” he said.
“Because if Hargrove's men see me alive, none of us leave this mountain.”
