Rusk continued.
“So did Isaac.”
Silas shouted, “You killed him?”
Miriam stopped breathing.
Rusk laughed.
“No.
I didn’t have to.”
The wind nearly swallowed his next words.
“He killed himself by coming back to Red Ash.”
Miriam staggered upright.
Isaac had supposedly died beneath an overturned logging wagon.
At least that was what she had been told.
His body had been so badly damaged she had been advised not to view it.
Something terrible began rearranging itself inside her memory.
“Silas…”
He looked at her.
“I think they murdered my husband.”
Rusk heard.
“Miriam, Isaac was never the man you believed he was.”
She shouted through the door.
“And you are?”
That silenced him.
Silas suddenly looked toward the knife again.
He picked it up.
Turned it beneath the lamplight.
Pressed the silver hawk with his thumb.
Nothing happened.
Then Jonah spoke.
“Pa used to twist it.”
Silas looked up.
“What?”
“The bird.”
Jonah approached.
“When he sharpened the knife, sometimes he turned the silver bird backward.”
Miriam had seen Isaac do that.
She had assumed it was some nervous habit.
Silas twisted the tiny silver hawk.
A click came from inside the handle.
Miriam stared.
Silas pulled.
The walnut grip separated.
Inside was a narrow hollow chamber.
And inside that chamber—
a tightly rolled piece of paper.
No one moved.
Silas removed it with shaking fingers.
The page was yellow.
Fragile.
Covered in faded handwriting.
He unfolded it.
His face changed instantly.
Miriam whispered, “What is it?”
Silas could not answer.
So she took it.
The first line read:
Silas, if this letter ever reaches you, then Alden lied to both of us.
Miriam’s heart stopped.
Below it was another name.
Eliza Crowe.
Silas’s dead wife.
Miriam began reading aloud.
“Silas, I have discovered the missing cattle were never stolen by settlers.
Alden has been selling them through men across the northern line.
He has changed the ranch books and placed debts in your name…”
Outside, there was movement.
Rusk shouted.
“Give me that paper!”
Silas raised his revolver.
Miriam continued.
“He knows that I found the original ledgers.
Tonight I heard him tell Daniel that once you are arrested for the missing money, he will control Crowe Ranch through the bank…”
Silas whispered, “My God.”
Miriam read faster.
“I do not know who I can trust.
Elias Boone has agreed to take me and Samuel south before morning.
I know you believe Elias betrayed you, but the letter you found was forged.
He never threatened me.”
Elias Boone.
Isaac.
Silas leaned against the wall.
Miriam continued.
“Alden knows the ranch belongs to Samuel if anything happens to you.
That makes our son the one person he cannot allow to survive.”
Jonah stared at her.
Silas stopped breathing.
Miriam reached the final lines.
“If I die, Elias has promised to hide Samuel until Alden can no longer reach him.
