Lydia studied him.
“Daniel used to say guilt was grief looking for someone to punish.”
Silas looked at her.
“Daniel said that?”
“Yes.”
“Didn’t take his own advice.”
Something in Silas’s tone made her uneasy.
Before she could ask what he meant, three heavy knocks struck the door.
Both of them froze.
It was nearly midnight.
Nobody crossed the mountain at midnight in winter.
Silas reached for his rifle.
“Get behind the stove.”
Lydia rose.
The knocking came again.
“Croft!”
A man’s voice.
“We know you’re in there.”
Silas extinguished the lamp.
Darkness swallowed the cabin.
He moved to the window.
Lydia whispered, “Who is it?”
“Don’t know.”
“Croft! We’re looking for something that belongs to Daniel Marsh.”
Lydia’s blood went cold.
Silas chambered a round.
“What?”
“Ledger.”
The man outside laughed.
“Hand it over and nobody gets hurt.”
Lydia looked toward the iron box beneath the floor.
Silas’s eyes found hers in the darkness.
Someone knew Daniel had been there.
And they knew what he had left.
Silas shouted through the door.
“No Daniel Marsh here.”
Another voice answered.
“We followed his widow.”
Lydia felt the floor disappear beneath her.
They had followed her.
The advertisement.
The wagon.
The mountain.
None of it had been chance.
A gunshot shattered the front window.
Silas lunged toward Lydia.
Glass exploded across the floor.
“Down!”
He fired once through the broken window.
A man cursed outside.
Another shot tore through the wall.
Lydia crawled behind the stove.
Silas moved with terrifying calm.
He fired again.
Then silence.
A horse screamed.
Hooves pounded through snow.
Within seconds, the night became still again.
Silas waited.
One minute.
Two.
Five.
Finally, he lowered the rifle.
“They’re gone.”
Lydia stood shakily.
Silas lit the lamp.
A bullet had buried itself in the beam inches above her bunk.
They both stared at it.
Then Lydia looked at Silas.
“Open the box.”
“We don’t have the key.”
“We don’t need one.”
She picked up his splitting maul.
Silas raised an eyebrow.
“You sure you’re Daniel’s widow?”
Lydia brought the iron box onto the hearthstone.
“No.”
Her face hardened.
“I’m beginning to wonder whether I ever knew the man at all.”
It took Silas seven blows to break the lock.
Inside lay two leather ledgers.
A bundle of bank documents.
Several property deeds.
And an envelope.
Lydia recognized the handwriting immediately.
Her name was written across the front.
Lydia.
Her hands trembled.
She opened it.
My darling,
If you are reading this, then I’ve failed to fix what I helped create.
Lydia stopped.
Silas stood beside her.
She continued.
Years before I met you, I began working for Gideon Vale at Hollow Creek Bank. At first it was small. Altering dates. Moving notes between accounts. Making unpaid loans disappear.
Then we began creating debts that never existed.
Silas swore.
Lydia’s eyes raced across the page.
Vale discovered that struggling settlers rarely had money to challenge a bank. We forged liens, purchased property at false auctions, and resold it through holding companies.
I told myself no one would be ruined.
I lied.
By the time I met you, I had become the very man Silas always believed I was.
Lydia lowered the letter.
“No.”
Silas said nothing.
She kept reading.
Your mill was supposed to be another property.
I married you before I knew Vale intended to take it.
Then I learned you were carrying our child.
That was when I understood what I had become.
I tried to undo the liens.
Vale discovered what I was doing.
