Silas looked down at his coffee.
“He was trouble.”
Jonah smiled faintly.
“What kind?”
“Once put a snake in our schoolmaster’s desk.”
“A real one?”
“Garter snake.”
“That ain’t very dangerous.”
“He didn’t tell the schoolmaster that.”
Jonah laughed.
It was the first time Miriam had heard him laugh in weeks.
Silas looked up.
And something changed in his face.
Not joy.
Not exactly.
Recognition without understanding.
Miriam saw it.
“Why are you looking at him like that?”
Silas blinked.
“Like what?”
“You keep staring at Jonah.”
The boy lowered his spoon.
Silas answered carefully.
“He reminds me of somebody.”
“Isaac?”
A strange expression passed across Silas’s face.
“No.”
Before Miriam could ask more, somebody pounded on the front door.
Three ranch hands immediately rose.
Silas did not.
Mrs. Doyle returned moments later.
“Mr. Mercer.”
Miriam’s stomach tightened.
Gideon Mercer entered smiling.
He was fifty, silver-haired, broad through the waist, dressed in a wool coat far finer than anything worn by the farmers whose mortgages he owned.
His smile disappeared when he saw Miriam.
“Well.”
His gaze moved toward Silas.
“This is unexpected.”
Silas leaned back.
“What do you want, Gideon?”
“I came regarding Mrs. Vale’s property.”
“At midnight?”
“The storm delayed me.”
Miriam stood.
“What about my property?”
Gideon reached into his leather case.
“Your late husband borrowed against the acreage.”
“That isn’t true.”
“I’m afraid it is.”
He unfolded a document.
“Payment was due last month. Given your unfortunate circumstances, the bank is prepared to forgive part of the debt if you surrender the eastern parcel.”
Silas’s chair scraped backward.
“How charitable.”
Gideon ignored him.
“The alternative is foreclosure.”
Miriam’s face burned.
“You refused me five pounds of flour three weeks ago.”
“Banking decisions are not personal.”
“My children were hungry.”
“Which is regrettable.”
Silas crossed the room.
“Get out.”
Gideon’s smile thinned.
“This doesn’t concern you.”
Silas stopped within inches of him.
“You’re standing in my house. Everything inside it concerns me.”
Gideon glanced toward Isaac’s hunting knife lying on the table.
For barely a second, the banker’s expression changed.
Fear.
Miriam saw it.
Silas saw it too.
Gideon recovered quickly.
“I’ll return tomorrow, Mrs. Vale.”
“No.”
Miriam surprised herself.
Gideon turned.
She picked up the mortgage paper.
Then tore it directly down the middle.
His face darkened.
“That debt remains whether you acknowledge it or not.”
Miriam dropped the pieces.
“Then prove it in court.”
Gideon looked at Silas.
Something old and ugly passed between them.
“Careful, Crowe.”
Silas’s voice lowered.
“About what?”
“Your brother came home once.”
Miriam froze.
Gideon smiled.
“Look how that ended.”
Then he walked out.
Silas followed him onto the porch.
“What did you mean?”
Gideon mounted his horse.
“Ask the widow where they found her husband.”
