A rider approached.
Gideon swore softly.
A gray-haired man dismounted.
He carried a leather case.
“Gideon Cross?”
“Yes.”
“My name is Ezra Pike.”
The stranger glanced past him.
“I’m looking for Mrs. Samuel Harlo.”
Mabel’s knees nearly failed.
Ezra Pike was an attorney from Fort Benton.
He had spent nearly four years looking for her.
“Why?”
Pike placed his leather case on the table.
“Because your husband left documents with my former partner.”
Mabel’s fingers trembled.
“Samuel?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Three weeks before his death.”
Her gaze shot toward Gideon.
He stared at the floor.
Mabel understood.
Whatever was happening, Gideon knew.
She turned toward him.
“Tell me.”
“Mabel—”
“Tell me now.”
He looked toward the girls.
“Not in front of them.”
“Lottie, take your sisters upstairs.”
Lottie obeyed reluctantly.
When their footsteps disappeared, Mabel closed the kitchen door.
“Speak.”
Gideon looked suddenly older.
“I met Samuel two years before he died.”
The room tilted.
“You told my daughter you didn’t know him.”
“I lied.”
“Why?”
“Because I was afraid of what would happen after I told you the truth.”
Mabel’s hand struck his face.
The crack echoed through the kitchen.
Pike looked away.
Gideon did not move.
Mabel’s eyes filled.
“You let me sleep under your roof. You ate at my table. You played with his daughters. You knew my husband and said nothing.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Gideon opened his mouth.
No words came.
Finally, he crossed to a desk in the corner.
From the bottom drawer he removed a small wooden box.
He placed it before her.
Inside was a photograph.
Mabel made a sound like something breaking.
Samuel stood beside Gideon.
Samuel was smiling.
Alive.
On the back, in Samuel’s handwriting, were four words.
For when Mabel comes.
Her knees buckled.
Gideon caught her.
She shoved him away.
“When?”
“The photograph was taken six days before Samuel died.”
Mabel pressed a fist against her mouth.
Gideon continued.
“Samuel wasn’t killed in a mining accident.”
The world stopped.
“What?”
“There was no accident.”
Pike quietly shut the curtains.
Gideon’s eyes were full of pain.
“Samuel discovered Vane’s freight company was stealing cattle from ranchers who owed money. Vane would take the cattle, falsify the accounts, then foreclose on the ranches for unpaid debt.”
Mabel could barely breathe.
“Samuel worked for him?”
“For six months. He kept records.”
“The promissory note.”
“Forged.”
“How do you know?”
“Because Samuel came here the night he died.”
Mabel stared at him.
“He came through that door bleeding from a gunshot wound.”
Her hand flew to her mouth.
“No.”
“I tried to stop it.”
“No.”
“Mabel—”
“No!”
She backed away.
“They told me there was an explosion.”
“I know.”
“They gave me a coffin.”
“It was empty.”
Mabel screamed.
Not loudly.
It was worse than that.
A low, wounded sound tore from somewhere beneath language.
For five years she had imagined Samuel beneath a cottonwood hill in Kansas.
Five years she had taken the girls to flowers laid over an empty box.
