Nobody answered.
His gaze landed on me.
Something ugly moved behind his eyes.
“This widow owes me money.”
Nathan turned.
“Show me the agreement.”
Victor hesitated.
“Excuse me?”
“The signed loan agreement.”
“It’s in my office.”
“Then we’ll see it.”
Victor’s jaw tightened.
Nathan pointed toward Lefty.
“Cut her loose.”
Lefty didn’t move.
Nathan’s voice dropped.
“Now.”
For the first time since I had known him, Lefty Dalton looked uncertain.
Victor gave the smallest nod.
Lefty drew his knife.
The rope fell from my wrists.
My knees nearly gave way.
Nathan caught my elbow before I hit the ground.
His hand was firm but gentle.
“You all right?”
“No.”
It was the only honest answer I had left.
Something almost like approval flickered in his eyes.
“Good.”
I frowned.
“Good?”
“Means you’re not wasting energy pretending.”
He helped me straighten.
Victor watched us.
“You’ll regret this, Morgan.”
I looked at him.
My entire body trembled.
But I made myself speak.
“I already regret being afraid of you.”
The square went silent again.
Then Nathan looked at Victor.
“You heard her.”
Nathan walked me home.
My house stood near the eastern edge of Copper Ridge, where the respectable storefronts surrendered to narrow dirt roads, struggling vegetable patches, and weathered cabins.
It had once felt small.
After my husband died, it had felt enormous.
Every chair remembered him.
Every floorboard carried the echo of his boots.
Every quiet evening seemed to ask why I was still there when he was not.
My husband’s name had been Caleb Pierce.
We had been married nine years.
He had laughed loudly, sung badly, worked too hard, and possessed the irritating belief that almost any problem could be solved with coffee.
Six months before Victor tied me to that post, Caleb had supposedly died in a wagon accident twenty miles north of town.
The wagon had been found at the bottom of a ravine.
His body had been badly broken.
I had buried him beneath a cottonwood overlooking the creek.
Or at least I believed I had.
Nathan waited outside while I changed my torn dress and washed the blood from my knees.
When I returned, he was standing beside Caleb’s chair.
He did not sit in it.
I noticed that.
“Coffee?” I asked.
“If you have enough.”
“I always have enough coffee.”
“You sound like Caleb.”
The cup nearly slipped from my hand.
I turned slowly.
“You knew my husband?”
Nathan’s face changed.
Only slightly.
But enough.
“How well?”
He looked toward the window.
“Better than you’re going to like.”
The room suddenly felt colder.
I put the coffee pot down.
“Start talking.”
Nathan removed his hat.
“Caleb sent me a letter seven months ago.”
Before his death.
I waited.
“He told me he’d discovered something about Victor Caldwell’s business.”
“What?”
Nathan pulled an envelope from his coat.
I recognized the handwriting immediately.
My knees weakened.
Caleb.
Morgan had been written across the front, but the letter had never been opened.
Nathan held it out.
“He told me to give you this only if something happened to him.”
I stared at the envelope.
“You waited six months?”
“I didn’t know he was dead until three weeks ago.”
“How?”
“His second letter found me in Arizona.”
